It's been a while. I know. And I'm really sorry. Lockdown has been intense and I'm in my exam year so I've been quite stressed. But I really do want to finish this story. And the reason for that is all of the support that I have received. Honestly, the reviews I receive from all of you keep me going. Without them, I think I would have given up on this project ages ago. So for that, I am truly grateful, because I don't want to give up on this story.

I hope that you are doing okay with everything going on and I hope that you enjoy this chapter. It is short but I just wanted to upload something and to write something and I felt like a smaller commitment would allow me to do this. Hopefully, it will mean I will be uploading with these updates more often if I set myself smaller targets. I wanna see where this story goes. Please tell me what you think and enjoy!

. . .

Celaena was numb. She didn't feel the cold metal of the chains around her wrists, her ankles, her neck. She didn't notice the jostle of the prison cart as it wound through rocky forest roads. She didn't see the landscape passing by or the retreating city. The world around her was of little consequence anymore. She would be dead soon anyway. She had been aware of that the moment the king made his judgement; Endovier was worse than any death sentence there was. An extended suffering. A slow death.

It hardly mattered anymore – the desire for survival that had fuelled her for eight years had been extinguished as she had curled up against the body of the boy she loved. The boy who had been ripped apart. What did she have for live for? She was alone in this world: a cousin who worked for a butcher; a friend who had been dead for years; a mate who was little more than a bitter memory; a lover who had bled out as she had done nothing. The world was filled with pain and cruelty and horror. Once, she had thought it was enough to become one of those horrors, that it would protect her from the suffering that consumed society. She had been wrong. Because the moment she had let him into her heart, she had risked everything. And she had lost it all. Sitting in the back of the prison cart, she knew death would be a blessing when it came. Even hell would be better than this. Anything would be.

Endovier was days away but Celeana was in no rush. Her pain was constant, her heart aching and her chest feeling heavy. When she arrived, it would simply become a different kind of pain. The kind of pain she was used to. Arobynn's training had been thorough enough that she knew she could withstand physical torture. The thought brought her flashes of the wounds inflicted on him, and she hated the knowledge that he had been conscious. That he had felt everything they had done to him. She hated Arobynn for that. Hehad deserved a quick death, no pain; more than anyone, he had deserved that. But his training would have prepared him, leaving him conscious as they tore him apart. He had suffered. And she would now suffer. It was nothing more than she deserved. She only hoped that when her suffering was over, she would see him again.

Her thoughts were lost in grief and she fought sleep, knowing nightmares would plague her. Instead, she let her eyes wander to the darkening sky and she wished that she remembered the stories behind the constellations. She couldn't even remember who had told her those stories anymore. Her great-uncle? Her mother? Her mate? She remembered a night in a desert when she had exchanged these stories with a friend turned traitor. Her mind felt jumbled, twisting between the different areas of her past. Distracting herself from her pain, though unsuccessful, had been exhausting in the past weeks. Trying to find enough images to fill her mind to keep from picturing his body. First, there had been the planning and the determination to get her vengeance. Then her anger at everyone: at the men who had captured her, at the butcher who held her fate, at herself for getting caught. But now, her fate decided, in the back of a prison cart, on the way to the place she would die, there was nothing to distract her from her own memories.

Keeping them back was too tiring and she had no energy left. She had nothing left. So she let the pain come. She started numbly at the sky and remembered every moment of joy and love, stripped from her. Nothing left. Nothing left. That was all she thought. It was the thought on her mind when the figure moved from the forest and the chained door of the prison cart swung open. Her eyes blinked and she didn't move as the hooded character moved towards her. It couldn't be. It couldn't be.

"Sam."

. . .

Okay, okay, I'm sorry about the cliffhanger. This is where the story really deviates from canon. But it's not what you think. Or it might be, I don't know. My plan had kind of gone a little out the window now so I'm just as clueless as you. PLEASE REVIEW!