Crown Of Midnight Part 27

Not very careful-not very inconspicuous.

A moment later, the young man stormed out, hooded once more, his two men at his side. Archer stood in the open doorway, his face visibly pale, arms crossed. The young man paused at the bottom of the steps, turning to give Archer a particularly vulgar gesture.

Even from this distance, Celaena could see the smile that Archer gave the man in return. There was nothing kind in it.

She wished she'd been close enough to hear what they'd said, to understand what this was all about.

Before, she would have trailed the young stranger to seek out the answers.

But that was before. Now ... now, she didn't particularly care.

It was hard to care, she realized as she started the trek back to the castle. Incredibly hard to care, when you didn't have anyone left to care about.

Celaena didn't know what she was doing at this door. Even though the guards at the foot of the tower had let her pa.s.s after checking her thoroughly for weapons, she didn't doubt for one moment that word would go right to Chaol.

She wondered if he'd dare stop her. If he'd ever dare to utter another word to her. Last night, even from the distance at the moonlit graveyard, she'd seen the still-healing cuts on his cheek. She didn't know whether they filled her with satisfaction or guilt.

Every little bit of interaction was draining, somehow. How exhausted would she be after tonight?

Celaena sighed and knocked on the wooden door. She was five minutes late-minutes she'd spent debating whether she truly wanted to accept Dorian's offer to dine with him in his rooms. She'd almost eaten dinner in Rifthold instead.

There was no answer to her knock at first, so she turned away, trying to avoid looking at the guards posted on the landing. It was stupid to come here, anyway.

She had just taken a step down the spiral staircase when the door opened.

"You know, I think this is the first time you've been to my little tower," Dorian said.

Foot still in the air, Celaena collected herself before looking over her shoulder at the Crown Prince.

"I was expecting more doom and gloom," she said, walking back to the door. "It's quite cozy."

He held the door open and nodded to his guards. "No need to worry," he told them as Celaena walked into the prince's chambers.

She'd expected grandeur and elegance, but Dorian's tower was-well, "cozy" was a good way to describe it. A bit shabby, too. There was a faded tapestry, a soot-stained fireplace, a moderate-size four-poster bed, a desk heaped with papers by the window, and books. Stacks and mountains and towers and columns of books. They covered every surface, every bit of s.p.a.ce along the walls.

"I think you need your own personal librarian," she muttered, and Dorian laughed.

She hadn't realized how much she missed that sound. Not just his laugh, but her own, too; any laugh, really. Even if it felt wrong to laugh these days, she missed it.

"If my servants had their way, these would all go to the library. They make dusting rather hard." He stooped to pick up some clothes he'd left on the floor.

"From the mess, I'm surprised to hear you even have servants."

Another laugh as he carried the pile of clothes toward a door. It opened just wide enough to reveal a dressing room nearly as big as her own, but she saw no more than that before he chucked the clothes inside and shut the door. Across the room, another door had to lead to a bathing chamber. "I have a habit of telling them to go away," he said.

"Why?" She walked to the worn red couch before the fireplace and pushed off the books that were piled there.

"Because I know where everything in this room is. All the books, the papers-and the moment they start cleaning, those things get hopelessly organized and tucked away, and I can never find them again." He was straightening the red cloth of his bedspread, which looked rumpled enough to suggest he'd been sprawled across it until she'd knocked.

"Don't you have people who dress you? I would have thought that Roland would be your devoted servant, at least."

Dorian snorted, plumping his pillows. "Roland's tried. Thankfully, he's been suffering from awful headaches lately and has backed off." That was good to hear-sort of. The last she'd bothered to check, the Lord of Meah had indeed become close to Dorian-a friend, even. "And," Dorian went on, "aside from my refusal to find a bride, my mother's greatest annoyance is my refusal to be dressed by lords eager to win my favor."

That was unexpected. Dorian was always so well dressed that she a.s.sumed he had people doing it for him.

He went to the door to tell the guards to have their dinner brought up. "Wine?" he asked from the window, where a bottle and a few gla.s.ses were kept.

She shook her head, wondering where they would even eat their food. The desk wasn't an option, and the table before the fireplace was a miniature library on its own. As if in answer, Dorian began clearing the table. "Sorry," he said sheepishly. "I meant to clear a s.p.a.ce to eat before you got here, but I got wrapped up in reading."

She nodded, and silence fell between them, interrupted only by the thud and hiss of him moving books.

"So," Dorian said quietly, "can I ask why you decided to join me for dinner? You've made it pretty clear that you didn't want to spend any time with me-and I thought you had work to do tonight."

Actually, she'd been downright awful to him. But he kept his back to her, as though the question didn't matter.

And she didn't quite know why the words came out, but she spoke the truth anyway. "Because I have nowhere else to go."

