'Throne of Glass' and 'Crown of Midnight', their characters and the text I have appropriated for the purpose of this oneshot are the property of Sarah J. Maas.
Nehemia clicked her tongue. "I didn't realise that you're just a coward."
Celaena looked over her shoulder. "Say that again."
Nehemia didn't flinch. "You're a coward. You are nothing more than a coward."
Celaena threw up her hands in the air, her fury spiking. "Fine! Fine. Are you really so desperate to know – to have any idea of the burden I carry?"
Nehemia's scorn was palpable. "How could any burden of yours possibly match mine?"
"Ten years ago I lost everything," Celaena spat. "My parents, my uncle, my magic, my heritage, my home, my country, my people, my identity – very nearly my life itself. I woke up that one morning to a sea of blood, and I have barely kept myself afloat since. Especially since the level of blood shed just. Keeps. Rising. Sometimes I think it must all be a dream, because how could everything that was no longer be? I cannot have much of my own self and my own knowledge because according to... him it is an 'affront to the divine'. How could that even be accepted as true, by anyone? My own great-grandmother –" Celaena cut herself off. Some things, some things could never be spoken of in Adarlan, even in the entire of the west of the continent, let alone this gods be damned castle.
Nehemia's eyes were wide with the shock of realisation.
"And now I have Elena appearing before me, asking of me the most impossible things! Ha, a hero, a champion!" She scoffed. "If that's what they wanted then they are ten years too late. I became an assassin, a killer for hire – I am an assassin!" Quietly, almost as an admittance to herself, Celaena added, "I had no choice.
"You know, I know you know, that before I was Elentiya, before I was Lillian," her voice became a menacing stream of air. "Before Celaena Sardothien...
"Terrasen, Terrasen – you know what Princess Nehemia?" Celaena dropped her volume to barely a breath, her lips just forming her words. "I am Terrasen. Or what is left of it. In all of it's broken, scarred, diminshed glory."
Celaena's fingers clenched into fists. "So when your people are lying dead around you," she hissed, "don't come crying to me."
She didn't give the princess the chance to reply before she stalked out of the room, Fleetfoot close on her heels.
Nehemia collapsed onto her bed, eyes still wide and her hand pressed to her mouth. Two unspoken words all but reverberated around the room, Celaena's outburst having circled them angrily like sharks around a life raft.
You know what Princess Nehemia? I am Terrasen.
Nehemia's throat ached to sound the words, but her fingers fluttered nervously. She knew the risk... She swallowed deeply. She looked towards the door that her friend had just stormed from and smiled wretchedly, knowing that Celaena would never speak to her again; would never have the chance. So just this once, she decided.
She walked to one of her windows and flung it open, whispering the two words with less than a breath. Then Nehemia smiled sadly once more and closed the window on her friend's past, and what would hopefully be her future.
Outside, the wind gave the impression of a soft caress upon the words, just for a moment, before scattering them; somehow knowing not to carry them to dangerous ears.
But still, the air shuddered with the vocalisation of the two words that meant the greatest threat to the King of Adarlan, and the horror of his plans for Erilea.
"Aelin Galathynius."