Heir of Fire(46)
Celaena passed the central mound, cracking her jaw against the ringing in her ears, worse and worse with each step. Even the wight cringed away. It hadn’t been hesitating because of her, or Rowan.
The circle of dead grass ended a few steps away—just a few. Just a few, and then she could run from whatever it was that could make a wight tremble in fear.
And then she saw him. The man standing behind the barrow.
Not a wight. She glimpsed only a flash of pale skin, night-dark hair, unfathomable beauty, and an onyx torque around his strong column of a neck, and—
Blackness. A wave of it, slamming down on her.
Not oblivion but actual dark, as if he’d thrown a blanket over the two of them.
The ground felt grassy, but she couldn’t see it. Couldn’t see anything. Not beyond, not to the side, not behind. There was only her and the swirling black.
Celaena crouched, biting down on a curse as she scanned the dark. Whatever he was, despite his shape, he wasn’t mortal. In his perfection, in those depthless eyes, there was nothing human.
Blood tickled her upper lip—a nosebleed. The pounding in her ears began to drown out her thoughts, any plan, as if her body were repulsed by the very essence of whatever this thing was. The darkness remained, impenetrable, unending.
Stop. Breathe.
But someone was breathing behind her. Was it the man, or something else?
The breathing was louder, closer, and a chill air brushed her nose, her lips, licking along her skin. Running—running was smarter than just waiting. She took several bounding steps that should have taken her toward the edge of the field, but—
Nothing. Only endless black and the breathing thing that was closer now, reeking of dust and carrion and another scent, something she hadn’t smelled for a lifetime but could never forget, not when it had been coating that room like paint.
Oh, gods. Breath on her neck, snaking up the shell of her ear.
She whirled, drawing in what might very well be her last breath, and the world flashed bright. Not with clouds and dead grass. Not with a Fae Prince waiting nearby. The room . . .
This room . . .
The servant woman was screaming. Screaming like a teakettle. There were still puddles just inside the shut windows—windows Celaena herself had sealed the night before when they’d been flapping in the swift and sudden storm.
She had thought the bed was wet because of the rain. She’d climbed in because the storm had made her hear such horrible things, made her feel like there was something wrong, like there was someone standing in the corner of her room. It was not rain soaking the bed in that elegantly rugged chamber at the country manor.
It was not rain that had dried on her, on her hands and skin and nightgown. And that smell—not just blood, but something else . . . “This is not real,” Celaena said aloud, backing away from the bed on which she was standing like a ghost. “This is not real.”
But there were her parents, sprawled on the bed, their throats sliced ear to ear.
There was her father, broad-shouldered and handsome, his skin already gray.
There was her mother, her golden hair matted with blood, her face . . . her face . . .
Slaughtered like animals. The wounds were so vulgar, so gaping and deep, and her parents looked so—so—
Celaena vomited. She fell to her knees, her bladder loosening just before she vomited a second time.