The second last chapter. I want to cry. One more chapter, then Mirror Memories is finished. :(
Celaena opened her eyes to find her body cloaked in shadow. A wet and sticky substance coated her arms and legs, tightening as it dried. The liquid was almost black in the dim light, but the darkness was not enough to disguise the red hue.
Blood.
With rising panic, she spun around. Looking, searching, scanning her surroundings for what exactly? Celaena couldn't see. The world around her was black and oppressive, a wall of black closing in. She couldn't breathe. Celaena's feet were moving without her consent and she stared down at the phantom limbs, but she still couldn't see. The darkness pressed upon her chest as she gasped for breath, running, running, running. Celaena was running? Why would she be running? What was she running from? Celaena whipped her head around, her hair catching on her face. Red eyes gleamed from the pitch black shade, undulating tendrils of slimy rope catching on Celaena's face, arms, legs. She screamed and thrashed but it wouldn't let go. They tightened, and tightened, and- There was a low laugh and the tentacles curled over her neck, a clammy, glutinous noose. Game over, princess. Sleep tight.
Forever.
Celaena's eyes snapped open and she sat up with a gasp, cold sweat pooling in the hollow of her back as she panted. Just a nightmare. She looked around the room. Her parent's room. The Opal Tower. The highest structure in all of Terrasen, made entirely of pure white opal. It was said that this tower contained the all the light of Orynth because when the sun shone on it, the tower would reflect the rays, illuminating the whole skyscraper with a brilliance as dazzling as the stars themselves. During the day, you could often see it glimmering from miles and miles away. And she was at the very top of it.
The window she had shut the night before, let the dappled morning light in. Dawn was approaching. Pink, red, and orange rays grew in size, easily eclipsing the stars of the night. Clouds dotted the horizon. She could practically sense the chilly snow that would come with it. Just a nightmare she had told herself. Then why did her heart pounded like so? Surely the erratic beat should've calmed down by now. She put a trembling hand to her heart keeping her gaze on the distant sky beyond. The same sticky substance covered her hand and body as it had in her dream. Her hair hung in lanky strips around her face and Celaena brushed it back, her fingers combing through damp, congealed matter. She swallowed hard, a stinging weight forming behind her eyes . Don't look, she chanted internally. Don't look. Celaena shifted in bed, almost letting loose a sob as she felt the same dried, crinkling texture on her tunic and trousers.
"Please, no," she whispered. Begging to the gods, begging to anyone who would understand, listen and declare this another dream, another nightmare. "Please," Celaena whimpered. "No." Don't look, her mind said, you'll regret it. You will be forever scarred. But of course she looked, she had to look. To confirm the reality of what had happened. Her punishment for being stupid, so utterly stupid. And with that Celaena looked. And she stared, and stared, and stared, biting her lip so to avoid drawing the guards in with her screaming.
She looked at her parents, clothed in their own blood, their slashed throats grinning up at her. It was a mocking smile. It was them. The gods. Laughing at her own stupidity. Because she was a idiotic, fool of a princess. An arrogant, spoiled excuse for a human. She stifled a sob, then another. Why wasn't she dead, like her mother, like her father? She deserved it. "I'm so sorry," she whispered. Celaena backed away from the bed tumbling off of it at the edge. She landed on the carpet with sprawled limbs. Blood. Blood covered her body smothering her. The putrid scent of rotted flesh finally cut through the blinding haze of nothing in her mind and she gagged, retching.
Celaena ran for the bathroom and fell to her knees beside the chamber pot. She heaved and heaved and heaved until nothing came out. Celaena dropped to the floor, tears flowing and dropping one by one onto the cool marble floor. She pressed her face to the cold, ivory bathtub which lessened the heat of her cheeks. Celaena gripped the stone with bruising force, wanting to rip it apart with her hands. Crush the castle and turn it to rubble. But enough was enough and Celaena's pain, agony or capture won't bring her parents back. She hoisted herself to her feet, swaying slightly. Celaena righted herself firmly, determination coating her visage. Hope for a fresh start shone on her face, a far cry from her previous anguish and misery.
Celaena collected her bags and opened the doors to the room. A man stood on the threshold smiling. "Well, what have we here?" he drawled. He was dressed in all black and Celaena paled as she noticed the sword leveled at her heart. The assassin grinned at her, gold eyes flashing. "A little runaway princess. Did you see the present I left you?" He glanced at the room beyond and smirked. Celaena staggered and braced an arm on the doorpost, horror and shock staining her features.
"You-you killed my parents." It wasn't a question. The man dimpled. How dare he act like this was all fine and dandy. Her mother and father were dead. Celaena wanted to strangle him with her bare hands. He read the bloodlust and murder in her features and laughed.
"Bloodthirsty little thing, aren't you," he said leering, "and what a pretty girl as well. Lucky child. Bet you aren't feeling especially lucky now." Celaena snarled her fury and she would have lunged and ripped out his throat, his eyes, his limbs, one by one if not for the sword he weld between them. He stepped forward and Celaena backed up. "It was a shame I missed killing you last night. My employer was quite dissatisfied. So dissatisfied in fact that he failed to pay me. I'm here now to right the mistake. And just in time I see." The assassin eyed the bags Celaena held. "Going somewhere?"
"Yes, actually, and if you would excuse me," She made to slip around him but he blocked and lifted the sword so the razor sharp edge lined her throat. Celaena stilled. She knew that tactic wouldn't have worked but she attempted it anyway to make sure. The man's gold eyes hardened.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you. I swore to my client that I would take out the Brannon line and I don't intend to disappoint. Again." Celaena tilted her throat away from the stinging point. She felt a drop of blood trickle down the slender gash, courtesy of the assassin's weapon. Her mouth curled into a feral smile. Celaena knew she probably looked like the devil itself with the blood and gore coating her body like a second skin. Not to mention the blank, animalistic way she regarded him.
