He knew little of the duke, and had never entirely trusted him. Neither had Dorian, especially not after all his talk of using Nehemia as a hostage to get the Eyllwe rebels to cooperate. But the duke was the king’s most trusted advisor—and had offered no cause for mistrust other than a fierce belief in Adarlan’s right to conquest.
Kaltain Rompier sat a few chairs away. Chaol’s brows rose slightly. Her eyes were upon Perrington as well—filled not with the longing of a beloved, but with cold contemplation. Chaol stretched again, lifting his arms over his head. Where was Dorian? The prince hadn’t come to dinner, nor was he in the kennels with the bitch and her pups. His gaze returned to the duke. There it was—for a moment!
Perrington’s eyes fell upon the black ring on his left hand and darkened, as if his pupils had expanded to encompass all of each eye. Then it was gone—his eyes returned to normal. Chaol looked to Kaltain. Had she noticed the odd change?
No—her face remained the same. There was no bewilderment, no surprise. Her look became shallow, as if she were more interested in how his jacket might complement her dress. Chaol stretched and rose, finishing his apple as he strode from the dining hall. Strange as it was, he had enough to worry about. The duke was ambitious, but certainly not a threat to the castle or its inhabitants. But even as the Captain of the Guard walked to his rooms, he couldn’t shake the feeling that Duke Perrington had been watching him, too.
Chapter 31
Someone was standing at the foot of her bed.
Celaena knew this long before she opened her eyes, and she eased her hand beneath her pillow, pulling out the makeshift knife she’d crafted of pins, string, and soap.
“That’s unnecessary,” a woman said, and Celaena sat upright at the sound of Elena’s voice. “And would be wholly ineffective.”
Her blood went cold at the sight of the shimmering specter of the first Queen of Adarlan. Though Elena looked fully formed, the edges of her body gleamed as though made from starlight. Her long, silver hair flowed around her beautiful face, and she smiled as Celaena set down her miserably pathetic knife. “Hello, child,” the queen said.
“What do you want?” Celaena demanded, but kept her voice down. Was she dreaming, or could the guards hear her? She tensed, her legs preparing to leap from the bed—perhaps toward the balcony, since Elena stood between her and the door.
“Simply to remind you that you must win this competition.”
“I already plan to.” She’d been woken up for this? “And it’s not for you,” she added coldly. “I’m doing it for my freedom. Do you have anything useful to say, or are you just here to bother me? Or maybe you could just tell me more about this evil thing that’s hunting the Champions down one by one.”
Elena sighed, lifting her eyes to the ceiling. “I know as little as you.” When Celaena’s frown didn’t disappear, Elena said, “You don’t trust me yet. I understand. But you and I are on the same side, whether you allow yourself to believe it or not.” She lowered her gaze to the assassin, pinning her with the intensity of it. “I came here to warn you to keep an eye on your right.”
“Excuse me?” Celaena cocked her head. “What does that mean?”
“Look to your right. You’ll find the answers there.”
Celaena looked to her right, but all she saw was the tapestry that concealed the tomb. She opened her mouth to snap a response, but when she looked back at Elena, the queen was gone.
At her Test the next day, Celaena studied the small table before her and all the goblets it contained. It had been over two weeks since Samhuinn, and while she’d passed yet another Test—knife-throwing, to her relief—another Champion had been found dead just two days ago. To say she was getting little sleep these days was an understatement. When she wasn’t searching for an indication of what the Wyrdmarks around the corpses had meant, she spent most of the night wide awake, watching her windows and doors, listening for the scrape of claw on stone. The royal guards outside her rooms didn’t help; if this beast was capable of gouging marble, it could take down a few men.
Brullo stood at the front of the sparring hall, his hands clasped behind his back, watching the thirteen remaining competitors standing at thirteen individual tables. He glanced at the clock. Celaena looked at it, too. She had five minutes left—five minutes during which she not only had to identify the poisons in seven goblets, but arrange them in the order of the most benign to the deadliest.
The true test, however, would come at the end of the five minutes, when they were to drink from the goblet they deemed the most harmless. If they got the answer wrong . . . Even with antidotes on hand, it would be unpleasant. Celaena rolled her neck and lifted one of the goblets to her nose, sniffing. Sweet—too sweet. She swirled the dessert wine they’d used to conceal the sweetness, but in the bronze goblet, it was difficult to see the color. She dipped her finger into the cup, studying the purple liquid as it dripped off her nail. Definitely belladonna.
She looked at the other goblets she’d identified. Hemlock. Bloodroot. Monkshood. Oleander. She shifted the goblets into order, squeezing in belladonna just before the goblet containing a lethal dose of oleander. Three minutes left.
Celaena picked up the penultimate goblet and sniffed. And sniffed again. It didn’t smell like anything.
She shifted her face away from the table and sniffed the air, hoping to clear her nostrils. When trying perfumes, people sometimes lose their sense of smell after sniffing too many. Which was why perfumers usually kept something on site to help clear the scent from the nose. She sniffed the goblet again, and dunked her finger. It smelled like water, looked like water . . .
Perhaps it was just water. She set down the glass and picked up the final goblet. But when she sniffed it, the wine inside didn’t have any unusual smell. It seemed fine. She bit her lip and glanced at the clock. Two minutes left.
Some of the other Champions were cursing under their breath. Whoever got the order most wrong went home.
Celaena sniffed the water goblet again, racing through a list of odorless poisons. None of them could be combined with water, not without coloring it. She picked up the wine goblet, swirling the liquid. Wine could conceal any number of advanced poisons—but which one was it?
At the table to the left of her, Nox ran his hands through his dark hair. He had three goblets in front of him, the other four in line behind them. Ninety seconds left.