He was at her bedroom door in an instant, and didn’t bother knocking on it, either. But the handle didn’t move. The door was locked. He shoved into it again.
“Celaena?” Her name was more of a growl that rippled out of him. No answer. He fought his rising panic, even as he drew a dagger, even as he listened for any signs of trouble. “Celaena.”
Nothing.
Chaol waited all of a second before he slammed his shoulder into the door. Once. Twice. The lock snapped. The door burst open, revealing her empty bedroom.
“Holy gods,” Dorian whispered.
The tapestry on the wall had been folded back to reveal an open door—a secret, stone door that opened into a dark passage.
It was how she’d gotten out to kill Grave.
Dorian drew his sword from the scabbard. “In my dream, I was told I would find this door.”
The prince stepped forward, but Chaol stopped him with an arm. He’d think about Dorian and his clairvoyant dreams later—much later. “You’re not going down there.”
Dorian’s eyes flashed. “Like hell I’m not.”
As if in answer, a guttural, bone-grinding growl sounded from within. And then a scream—a human scream, followed by a highpitched bark.
Chaol was running for the passage before he could think.
It was pitch-black, and Chaol almost tumbled down the stairs, but Dorian, close behind, grabbed a candle.
“Stay upstairs!” Chaol ordered, still charging down. If he’d had time, he would have locked Dorian in the closet rather than risk bringing the Crown Prince into danger, but … What the hell had that growl been? The bark he knew—the bark was Fleetfoot. And if Fleetfoot was down there …
Dorian kept following him. “I was sent here,” he said. Chaol took the stairs by twos and threes, hardly hearing the prince’s words. Had that scream been hers? It had sounded male. But who else could be down here with her?
Blue light flashed from the bottom of the stairs. What was that?
A roar shook the ancient stones. That was not human, nor was it Fleetfoot. But what—
They had never found the creature that had been killing the champions. The murders had just stopped. But the damage he’d seen to those corpses … No, Celaena had to be alive.
Please, he begged any gods who would listen.
Chaol leapt onto the landing and found three doorways. The blue light had flashed from the right. They ran.
How had such a massive cavern of chambers been forgotten? And how long had she known about them?
He flew down a spiral staircase. And then a new, greenish light began shining steadily, and he turned onto a landing to see—
He didn’t know where to look first—at the long hallway, where one wall glowed with an arch of green symbols, or at the … the world that showed through the arch, depicting a land of mist and rock.
At Archer, cowering against the opposite wall, chanting strange words from a book held in his hands.
At Celaena, prostrate on the floor.
Or at the monster: a tall, sinewy thing, but definitely not human. Not with those unnaturally long fingers tipped with claws, white skin that looked like crumpled paper, a distended jaw that revealed fishlike teeth, and those eyes—milky and tinged with blue.
And there was Fleetfoot, hackles raised and fangs bared, refusing to let the demon anywhere near Celaena, even as the half-grown pup limped, even as the blood pooled from the wound in her right hind leg.
Chaol had all of two heartbeats to size up the monster, to take in every detail, to mark his surroundings. “Go,” he snarled at Dorian before launching himself at the creature.
Chapter 49
She didn’t remember anything after the first two swings of her sword, only that she’d suddenly seen Fleetfoot come flying at the creature. The sight had distracted her enough for the demon to get past her guard, its long, white fingers grabbing her by the hair and slamming her head into the wall.
Then darkness.
She wondered whether she’d died and awoken in hell as she opened her eyes to a pulsing headache—and the sight of Chaol, circling the pale demon, blood dripping from both of them. And then there were cool hands on her head, on her neck, and Dorian crouching in front of her as he said, “Celaena.”
She struggled to her feet, her head aching even more. She had to help Chaol. Had to—
She heard a rip of clothing and a yelp of pain, and she looked at Chaol in time to see him grasp the cut on his shoulder, inflicted by those filthy, jagged nails. The creature roared, its overlong jaw gleaming with saliva, and it lunged again for the captain.
Celaena tried to move, but she wasn’t fast enough.
But Dorian was.
Something invisible slammed into the creature, sending it flying into the wall with a crunch. Gods. Dorian didn’t just have magic—he had raw magic. The rarest, and deadliest, kind. Sheer undiluted power, capable of being shaped into whatever form the wielder desired.
The creature crumpled but instantly got up, whirling toward her and Dorian. The prince just stood there, hand outstretched.
The milky-blue eyes were ravenous now.
Through the portal Celaena heard the rocky earth crunching beneath more pairs of bare, pale feet. Archer’s chanting grew louder.
Chaol attacked the thing again. It surged toward him just before his sword struck, swiping with those long fingers, forcing the captain to dart back.
She grabbed Dorian. “We have to close it. The portal should close on its own eventually, but—but the longer it’s open, the greater the threat of more coming through before it does.”
“How?”
“I—I don’t know, I …” Her head spun so badly her knees wobbled. But she turned to Archer, who stood across the hall, separated from them by the pacing creature. “Give me the book.”
Chaol wounded the demon across its abdomen with a sure, deft stroke, but it didn’t slow down. Even from a few feet away, the tang of the dark blood reached her nose.
Celaena watched Archer take it all in, his eyes wide, panicked beyond reason. And then he sprinted down the hall, taking with him the book—and any hope of shutting the portal.
Dorian couldn’t move fast enough to stop the handsome man from fleeing with the book in his hands, and didn’t dare, with that demon between them. Celaena, her forehead bleeding, made a lunge for him, but the man was too fast. Her eyes kept darting to Chaol, who was keeping the thing distracted. Dorian knew without being told that she didn’t want to leave the captain.
“I’ll go—” Dorian began.
“No. He’s dangerous, and these tunnels are a labyrinth,” she panted. Chaol and the creature circled each other, the thing slowly backing toward the portal entrance. “I can’t close it without that book,” she moaned. “There are more books upstairs, but I—”
“Then we flee,” Dorian breathed, grabbing her by the elbow. “We flee and try to get to those books.”
He dragged her with him, not daring to take his eyes off Chaol or the creature. She swayed in his grasp. The wound to her head must be as bad as it looked. Something was glowing at her throat: the amulet she’d told him was just a “cheap replica,” shining like a tiny blue star.
“Go,” Chaol told them, staring down the thing in front of him. “Now.”
She stumbled, tugging toward Chaol, but Dorian pulled her back.
“No,” she got out, but the wound to her head made her sag in Dorian’s grip. As if realizing that she’d be a hindrance to Chaol, she stopped fighting Dorian as he hauled her toward the stairs.
Chaol knew he couldn’t win this fight. His best option was to flee with them, to guard the way until they could get to that stone door far, far above and lock the creature down here. But he wasn’t sure he’d even make it to the stairs. The creature thwarted his attacks so easily it seemed to have an uncanny intelligence.
At least Celaena and Dorian had reached the stairs. He could accept his end if it meant they could escape. He could embr
ace the darkness when it came.
The creature paused just long enough for Chaol to gain a few more feet of distance. He backed toward the bottom step.
But then she started shouting—the same word again and again as Dorian tried to keep dragging her up the stairs.
Fleetfoot.
Chaol looked. In a dark shadow by the wall, Fleetfoot had been left behind, her leg too injured to run.
The creature looked, too.
And there was nothing he could do, absolutely nothing, as the creature whirled, grabbed Fleetfoot by her injured hind leg, and dragged her through the portal with it.