Read Crown of Midnight for Free Online Page B

assassins as enemies.”
    She stared at the carpet again. The night she’d broken out of the Assassins’ Keep to hunt down Farran, Wesley had tried to stop her. He’d tried to tell her it was a trap.
    Celaena shut down the thought before it reached its conclusion. That was a truth she’d have to take out and examine at another time,when she was alone, when she didn’t have Archer and the rebel movement and all that nonsense to worry about. When she could try to understand why Arobynn Hamel might have betrayed her—and what she was going to do with that horrible knowledge. How much she’d make him suffer—and bleed for it.
    After a few moments of silence, Chaol asked, “We never learned why Wesley went after Rourke Farran, though. Wesley was just a personal bodyguard. What did he have against Farran?”
    Her eyes were burning, and she looked to the window, where the night sky was bathed in moonlight. “It was an act of revenge.” She could still see Sam’s twisted corpse, lying on that table in the room beneath the Assassins’ Keep; still see Farran crouched in front of her, his hands roaming over her paralyzed body. She swallowed down the tightness in her throat. “Farran captured, tortured, and then murdered one of … one of my … companions. And then the next night, I went out to repay the favor. It didn’t end so well for me.”
    A log shifted in the fire, breaking open and filling the room with a flash of light.
    “That was the night you were captured?” Chaol asked. “But I thought you didn’t know who had betrayed you.”
    “I still don’t. Someone hired me and my companion to kill Farran, but it was all just a trap, and Farran was the bait.”
    Silence; then—“What was his name?”
    She pushed her lips together, shoving away the memory of how he’d looked the last time she’d seen him, broken on that table. “Sam,” she got out. “His name was Sam.” She took an uneven breath. “I don’t even know where they buried him. I don’t even know who I would ask about it.”
    Chaol didn’t reply, and she didn’t know why she bothered talking, but the words just tumbled out. “I failed him,” she said. “In every way that counted, I failed him.”
    Another long silence, then a sigh. “Not in one way,” Chaol said. “I bet he would have wanted you to survive—to
live
. So you didn’t fail him, not in that regard.”
    She had to look away in order to force her eyes to stop burning as she nodded.
    After a moment, Chaol spoke again. “Her name was Lithaen. Three years ago, she worked for one of the ladies of the court. And Roland somehow found out and thought it would be amusing for me to discover him in bed with her. I know it’s nothing like what you went through …”
    She’d never known that he’d ever been interested in
anyone
, but … “Why did
she
do it?”
    He shrugged, though his face was still bleak with the memory. “Because Roland is a Havilliard, and I’m just the Captain of the Guard. He even convinced her to go back to Meah with him—though I never learned what became of her.”
    “You loved her.”
    “I thought I did. And I thought she loved me.” He shook his head, as if silently chiding himself. “Did Sam love you?”
    Yes. More than anyone had ever loved her. He’d loved her enough to risk everything—to give up everything. He’d loved her so much that she still felt the echoes of it, even now. “Very much,” she breathed.
    The clock chimed eleven thirty, and Chaol shook his head, the tension falling from him. “I’m exhausted.”
    She stood, somehow having no clue how they’d wound up talking about the people who had meant so much to them. “Then I should go.”
    He got to his feet, his eyes so bright. “I’ll walk you back to your room.”
    She lifted her chin. “I thought I didn’t need to be escorted everywhere now.”
    “You don’t,” he said, walking to the door. “But it
is
something that friends tend to do.”
    “Would you walk