Sitting in her rooms in silence made the pain worse, going to the tomb only frustrated her, and the thought of Chaol still hurt so badly she couldn't breathe. Every morning, she walked Fleetfoot by herself, then ran alone in the game park. Even the girls who had once lined the garden pathways, waiting for Chaol, had stopped showing up.

Dorian nodded, looking at her with kindness she couldn't stand. "Then you will always have a place here."

While their dinner was quiet, it wasn't lachrymose. But Dorian could still see the change in her-the hesitation and consideration behind her words, the moments when she thought he wasn't looking and an endless sorrow filled her eyes. She kept talking to him, though, and answered all his questions.

Because I have nowhere else to go.

It wasn't an insult, not the way she'd said it. And now that she was dozing on his couch, the clock having recently chimed two, he wondered what was keeping her from going back to her own rooms. Clearly, she didn't want to be alone-and maybe she needed to be in a place that didn't remind her of Nehemia.

Her body was a patchwork of scars; he'd seen it with his own eyes. But these new scars might go deeper: the pain of losing Nehemia, and the different, but perhaps just as agonizing, loss of Chaol.

An awful part of him was glad she'd cut out Chaol. He hated himself for it.

"There has to be something more here," Celaena said to Mort as she combed through the tomb the following afternoon.

Yesterday, she'd read the riddle until her eyes ached. Still it offered no hint about what the objects might be, where precisely they were concealed, or why the riddle had been hidden so elaborately in the tomb. "Some sort of clue. Something that connects the riddle to the rebel movement and Nehemia and Elena and all the rest." She paused between the two sarcophagi. Sunlight spilled in, setting the dust motes shimmering. "It's staring me in the face, I know it."

"I'm afraid I can't be of service," Mort sniffed. "If you want an instant answer, you should find yourself a seer or an oracle."

Celaena slowed her pacing. "You think if I read this to someone with the gift of clairvoyance, they might be able to ... see some different meaning that I'm missing?"

"Perhaps. Though as far as I know, when magic vanished, those with the gift of Sight lost it, too."

"Yes, but you're still here."

"So?"

Celaena looked at the stone ceiling as if she could see through it, all the way to the ground above. "So perhaps other ancient beings might retain some of their gifts, too."

"Whatever it is you're thinking, I guarantee it's a bad idea."

Celaena gave him a grim smile. "I'm pretty sure you're right."

Chapter 40.

Celaena stood before the caravans, watching as the tents were taken apart. Fortunate timing.

She ran a hand through her unbound hair and straightened her brown tunic. Finery would have attracted too much attention. And even if it was just for an hour, she couldn't help but savor the feeling of anonymity, of blending in with the carnival workers, these people who had the dust of a hundred kingdoms on their clothes. To have that sort of freedom, to see the world bit by bit, to travel each and every road ... Her chest tightened.

People streamed by, hardly glancing at her as she made her way to the black wagon. This could easily be folly, but what harm was there in asking? If Yellowlegs truly was a witch, then perhaps she had the gift of Sight. Perhaps she could make sense of the riddle in the tomb.

When Celaena reached the wagon, it was mercifully devoid of patrons. Baba Yellowlegs sat on the top stair, smoking a long bone pipe whose bowl was shaped like a screaming mouth. Pleasant.

"Come to look into the mirrors?" she said, smoke spilling from her withered lips. "Done running from fate at last?"

"I have some questions for you."

The witch sniffed her, and Celaena fought the urge to step back. "You do indeed stink of questions-and the Staghorn Mountains. From Terrasen, are you? What's your name?"

Celaena stuck her hands deep in her pockets. "Lillian Gordaina."

The witch spat on the ground. "What's your real name, Lillian?" Celaena stiffened. Yellowlegs crowed with laughter. "Come," she cawed, "want to have your fortune told? I can tell you who you'll marry, how many children you'll have, when you'll die ..."

"If you're indeed as good as you claim, you know I'm not interested in those things. I'd like to talk to you instead," Celaena said, flashing the three gold coins in her palm.

"Cheap goat," Yellowlegs said, taking another long drag from the pipe. "That's all my gifts are worth to you?"

Perhaps this would be a waste of time. And money. And pride.

Celaena turned away with a scowl, shoving her hands into the pockets of her dark cloak.

"Wait," Yellowlegs said.

Celaena kept walking.

"The prince gave me four coins."

She paused and looked over her shoulder at the crone. A cold, clawed hand gripped her heart.

Yellowlegs smiled at her. "He had such interesting questions, too. He thought I didn't recognize him, but I can smell Havilliard blood a mile off. Seven gold pieces, and I'll answer your questions-and tell you his."

