She’d find another way to learn about the Wyrdkeys and destroy the King of Adarlan and free Eyllwe. If she kept going like this, she’d have nothing left inside to fight with.
She’d marked the paths they’d taken on the way in, but as she entered the tree-covered slopes, she mostly relied on the position of the cloud-veiled sun to navigate. She’d make the trip back, find food along the way, and figure out something else. This had been a fool’s errand from the start. At least she hadn’t been too long delayed—though she might now have to be quicker about finding the answers she needed, and—
“Is this what you do? Run away when things get hard?” Rowan was standing between two trees directly in her path, having undoubtedly flown here.
She brushed past him, her legs burning with the downhill walk. “You’re free of your obligation to train me, so I have nothing more to say to you, and you have nothing more to say to me. Do us both a favor and go to hell.”
A growl. “Have you ever had to fight for anything in your life?”
She let out a low, bitter laugh and walked faster, veering westward, not caring about the direction as much as getting away from him. But he kept up easily, his long, heavily muscled legs devouring the mossy ground. “You’re proving me right with every step you take.”
“I don’t care.”
“I don’t know what you want from Maeve—what answers you’re looking for, but you—”
“You don’t know what I want from her?” It was more of a shout than a question. “How about saving the world from the King of Adarlan?”
“Why bother? Maybe the world’s not worth saving.” She knew he meant it, too. Those lifeless eyes spoke volumes.
“Because I made a promise. A promise to my friend that I would see her kingdom freed.” She shoved her scarred palm into his face. “I made an unbreakable vow. And you and Maeve—all you gods-damned bastards—are getting in the way of that.” She went off down the hillside again. He followed.
“And what of your own people? What of your own kingdom?”
“They are better off without me, just as you said.”
His tattoo scrunched as he snarled. “So you’d save another land, but not yours. Why can’t your friend save her own kingdom?”
“Because she is dead!” She screamed the last word so loudly it burned in her throat. “Because she is dead, and I am left with my worthless life!”
He merely stared at her with that animal stillness. When she walked away, he didn’t come after her.
•
She lost track of how far she walked and in what direction she traveled. She didn’t really care. She hadn’t spoken the words—she is dead—since the day after Nehemia had been taken from her. But she was dead. And Celaena missed her.
Night swept in earlier due to the cloud cover, the temperature plummeting as thunder grumbled in the distance. She made weapons as she went, finding a sharp stone to whittle down branches into rudimentary spears: the longer one she used as a walking stick, and though they were little more than stakes, she told herself the two short ones were daggers. Better than nothing.
Each step was heavier than the last, and she had enough of a sense of self-preservation left to start looking for a place to spend the night. It was almost dark when she found a decent spot: a shallow cave in the side of a granite ledge.
She swiftly gathered enough wood for a fire. The irony of it wasn’t wasted on her. If she had any control over her magic—she shut down that thought before it finished. She hadn’t made a fire in years, so it took a few tries, but it worked. Just as thunder cracked above her little cave and the skies opened up.
She was hungry, and thankfully found some apples at the bottom of her satchel, along with old teggya from Varese that was still edible, if hard to chew. After she ate as much of it as she could stand, she pulled her cloak around herself and nestled into the side of the cave.
She didn’t fail to notice the small, glowing eyes that gathered, peering through the brambles or over boulders or around trees. None of them had bothered her since that first night, and they didn’t come closer. Her instincts, warped as they had felt these last few weeks, didn’t raise any alarms, either. So she didn’t tell them off, and didn’t really mind them at all.
With the fire and the pounding rain, it was almost cozy—not like her freezing room. Though she was exhausted, she felt somewhat clearheaded. Almost like herself again, with her makeshift weapons. She’d made a smart choice to leave. Do what needs to be done, Elena had told her. Well, she’d needed to leave before Rowan shredded her into so many pieces that she would never stand a chance of putting herself back together.
Tomorrow, she’d start over. She’d spotted what looked like a crumbling, forgotten road that she could follow downhill. As long as she kept going toward the plains, she could find her way back to the coast. And come up with a new plan as she went.
It was good she had left.
Exhaustion hit her so thoroughly that she was asleep moments after she sprawled beside the fire, one hand clasped around her spear. She probably would have dozed until dawn had a sudden silence not jerked her awake.
22
Celaena’s fire was still crackling, the rain still pounding beyond the cave mouth. But the forest had gone quiet. Those little watching eyes had vanished.
She uncoiled to her feet, spear in one hand and a stake in the other, and crept to the narrow cave entrance. With the rain and the fire, she couldn’t make out anything. But every hair on her body was standing, and a growing reek was slithering in from the forest beyond. Like leather and carrion. Different from what she’d whiffed at the barrows. Older and earthier and . . . hungrier.
Suddenly, the fire seemed like the stupidest thing she had ever done.
No fires. That had been Rowan’s only rule while trekking to the fortress. And they had stayed off the roads—veering away entirely from the forgotten, overgrown ones. Ones like the path she’d spied nearby.
The silence deepened.
She slipped into the drenched forest, stubbing her toes on rocks and roots as her eyes adjusted to the dark. But she kept moving ahead—curving down and away from the ancient path.
She’d made it far enough that her cave was little more than a glow on the hill above, a flicker of light illuminating the trees. A gods-damned beacon. She angled her stake and spear into better positions, about to continue on when lightning flashed.
Three tall, lanky silhouettes lurked in front of her cave.
Though they stood like humans, she knew, deep in her bones from some collective mortal memory, that they were not. They were not Fae, either.
With expert quiet, she took another step, then another. They were still poking around the cave entrance, taller than men, neither male nor female.
Skinwalkers are on the prowl, Rowan had warned that first day they’d trained, searching for human pelts to bring back to their caves. She had been too dazed to ask or care. But now—now that carelessness, that wallowing, was going to get her killed. Skinned.
Wendlyn. Land of nightmares made flesh, where legends roamed the earth. Despite years of stealth training, each step felt like a snap, her breathing too loud.
Thunder grumbled, and she used the cover of the sound to take a few bounding steps. She stopped behind another tree, breathing as quietly as she could, and peered around it to survey the hillside behind her. Lightning flashed again.
The three figures were gone. But the leathery, rancid smell swarmed all around her now. Human pelts.
She eyed the tree she’d ducked behind. The trunk was too slick with moss and rain to scale, the branches too high. The other trees weren’t any better. And what good was being stuck up a tree in a lightning storm?
She darted to the next tree, carefully avoiding any sticks or leaves, cursing silently at the slowness
of her pace, and— Damn it all to hell. She burst into a run, the mossy earth treacherous underfoot. She could make out the trees, some larger rocks, but the slope was steep. She kept her feet under her, even as undergrowth cracked behind, faster and faster.
She didn’t dare take her focus off the trees and rocks as she hurtled down the slope, desperate for any flat ground. Perhaps their hunting territory ended somewhere—perhaps she could outrun them until dawn. She veered eastward, still going downhill, and grabbed on to a trunk to swing herself around, almost losing her balance as she slammed into something hard and unyielding.
She slashed with her stake—only to be grabbed by two massive hands.
Her wrists sang in agony as the fingers squeezed hard enough that she couldn’t stab either weapon into her captor. She twisted, bringing up a foot to smash into her assailant, and caught a flash of fangs before— Not fangs. Teeth.
And there was no gleam of flesh-pelts. Only silver hair, shining with rain.
Rowan dragged her against him, pressing them into what appeared to be a hollowed-out tree.