They are accually looking for one person
“I’ve been running for weeks,” she said. “Apparently, I’ve barely
covered half the distance.”
“To where?”
Marion looked northward. “Terrasen.”
Lorcan stifled a snarl. “You’re not missing much.”
“Have you news of it?” Alarm filled those eyes.
“No,” he said, shrugging. She finished rubbing her foot and ankle.
“What’s in Terrasen? Your family?” He had not asked why she’d been
brought to Morath. He didn’t particularly care to hear her sad story.
Everyone had one, he’d found.
The girl’s face tightened. “I owe a debt to a friend—someone who
helped me get out of Morath. She bade me to find someone named Celaena
Sardothien. So that is my first task: learning who she is, where she is.
Terrasen seems like a better place to start than Adarlan.”
No guile, no whisper of this meeting being anything but chance.
“And then,” the girl went on, the brightness in her eyes growing, “I
need to find Aelin Galathynius, the Queen of Terrasen.”
It was an effort not to go for his sword. “Why?”
Marion glanced toward him, as if she’d somehow even forgotten he was
there. “I heard a rumor that she’s raising an army to stop the one in Morath.
I plan to offer my services.”
New Task
On the other side of the hall, the portrait of Merlin clicks, and the entire
thing creaks open. A man steps through it, looking like a warrior who
traveled through time. He has a long gray beard, and his face is lined with
age. Unlike the rest of the people in the room, he’s dressed in actual chain
mail armor with a silvery breastplate. And emblazoned on the breastplate is
the Merlin Court coat of arms I’ve seen around this tower—one with an
owl, stars, and the cycle of the moon. His armor groans as he crosses the
large hall.
For a moment, I wonder if the rumors are true, if Merlin never died, and
maybe he’s returned to us through his own portrait. But this man looks
nothing like Merlin, and he wears a silver torc.
“Who is that?” I whisper to Serana.
“Sir Kay,” she whispers. “He is the leader of MI-13.”
He crosses to an empty chair set at the round table and takes a seat.
“Thank you all for coming on such short notice.” His deep,
commanding voice resonates around the room. “What we’re discussing
today is of the utmost secrecy. There will be no sharing of any of this with
anyone at the academy. Or, obviously, outside it.”
I exchange looks with Tana and Serana. What are the three of us even
doing here?
“As you all know, MI-13’s efforts are held back by the veil,” he
continues. “We make do with our Sentinels opening the way to small task
forces, but it has limited our options.”
Nivene raises her eyebrow at me and nods.
“The veil is maintained by the Fey’s magicians,” adds Sir Kay. “Up
0-30p: Kontrollü okuyucu 📖
40-70p: Hafif bağımlı 👀
80p+: Geçmiş olsun, kitaplar seni ele geçirmiş 😅
The Culling Test
“Wow, demi-Fey? I’ve never seen one. What did they look like?”
“Fucking weird, pardon my language. The man had pointy ears,
obviously. Dark hair. Tattoos on his arms, eerie silver eyes like metal.
Beautiful blonde woman with him. You know, I don’t mind the women
demi-Fey quite as much. I’d give her one,” he says thoughtfully. “Pardon
the expression.”
I toss a horseshoe, and it clatters to the floor of his stall. A thought starts
to blossom in my mind. “Did they have anything with them?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. Why do you ask?”
I open my eyes wide. “Well, like you said, they’re dangerous. And you
know the saying, if you see something, say something.”
He holds up a finger. “Do you know what, love? The fella was carrying
something. It was in a box, like a musical instrument or something. They
never brought it out again.” His eyes widen. “Do you think they could be
planning something? You don’t think it was a bomb, do you?” He scrubs a
hand over his mouth. “With all these people here? Should I call the police?”
I toss both horseshoes one after the other, so off the mark that one
nearly hits one of the prize dolls. “It’s probably nothing. I doubt demi-Fey
even know how to make a bomb. We don’t want the police shutting the
whole fair down over an empty box.”
What I know at this point is that Raphael and Vivian came in earlier and
left a package here, then left.
The Excalibur replica.
“We will obviously need to reschedule the shadow trial.” Wrythe sighs.
“Ms. Melisende can do it properly with the rest of the cadets.”
Your life is the most important management task you will ever undertake.
At least one had ended
Orrec bares his teeth. “You don’t know anything about my country.”
“I know the Scarlet Guard began in your house, not mine,” Maven spits back. With his free hand he gestures, telling his Sentinels to back down. Foolish, posturing boy. I hope it gets him killed. “Don’t act like you’re doing me a favor. You need this as much as we do.”
“Then I want your word, Maven Calore.”
“You have it—”
“Your word and your hand. The strongest bond you can make.”
Oh.
My eyes fly from Maven, locked in a grip with the king of the Lakelands, to Evangeline. She sits still, as if frozen, her gaze on the marble floor and nowhere else. I expect her to stand up and scream, to turn this place into a wreck of shrapnel. But she doesn’t move. Even Ptolemus, her lapdog of a brother, stays firmly in his seat. And their father in his Samos blacks broods as always. No change in him that I can see. No indication that Evangeline is about to lose the position she fought so hard to obtain.
Across the pavilion, the Lakelander princess seems hewn from stone. She doesn’t even blink. She knew this was coming.
Once, when Maven’s father told him he was to marry me, he choked in surprise. He put on a good show, blustering and arguing. He pretended not to know what that proposal was about, what it meant. Like me, he has worn a thousand masks and played a million different parts. Today he performs as king, and kings are never surprised, never caught off guard. If he is shocked, he doesn’t show it. I hear nothing but steel in his voice.
“It would be an honor to call you father,” he says.
Finally, Orrec lets go of Maven’s hand. “And an honor to call you son.”
Both could not be more false.
To my right, someone’s chair scrapes against marble. Followed quickly by two more. In a flurry of metal and black,
Labeling emotions
It might seem counterintuitive, but sometimes labelling what is happening can help bring down the intensity of the experience. By labelling emotions, you are acknowledging their existence and therefore validating your own experience. We deal better with reality than uncertainty and labelling the experience brings it into reality. When you are addressing the reality of the situation, you get less swept up in the meaning and more focused on what’s actually happening. The other way it can help is that it gives your mind a task to do, which means you focus less on the sound and what it means.