"Your employer. The king of Adarlan," she said tracking his every move with savage, wild eyes. The assassin quickly grew uncomfortable with her harsh, unrelenting focus.
"Yes, the king."
Celaena grinned, showing her teeth. "I thought he said he would give till morning." He sighed at her naivete.
"Then you should have figured out he lied," the assassin snapped growing tired of this game. Celaena nodded.
"That he did." She gave him another eerie smile. The princess looked deranged, and she dropped her bags, the only warning she gave him before she charged. She step sided a wild swipe, as the assassin made to separate her head from her body. "Too slow," she purred. Celaena knocked his arm aside with a sharp jab from her elbow, and using his shoulders for support, sent her feet crashing into his middle.
The assassin was slammed out the door and crashed into the stairway banister. He lay there crumpled and wheezing, gasping for breath. The sword skittered across the marble floor, the shining blade reflecting the sun's rays from an open window, projecting an array of multicolored lights over the beige walls. Celaena landed on her feet in a crouched position. The prostrate assassin eyeballed the sword, now so far away. She let out a single, abrupt laugh.
"Don't even think about it," the warrior princess hissed. Celaena stalked forward, pausing only to grasp the pommel of the sword. She hefted the weighty weapon and examined the honed blade. "You know what I hate more than liars?" Celaena asked in a sweet, conversational tone. Her face was as hard and as brittle as glass. "People who hurt those I love." And with that she angled the sword point down.
"Please..." the assassin rasped. He swallowed. "I have a wife, a little boy your age," Celaena's expression didn't change. "They need me to provide for them. Please." He held up a pleading hand. A truce. An offer of peace. Celaena cocked an eyebrow.
"You are telling me not to kill you because you have family," she said, a mocking tone clearly evident. "Did I not have family before you slaughtered the last of them?" The assassin flinched.
"Orders," he whispered. "If I hadn't the king would have killed my family as well. Made me watch as they hung from the gallows." Celaena laughed, a harsh sound.
"In other words, you are telling me you killed my parents to save your own hide. How is that going to help your cause exactly?" He cringed, trembling.
"You're just an eight year old girl. You are not going to kill me." Celaena gave him a disgusted onceover.
"Why are you shaking then? And for your information, it is never a good thing to tell me what not to do. It gives me the inclination to do the opposite." She lowered her voice into a soft murmur. "You know how eight year old children are, you have one yourself. They are quite impulsive." Celaena's grin widened as a look of panic crossed the assassin's face. He extended an out stretched hand as if to beg, but it curled into a fist. She frowned at his shameless self-preservation and made to plunge the sword into his heart.
He opened his hand. There was a flash of silver. A thud of steel entering flesh. A spatter of blood. The assassin made repulsed expression and flinched away from the droplets of blood that stained his face and arms, but his hand was still and calm as it lowered from Celaena's chest. She stared at him with wide eyes, disbelief, shock, incredulity. Then, gazed at her front. The hilt of a ornate dagger protruded, seeming to be an artfully made simulation. If only it was. Blood poured down drenching Celaena's tunic.
She staggered, almost collapsing with pain as she backed away. The pain, radiating outwards from her breast. Fire sizzling through her veins, burning, burning, physical agony. She stifled a scream as she pressed a hand around the foreign object in her body. It was not supposed to be there, her body screamed in denial. The assassin watched her with a sad expression. Your death was inevitable, inescapable. The gods have chosen your fate, his expression seemed to say. Tears blurred the assassin's face from her and she stumbled back into the Opal Tower, one painful step at a time.
When she died, it will be right next to her parents. She hesitated at the windowsill. A portal that displayed Orynth in its entirety. From the palace top, to the castle gates. To the long, winding river that ran in front of the castle, its ever constant companion. To the sparkling bronze tiled roofs of pavilions, estates, shops. Celaena leaned her forehead against the frosty glass, the stab wound now just a dull ache. Her ragged breaths fogged the glass. To the green, lush Oakwald forest to the right, and the frigid, unyielding mountains that surrounded it all. A place so close, yet too far away. Her home.
She pressed her bloody fingers to the window, staining it crimson. Celaena pushed harder and she felt something give. The shutters swung open with barely a whine, and the harsh winter wind brushed in along with the first hint of snow. Snowflakes danced in, waltzing in the elegant way they could. She looked down and watched the river move. Fast and deadly.
The River Florine acted both as a protector and a killer. It had shielded the palace from invasion for generations, but Adarlan was the one enemy it couldn't defeat. Celaena climbed laboriously onto the rim and gazed at the foaming, rushing waters. She could feel her life slipping out of her grasping hands no matter how desperately she held onto it. Funny how water can be both give life and take life. You need it to live, but don't want too much for fear of it killing you. The assassin joined her, but didn't say anything. He watched her quietly off to the side.
Celaena turned her head to face him. He bowed, and with that she dropped out of sight.
She fell, the rushing waters grew steadily closer. Celaena entered the freezing, frothing waves with a splash. She tumbled down, down , down, the river closing over her head. No air. Darkness hinted at the edges of her vision. Her lungs burned as she used up the last of her oxygen supply. Then, nothing. She couldn't feel anything. No pain or fear. Smiling, the crown princess of Terrasen closed her eyes and slipped into unconsciousness.
The assassin watched in silence as the princess fell into the half-frozen river. He doubted she would live for long with all the blood she had lost, and that's not even factoring in the temperature of the water... but it was the only gift he could bestow. After all, he did let her go. He hoped she would survive. He hoped with all his heart. Because if she lived, well, at least the world had hope that the king could be defeated someday if not today. With one last glance below, the assassin spun on his heel and left the tower.
Reviews as always people! Thanks!