Throne of Glass (Throne of Glass #1) by Sarah J. Maas

Brullo stood at the front of the sparring hall, his hands clasped behind his back, watching the thirteen remaining competitors standing at thirteen individual tables. He glanced at the clock. Celaena looked at it, too. She had five minutes left—five minutes during which she not only had to identify the poisons in seven goblets, but arrange them in the order of the most benign to the deadliest.

The true test, however, would come at the end of the five minutes, when they were to drink from the goblet they deemed the most harmless. If they got the answer wrong . . . Even with antidotes on hand, it would be unpleasant. Celaena rolled her neck and lifted one of the goblets to her nose, sniffing. Sweet—too sweet. She swirled the dessert wine they’d used to conceal the sweetness, but in the bronze goblet, it was difficult to see the color. She dipped her finger into the cup, studying the purple liquid as it dripped off her nail. Definitely belladonna.

She looked at the other goblets she’d identified. Hemlock. Bloodroot. Monkshood. Oleander. She shifted the goblets into order, squeezing in belladonna just before the goblet containing a lethal dose of oleander. Three minutes left.

Celaena picked up the penultimate goblet and sniffed. And sniffed again. It didn’t smell like anything.

She shifted her face away from the table and sniffed the air, hoping to clear her nostrils. When trying perfumes, people sometimes lose their sense of smell after sniffing too many. Which was why perfumers usually kept something on site to help clear the scent from the nose. She sniffed the goblet again, and dunked her finger. It smelled like water, looked like water . . .

Perhaps it was just water. She set down the glass and picked up the final goblet. But when she sniffed it, the wine inside didn’t have any unusual smell. It seemed fine. She bit her lip and glanced at the clock. Two minutes left.

Some of the other Champions were cursing under their breath. Whoever got the order most wrong went home.

Celaena sniffed the water goblet again, racing through a list of odorless poisons. None of them could be combined with water, not without coloring it. She picked up the wine goblet, swirling the liquid. Wine could conceal any number of advanced poisons—but which one was it?

At the table to the left of her, Nox ran his hands through his dark hair. He had three goblets in front of him, the other four in line behind them. Ninety seconds left.

Poisons, poisons, poisons. Her mouth went dry. If she lost, would Elena haunt her from spite?

Celaena glanced to the right to find Pelor, the gangly young assassin, watching her. He was down to the same two goblets that she struggled with, and she watched as he put the water glass at the very end of the spectrum—the most poisonous—and the wine glass at the other.

His eyes flicked to hers, and his chin drooped in a barely detectible nod. He put his hands in his pockets. He was done. Celaena turned to her own goblets before Brullo could catch her.

Poisons. That’s what Pelor had said during their first Test. He was trained in poisons.

She glanced at him sidelong. He stood to her right.

Look to your right. You’ll find the answers there.

A chill went down her spine. Elena had been telling the truth.

Pelor stared at the clock, watching it count down the seconds until the Test was over. But why help her?

She moved the water glass to the end of the line, and put the wine glass first.

Because aside from her, Cain’s favorite Champion to torment was Pelor. And because when she’d been in Endovier, the allies she’d made hadn’t been the darlings of the overseers, but the ones the overseers had hated most. The outsiders looked out for each other. None of the other Champions had bothered to pay attention to Pelor—even Brullo, it seemed, had forgotten Pelor’s claim that first day. If he’d known, he never would have allowed them to do the Test so publicly.

“Time’s up. Make your final order,” Brullo said, and Celaena stared at her line of goblets for a moment longer. On the side of the room, Dorian and Chaol watched with crossed arms. Had they noticed Pelor’s help?

Nox cursed colorfully and shoved his remaining glasses into the line, many of the competitors doing the same. Antidotes were on hand in case mistakes were made—and as Brullo began going through the tables, telling the Champions to drink, he handed them out frequently. Most of them had assumed the wine with nothing in it was a trap and placed it toward the end of the spectrum. Even Nox wound up chugging a vial of antidote; he’d put monkshood first.

And Cain, to her delight, wound up going purple in the face after consuming belladonna. As he guzzled down the antidote, she wished Brullo had somehow run out. So far, no one had won the Test. One Champion drank the water and was on the ground before Brullo could hand him the antidote. Bloodbane—a horrible, painful poison. Even consuming just a little could cause vivid hallucinations and disorientation. Thankfully, the Weapons Master forced him to swallow the antidote, though the Champion still had to be rushed to the castle infirmary.

At last, Brullo stopped at her table to survey her line of goblets. His face revealed nothing as he said, “On with it, then.”

Celaena glanced at Pelor, whose hazel eyes shone as she lifted the glass of wine to her lips and drank a sip.

Nothing. No strange taste, no immediate sensation. Some poisons could take longer to affect you, but . . .

Brullo extended a fist to her, and her stomach clenched. Was the antidote inside?

But his fingers splayed, and he only clapped her on the back. “The right one—just wine,” he said, and the Champions murmured behind him.