You're remarkably judgmental.'

'What's the point in having a mind if you don't use it to make judgements?

Dorian could only stare at her. This was different from the feral creature she'd become the night Nehemia had died. What she was right now, the edge on which she was balancing... Wyrd help them all.

But than Chaol was at her chair, grasping her elbow. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

Celaena looked up at him and smiled sweetly. "Your job, apparently." She shook off his grip with a thrash, then got up from her seat, stalking around the table.

Very well."
"Say it."
"Say what?"
"Say my name. Say, 'Very well, Dorian.'"
She rolled her eyes. "If it pleases Your Magnanimous Holiness, I shall call you by your first name.

... the doors to his father's council room were thrown open and Celaena prowled in, her dark cape billowing behind her. All twenty men at the table fell silent, including his father, whose eyes went straight to the thing dangling from Celaena's hand. Chaol was already striding across the room from his post by the door. But he, too, stopped when he beheld the object she carried.

A head.

The man's face was still set in a scream, and there was something vaguely familiar about the grotesque feature and mousy brown hair that she gripped. It was hard to be certain as it swung from her gloved fingers.

After a moment, his father looked up from the list and surveyed her. "Well done, Champion. Well done indeed."

Then Celaena and the King of Adarlan smiled at each other, and it was the most terrifying thing Dorian had ever seen.

"Tell my exchequer to give you double last month's payment," the king said. Dorian felt his gorge rise- not just for the severed head and her blood- stiffened clothing, but also for the fact that he could not, for the life of him, find the girl had loved anywhere in her face. And from Chaol's expression, he knew his friend felt the same.

Celaena bowed dramatically to the king, flourishing a hand before her. Then, with a smile devoid of any warmth, she stared down Chaol before stalking from the room, her dark cape sweeping behind her.

Silence.

He opened his mouth, but stopped as he beheld her smile. Though she had no regrets about her choice, she felt something strangely like disappointment when he said, "As you wish.