She approached the open glass doors, her cloak sweeping behind her. Actually, there were few in the castle she didn’t outrank now. As the King’s Champion, she outranked them. They knew very well who she was-and what she did for the king. Despite the hooded black cloak that concealed much of her face, the guards didn’t stop her as she strode toward the King of Adarlan’s council chamber. The heavy sack clenched in her hand swung with each step, banging every so often into her knees. Lord Nirall’s eyes flew open just as the King’s Champion raised her sword over his head.Ĭelaena Sardothien stalked down the halls of the glass castle of Rifthold. She took a shuddering breath, bracing herself for what would come next. Her sword slid out of its sheath with barely a whine. With each step toward Lord Nirall, she ran through the plan again. What had they done to off end the king so gravely that he wanted them dead? Lord Nirall was no older than thirty-five, and his wife, dark haired and beautiful, slept soundly in his arms. She waited until the next rumble of thunder before easing the door shut behind her.Īnother flash of lightning illuminated two figures sleeping in the four-poster bed.

Lord Nirall’s bedroom door swung open with a slight groan. Silent and smooth as a wraith, she moved down the hall. She listened for the approach of any other servants, but the house remained hushed as the storm raged around them. Lord Nirall’s bedroom was the third on the left.

The assassin took a long breath, going over the plans she’d painstakingly memorized in the three days she’d been watching the manor house on the outskirts of Bellhaven. Lightning flashed, illuminating the hallway. The girl hadn’t noticed the wet footprints on the floorboards. Seconds later, she disappeared down the stairwell at the other end of the hall. A servant girl trudged past to the open window, grumbling as she latched it shut. Concealed beneath a black mask and hood, she willed herself to melt into the shadows, to become nothing more than a slip of darkness. The King’s Champion pressed herself into an alcove at the thud of approaching steps. No one had noticed her scaling the garden wall of the darkened manor house, and with the thunder and the gusting wind off the nearby sea, no one heard her as she shimmied up the drainpipe, swung onto the windowsill, and slithered into the second-floor hallway. The shutters swinging in the storm winds were the only sign of her entry.

Book crown of midnight