21

Rowan grinned. “There you are.” Blood—­her blood—­was on his teeth, on his mouth and chin. And those dead eyes glowed as he spat her blood onto the earth. She probably tasted like a sewer to him.

There was a shrieking in her ears, and Celaena lunged at him. Lunged, and then stopped as she took in the world with stunning clarity, smelled it and tasted it and breathed it like the finest wine. Gods, this place, this kingdom smelled divine, smelled like—

She had shifted.

She panted, even though her lungs ­were telling her she was no longer winded and did not need as many breaths in this body. There was a tickling at her neck—­her skin slowly beginning to stitch itself together. She was a faster healer in this form. Because of the magic . . . Breathe. Breathe.

But there it was, rising up, wildfire crackling in her veins, in her fingertips, the forest around them so much kindling, and then—

She shoved back. Took the fear and used it like a battering ram inside herself, against the power, shoving it down, down.

Rowan prowled closer. “Let it out. Don’t fight it.”

A pulse beat against her, nipping, smelling of snow and pine. Rowan’s power, taunting hers. Not like her fire, but a gift of ice and wind. A freezing zap at her elbow had her falling back against the tree. The magic bit her cheek now. Magic—­attacking her.

The wildfire exploded in a wall of blue flame, rushing for Rowan, engulfing the trees, the world, herself, until—

It vanished, sucked out into nothing, along with the air she was breathing.

Celaena dropped to her knees. As she clutched at her neck as if she could claw open an airway for herself, Rowan’s boots appeared in the field of her vision. He’d pulled the air out—­suffocated her fire. Such power, such control. Maeve had not given her an instructor with similar abilities—­she’d instead sent someone with power capable of smothering her fire, someone who ­wouldn’t mind doing it should she become a threat.

Air rushed down her throat in a whoosh. She gasped it down in greedy gulps, hardly registering the agony as she shifted back into her mortal form, the world going quiet and dull again.

“Does your lover know what you are?” A cold question.

She lifted her head, not caring how he’d found out. “He knows everything.” Not entirely true.

His eyes flickered—­with what emotion, she ­couldn’t tell. “I won’t be biting you again,” he said, and she wondered just what he’d tasted in her blood.

She growled, but the sound was muted. Fangless. “Even if it’s the only way to get me to shift?”

He walked uphill—­to the ridge. “You don’t bite the women of other males.”

She heard, more than felt, something die from her voice as she said, “We’re not—­together. Not anymore. I let him go before I came ­here.”

He looked over his shoulder. “Why?” Flat, bored. But still, slightly curious.

What did she care if he knew? She’d curled her hand into a fist in her lap, her knuckles white. Every time she glanced at the ring, rubbed it, caught it gleaming, it punched a hole right through her.

She should take the damn thing off. But she knew she ­wouldn’t, if only because that near-­constant agony felt deserved. “Because he’s safer if he’s as repulsed by me as you are.”

“At least you’ve already learned one lesson.” When she cocked her head, he said, “The people you love are just weapons that will be used against you.”

She didn’t want to recall how Nehemia had been used—­had used herself—­against her, to force her to act. Wanted to pretend she ­wasn’t starting to forget what Nehemia had looked like.

“Shift again,” Rowan ordered, jerking his chin at her. “This time, try to—”

She was forgetting what Nehemia looked like. The shade of her eyes, the curve of her lips, the smell of her. Her laugh. The roaring in Celaena’s head went quiet, silenced by that familiar nothingness.

Do not let that light go out.

But Celaena didn’t know how to stop it. The one person she could have told, who might have understood . . . She was buried in an unadorned grave, so far from the sun-­warmed soil that she had loved.

Rowan gripped her by the shoulders. “Are you listening?”

She gave him a bored stare, even as his fingers dug into her skin. “Why don’t you just bite me again?”

“Why don’t I give you the lashing you deserve?”

He looked so dead set on it that she blinked. “If you ever take a whip to me, I will skin you alive.”

He let go of her and stalked around the clearing, a predator assessing its prey. “If you don’t shift again, you’re pulling double duty in the kitchens for the next week.”

“Fine.” At least working in the kitchens had some quantifiable results. At least in the kitchens, she could tell up from down and knew what she was doing. But this—­this promise she’d made, the bargain she’d struck with Maeve . . . She’d been a fool.

Rowan paused his stalking. “You’re worthless.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

He went on, “You would probably have been more useful to the world if you’d actually died ten years ago.”

She just looked him in the eye and said, “I’m leaving.”

•

Rowan didn’t stop her as she returned to the fortress and packed. It took all of a minute, as she hadn’t even unloaded her satchel and had no weapons left. She supposed she could have ripped the fortress apart to find where Rowan had stashed them, or stolen them from the demi-­Fae, but both would require time and bring more attention than she wanted. She didn’t talk to anyone as she walked out.

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.