Curled into the corner of a prison wagon, Celaena Sardothien watched the splotches of shadows and light play on the wall. Trees—just beginning to shift into the rich hues of autumn—seemed to peer at her through the small, barred window.
She rested her head against the musty wooden wall, listening to the creak of the wagon, the clink of the shackles around her wrists and ankles, the rumbling chatter and occasional laughter of the guards who had been escorting the wagon along its route for two days now.
But while she was aware of it all, a deafening sort of silence had settled over her like a cloak. It shut out everything. She knew she was thirsty, and hungry, and that her fingers were numb with cold, but she couldn’t feel it keenly.
The wagon hit a rut, jostling her so hard that her head knocked into the wall. Even that pain felt distant.
The freckles of light along the panels danced like falling snow.
Like ash.
Ash from a world burned into nothing—lying in ruins around her. She could taste the ash of that dead world on her chapped lips, settling on her leaden tongue.
She preferred the silence. In the silence she couldn’t hear the worst question of all: had she brought this upon herself?
The wagon passed under a particularly thick canopy of trees, blotting out the light. For a heartbeat, the silence peeled back long enough for that question to worm its way into her skull, into her skin, into her breath and her bones.
And in the dark, she remembered.