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

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

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.

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

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.

I was merely observing; I have no agenda.' He looked at his hand, still touching hers. 'Where did you get that ring?'She contracted her hand into a fist as she pulled it away from him. The amethyst in her ring glowed in the firelight. 'It was a gift.'From whom?'That's none of your concern.'He shrugged, though she knew betterthan to tell him who'd really given it to her - rather, she knew Chaol wouldn't want Dorian to know. 'I'd like to know who's been giving rings to my Champion.'The way the collar of his black jacket lay across his neck made her unnable to sit still. She wanted to touch him, to trace the line between his tan skin and the golden lining of the fabric.'Billiards?' she asked, rising to her feet. I could use another lesson.' Celaena didn't wait for his answer as she strode toward the gaming room. She very much wanted to stand close to him and have her skin warm under his breath. She liked that. Worse than that, she realized, she liked him.

It was the least she could do. For Nehemia—for. . . 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.

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

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

Celaena peered in the mirror—and stopped dead.The somewhat shorter hair was the least of the changes.She was now flushed with color, her eyes bright and clear, and though she'd regained the weight she'd lost during that winter, her face was leaner. A woman—a woman was smiling back at her, beautiful for every scar and imperfection and mark of survival, beautiful for the fact that the smile was real, and she felt it kindle the long-slumbering joy in her heart.