“What?” Celaena asked.
“You will address him as ‘Your Highness.’ ”
Celaena gave him a mocking smile, and then returned her attention to the prince.
Dorian Havilliard, to her surprise, laughed. “You do know that you’re now a slave, don’t you? Has your sentence taught you nothing?”
Had her arms been unshackled, she would have crossed them. “I don’t see how working in a mine can teach anything beyond how to use a pickax.”
“And you never tried to escape?”
A slow, wicked smile spread across her lips. “Once.”
The prince’s brows rose, and he turned to Captain Westfall. “I wasn’t told that.”
Celaena glanced over her shoulder at Chaol, who gave his prince an apologetic look. “The Chief Overseer informed me this afternoon that there was one incident. Three months—”
“Four months,” she interrupted.
“Four months,” Chaol said, “after Sardothien arrived, she attempted to flee.”
She waited for the rest of the story, but he was clearly finished. “That’s not even the best part!”
“There’s a ‘best part’?” the Crown Prince said, face caught between a wince and a smile.
Chaol glared at her before speaking. “There’s no hope of escaping from Endovier. Your father made sure that each of Endovier’s sentries could shoot a squirrel from two hundred paces away. To attempt to flee is suicide.”
“But you’re alive,” the prince said to her.
Celaena’s smile faded as the memory struck her. “Yes.”
“What happened?” Dorian asked.
Her eyes turned cold and hard. “I snapped.”
“That’s all you have to offer as an explanation for what you did?” Captain Westfall demanded. “She killed her overseer and twenty-three sentries before they caught her. She was a finger’s tip from the wall before the guards knocked her unconscious.”
“So?” Dorian said.
Celaena seethed. “So? Do you know how far the wall is from the mines?” He gave her a blank look. She closed her eyes and sighed dramatically. “From my shaft, it was three hundred sixty-three feet. I had someone measure.”
“So?” Dorian repeated.
“Captain Westfall, how far do slaves make it from the mines when they try to escape?”
“Three feet,” he muttered. “Endovier sentries usually shoot a man down before he’s moved three feet.”
The Crown Prince’s silence was not her desired effect. “You knew it was suicide,” he said at last, the amusement gone.
Perhaps it had been a bad idea for her to bring up the wall. “Yes,” she said.
“But they didn’t kill you.”
“Your father ordered that I was to be kept alive for as long as possible—to endure the misery that Endovier gives in abundance.” A chill that had nothing to do with the temperature went through her. “I never intended to escape.” The pity in his eyes made her want to hit him.
“Do you bear many scars?” asked the prince. She shrugged and he smiled, forcing the mood to lift as he stepped from the dais. “Turn around, and let me view your back.” Celaena frowned, but obeyed as he walked to her, Chaol stepping closer. “I can’t make them out clearly through all this dirt,” the prince said, inspecting what skin showed through the scraps of her shirt. She scowled, and scowled even more when he said, “And what a terrible stench, too!”
“When one doesn’t have access to a bath and perfume, I suppose one cannot smell as finely as you, Your Highness.”