(Book One in the Celestial series)
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She didn't remember much of her former life---except for perhaps the cool scent of the ocean breeze as it filled her nose, or the hard-set lines of her brother's face, maybe even the tune her mother had used to...
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"I have done bad things for good reasons. And I will, again."
IT HAD BEEN FIVE YEARS since Esara had felt the wind on her face. Five years since she had been allowed to bask in the sun as it flowed down from above.
Perhaps that was why she'd felt the breath still in her lungs as the hooded man led her from the mines. As they stepped outside. For the first time in a very long time.
Outside was not as Esara remembered it. She remembered vibrancy, birds chirping, and the sky painted with colors. But here...everything felt gray. Black and white. As though the world around them reflected the pain the people felt within the mines.
Esara couldn't say she'd be surprised if it did.
Yet despite the gray that surrounded her, Esara thought that the tall, evergreen trees that peaked up slightly from beyond the wall were the greatest sight she'd ever seen. That the blue and black of the fading sky was such a beautiful thing that she could have wept.
She didn't care why they'd pulled her from the mines. Not then after that first step out for the first time in years.
No, all her thoughts could focus on was the way the sun warmed her pale skin, and she had to squint her eyes to look around her simply because it was so bright.
It was such a small thing, needing to close her eyes just slightly in order to see through the unfiltered light of day, yet as she began to walk, Esara thought it might have been the greatest gift she might receive before her death.
After all, that was certainly, why they'd led her from the work she was forced to complete. They'd led Celaena out before her. And it had only been when they'd pulled her from her own place hacking at the wall, that she realized that death had come to claim the two at last.
Esara and her friend had certainly stirred enough trouble to garner an execution.
Five years, and this very moment had been what it all led to. Every facet of her life twining together only to end here within this wretched place.
Five, apparently, was an unlucky number for Esara.
But she found that she rather liked the number one.
It had been a single year since she had befriended Celaena Sardothien, and a year since the Salt Mines of Endovier had grown a little less dull.
So long of being alone, watching people die around her, Esara found she liked when people survived much better.
And after all those long years, she'd grown accustomed to being escorted everywhere in shackles and at sword-point. Most of the thousands of slaves in Endovier received similar treatment—though extras always walked Esara and Celaena to and from the mines.
