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Slowly, Celaena turned north, toward the source of the breeze, which smelled of a faraway land she hadn’t seen in eight years. Pine and snow—a city still in winter’s grasp.
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She murmured a prayer for them to find a safe harbor, her words carrying on the wings of the wind, and wished them well.
Sam smiled, his brown eyes turning golden in the dawn. It was such a Sam look, the twinkle of mischief, the hint of exasperation, the kindness that would always, always make him a better person than she was.
For wherever you need to go—and then some. The world needs more healers.
But Celaena was glad to be rid of it, and hoped Yrene would pawn the piece for the small fortune it was worth. Hoped that an assassin’s jewel would pay for a healer’s education.
Prayed that somehow, years from now, Yrene Towers would return to this continent, and maybe, just maybe, heal their shattered world a little bit.
And one of the stable boys told my sister that if you looked through the archway on the night of the summer solstice, then you might see into another world.”
“If you can learn to endure pain, you can survive anything. Some people learn to embrace it—to love it. Some endure it through drowning it in sorrow, or by making themselves forget. Others turn it into anger. But Ansel let her pain become hate, and let it consume her until she became something else entirely—a person I don’t think she ever wished to be.”
For the first time in a long while, she heard the song of a northern wind, calling her home. And she was not afraid.
She leaned close. “My name is Wind,” she whispered. “And Rain. And Bone and Dust. My name is a snippet of a half-remembered song.”
“You’re a damned idiot,” she breathed. “You’re a moron and an ass and a damned idiot.” He looked like she had hit him. But she went on, and grasped both sides of his face, “Because I’d pick you.”
A chill wind blew past, ripping strands of hair from her braid.
Was it the King of the Assassins who spoke, or the father, or the lover who had never manifested himself ?
“Deep down,” she said, “I’m a coward.”
Nehemia scene
“You want to hear something ridiculous? Whenever I’m scared out of my wits, I tell myself: My name is Sam Cortland … and I will not be afraid. I’ve been doing it for years.”
The memory of his face was already blurring. Had his eyes been more golden brown, or soil brown? She couldn’t remember. And she’d never get the chance to find out.
Arobynn’s attention drifted back to the wagon, already a small dot in the rolling foothills above Rifthold. “Because I don’t like sharing my belongings.”
A breeze filled the wagon, lifting away the smells of the past two weeks. Her trembling paused for a heartbeat. She knew that breeze.
She knew the chill bite beneath it, knew it carried the hint of pine and snow, knew the mountains from which it hailed. A northern breeze, a breeze of Terrasen.
The breeze grew into a wind, and she closed her eyes, letting it sweep away the ashes of that dead world—of that dead girl. And then there was nothing left except something new, something still glowing red from the forging.
