Tower of Dawn (Throne of Glass #6) - Sarah J. Maas Page 0,108

a neck. A sword sinking to the bottom of the Avery.

The pain in his body was secondary.

Worthless. Useless. Anyone he had tried to help … it had made it worse.

The body on the bed … Nehemia.

She had lost her life. And perhaps she had orchestrated it, but … He had not told Celaena—Aelin—to be alert. Had not warned Nehemia’s guards of the king’s attention. He had as good as killed her. Aelin might have forgiven him, accepted that he was not to blame, but he knew. He could have done more. Been better. Seen better.

And when Nehemia had died, those slaves had risen up in defiance. A rallying cry as the Light of Eyllwe was extinguished.

The king had extinguished them as well.

Calaculla. Endovier. Women and men and children.

And when he had acted, when he had chosen his side …

Blood and black stone and screaming magic.

You knew you knew you knew

You will never be my friend my friend my friend

The darkness shoved itself down his throat, choking him, strangling him.

He let it.

Felt himself open his jaws wide to let it in farther.

Take it, he told the darkness.

Yes, it purred to him. Yes.

It showed him Morath in its unparalleled horrors; showed him that dungeon beneath the glass castle, where faces he knew pleaded for mercy that would never come; showed him the young golden hands that had bestowed those agonies, as if they had stood side by side to do it—

He knew. Had guessed who had been forced to torture his men, to kill them. They both knew.

He felt the darkness swell, readying to pounce. To make him truly scream.

But then it was gone.

Rippling golden fields stretched away under a cloudless blue sky. Little sparkling streams wended through it, curling around the occasional oak tree. Strays from the tangled, looming green of Oakwald Forest to his right.

Behind him, a thatched roof cottage, its gray stones crusted in green and orange lichen. An ancient well sat a few feet away, its bucket balanced precariously on the stone lip.

Beyond it, attached to the house itself, a small pen with wandering chickens, fat and focused on the dirt before them.

And past them …

A garden.

Not a formal, beautiful thing. But a garden behind a low stone wall, its wooden gate open.

Two figures were stooped amongst the carefully plotted rows of green. He drifted toward them.

He knew her by the golden-brown hair, so much lighter in the summer sun. Her skin had turned a lovely deep brown, and her eyes …

It was a child’s face, lit with joy, that looked upon the woman kneeling in the dirt, pointing toward a pale green plant with slender purple cones of blossoms swaying in the warm breeze. The woman asked, “And that one?”

“Salvia,” the child—no more than nine—answered.

“And what does it do?”

The girl beamed, chin rising as she recited, “Good for improving memory, alertness, mood. Also assists with fertility, digestion, and, in a salve, can help numb the skin.”

“Excellent.”

The girl’s broad smile revealed three missing teeth.

The woman—her mother—took the girl’s round face in her hands. Her skin was darker than her daughter’s, her hair a thicker, bouncier curl. But their builds … It was the woman’s build that the girl would grow into one day. The freckles that she’d inherit. The nose and mouth.

“You have been studying, my wise child.”

The woman kissed her daughter on her sweaty brow.

He felt the kiss—the love in it—even as a ghost at the gate.

For it was love that shaded the entirety of the world here, gilded it. Love and joy.

Happiness.

The sort he had not known with his own family. Or anyone else.

The girl had been loved. Deeply. Unconditionally.

This was a happy memory—one of a few.

“And what is that bush, there by the wall?” the woman asked the girl.

Her brow scrunched in concentration. “Gooseberries?”

“Yes. And what do we do with gooseberries?”

The girl braced her hands on her hips, her simple dress blowing in the dry, warm breeze. “We …” She tapped her foot with impatience—at her own mind, for not recalling. The same irritation he’d seen outside that old man’s house in Antica.

Her mother crept up behind her, sweeping the girl into her arms and kissing her cheek. “We make gooseberry pie.”

The girl’s squeal of delight echoed across the amber grasses and clear streams, even into the tangled, ancient heart of Oakwald.

Perhaps even to the White Fangs themselves, and the cold city nestled at their edge.

He opened his eyes.

And found his entire foot pressing into the couch cushions.

Felt the silk and embroidery scratching against the