She'd sell Dorian's questions to her-to anyone? That familiar calm went through her. "How do I know you're not lying?"

Yellowlegs's iron teeth glinted in the light of the torches. "It would be bad for business if I were branded a liar. Would it make you more comfortable if I swore on one of your soft-hearted G.o.ds? Or perhaps on one of mine?"

Celaena studied the black wagon, swiftly braiding her hair back. One door, no back exit, no sign of trick panels. No way out, and plenty of warning in case someone came in. She checked her weapons-two long daggers, a knife in her boot, and three of Philippa's deadly hairpins. More than enough.

"Make it six coins," Celaena said softly, "and I won't report you to the guard for trying to sell the prince's secrets."

"Who says the guard won't be interested in them, too? You'd be surprised how many people want to know what truly interests the prince of the realm."

Celaena slammed six gold coins onto the step beside the tiny crone. "Three pieces for my questions," she said, bringing her face as close to Yellowlegs's as she dared. The reek from the woman's mouth was like carrion and stale smoke. "And three for your silence about the prince."

Yellowlegs's eyes gleamed, her iron nails clinking together as she stretched out a hand to grab the coins. "Get in the caravan." The door behind her swung open soundlessly. A dark interior lay beyond, speckled with patches of glimmering light. Yellowlegs snuffed out her bone pipe.

She'd been hoping for this-to get inside the caravan, and thus avoid having anyone see her with Yellowlegs.

The old woman groaned as she stood, a hand braced on her knee. "Care to tell me your name now?"

A chill wind blew from within the caravan, sliding along Celaena's neck. Carnival trick. "I'll ask the questions," Celaena said, and stalked up the steps into the caravan.

Inside, there were a few measly candles, whose light flickered along row after row, stack after stack, of mirrors. They were every shape, every size, some leaning against the walls, some propped against each other like old friends, some little more than shards clinging to their frames.

And everywhere else, wherever there was a bit of s.p.a.ce, were papers and scrolls, jars full of herbs or liquids, brooms ... junk.

In the gloom, the caravan stretched on much wider and longer than should have been possible. A winding path had been made between the mirrors, leading into the dark-a path that Yellowlegs was now treading, as if there were anywhere to go inside this strange place.

This can't be real-it must be an illusion of the mirrors.

Celaena glanced back toward the wagon door in time to see it snick shut. Her dagger was out before the sound had finished echoing through the wagon. Ahead, Yellowlegs chuckled, lifting the candle in her hand. Its holder seemed to be shaped like a skull mounted on some sort of longer bone.

Tacky, cheap carnival tricks, Celaena told herself again and again, her breath clouding in the chill air inside the wagon. None of it was real. But Yellowlegs-and the knowledge she offered-truly was.

"Come along, girl. Come sit with me where we might talk."

Celaena carefully stepped over a fallen mirror, keeping an eye on the bobbing skull-lantern-and on the door, any possible exits (none as far as she could see, but perhaps there was a trapdoor in the floor), and how the woman moved.

Surprisingly fast, she realized, and hurried to catch up to Yellowlegs. As she strode through the forest of mirrors, her reflection shifted everywhere. In one she appeared short and fat, in another tall and impossibly thin. In another she stood upside down, and in yet another she walked sideways. It was enough to give her a headache.

"Done gawking?" Yellowlegs said. Celaena ignored her, but sheathed her dagger as she followed the woman into a small sitting area before a dim, grated oven. No reason to have her weapon out-not when she still needed Yellowlegs to cooperate.

The sitting area lay in a rough circle cleared of junk and stacks of mirrors, with little more than a rug and a few chairs to make it hospitable. Yellowlegs hobbled over to the raised hearthstone, yanking a few logs from a tiny stack perched on the rim. Celaena remained on the edge of the worn red rug, watching as Yellowlegs threw open the iron grate of the oven, tossed in the wood, and slammed the grate shut again. Within seconds, light flared, made brighter still by the surrounding mirrors.

"The stones of this oven," Yellowlegs said, patting the curved wall of dark bricks like an old pet, "came from the ruins of the Crochan capital city. The wood of this wagon was hewn from the walls of their sacred schools. That's why my wagon is ... unusual inside."

Celaena said nothing. It would have been easy to dismiss it as a bit of carnival dramatics, except she was seeing it for herself.

"So," Yellowlegs said, remaining standing as well, despite the aged wooden furniture scattered around them. "Questions."

Even though the air in the wagon was chill, the burning oven somehow made it instantly warm-warm enough for Celaena's layers of clothing to be uncomfortable. She'd been told a story once, on a hot summer night in the Red Desert; a story about what one of the long-lost Ironteeth witches had done to a young girl. What had been left of her.

Gleaming white bones. Nothing more.