celaena-sardothien

Hide from fate all you like,_ Baba Yellowlegs said as they turned away. __ut it shall soon find you!

In every way that counted, I failed him.

Celaena knew where she was before she awoke. And she didn't care. She was living the same story again and

You want to know what price I asked for forgiving Arobynn, Celaena?" Sam stood so still the he might have been a statue. "My price was his oath that he'd never lay a hand on you again. I told him I'd forgive him in exchange for that.

She would fill the world with it, with her light-her gift. She would light up the darkness, so brightly that all who were lost or wounded or broken would find their way to it, a beacon for those who still dwelled in that abyss. It would not take a monster to destroy a monster-but light, light to drive out the darkness.She was not afraid.

What Maeve didn't understand, what she could never understand, was just how much that little princess in Terrasen had damned them a decade ago, even worse than Maeve herself had. She had damned them all, and then left the world to burn into ash and dust.So Celaena turned away from the stars, nestling under the thread-bare blanket against the frigid cold, and closed her eyes, trying to dream of a different world.A world where she was no one at all.

It was the least she could do. For Nehemia__or. . . a lot of other people. There was nothing left in her, not really. Only ash and an abyss and the unbreakable vow she'd carved into her flesh, to the friend who had seen her for what she truly was.

The magic was boiling her blood. The darkness__t would be a relief compared to the hell smoldering in her veins. The Valg prince advanced, and part of her was screaming__creaming at herself to get up, to keep fighting, to rage and roar against this horrible end. But moving her limbs, even breathing, had become a monumental effort.She was so tired.

There was a faint ringing in her ears that turned into a roar. And beneath it, a sudden wave of numbness, a too-familiar lack of sight or sound or feeling. She didn't know why it happened, because she had been so dead set on hating him, but . . . it would have been nice, she supposed. It would have been nice to have one person who knew the absolute truth about her__nd didn't hate her for it.It would have been really, really nice.She walked away without another word. With each step she took back to her room, that flickering light inside of her guttered.And went out.

Saying those words made a sharp, quick panic rise up in her, an aching pain that had her throat closing. __ou left me,_ she repeated. Maybe it was only out of blind terror at the abyss opening up again around her, but she whispered, __ have no one left. No one.

I have no name," she purred. "I'm whoever the keepers of my fate tell me to be.

Chaol," he said, looking over his shoulder. Dorian's eyes were frozen, his jaw clenched. "Treat her well.

Her hand rose to her lips and she stared up at the stars, feeling her heart grow, and grow, and grow.

Perhaps there was an unstoppable magic inherent in music and art.

I like music," she said slowly, "because when I hear it, I . . . I lose myself within myself, if that makes any sense. I become empty and full all at once, and I can feel the whole earth roiling around me. When I play. I'm not . . . for once, I'm not destroying, I'm creating.

She had a flicker of memory from a time when, just for a moment, she'd been free; when the world had been wide open and she'd been about to enter it with Sam at her side. It was a freedom that she was still working for, because even though she'd tasted it only for a heartbeat, it had been the most exquisite heartbeat she'd ever experienced.

My name is Celaena Sardothien," she whispered, "and I will not be afraid.

Where will we go?""I hear hell is particularly nice at this time of year.