Throne of Glass (Throne of Glass #1)(34)

“I thought His Royal Highness was your friend.”

“He is.”

“How long have you been friends?”

He paused, and she knew he was contemplating how she might use the information against him, weighing the risk of telling her the truth. She was about to snap at him when he said: “Since we were young. We were the only boys of our age in the castle—at least of high rank. We had lessons together, played together, trained together. But when I was thirteen, my father moved my family back to our home in Anielle.”

“The city on the Silver Lake?” It somehow made sense that Chaol’s family ruled Anielle. The citizens of Anielle were warriors from birth, and had been guardians against the hordes of the wild men from the White Fang Mountains for generations. Thankfully, things had gotten a little easier for the warriors of Anielle in the past ten years; the White Fang mountain men had been one of the first peoples to be put down by Adarlan’s conquering armies, and very rarely did their rebels make it to slavery. She’d heard tales of mountain men killing their wives and children, then themselves, rather than be taken by Adarlan. The thought of Chaol going up against hundreds of them—against men built like Cain—made her a little sick.

“Yes,” Chaol said, fiddling with the long hunting knife at his side. “I was slotted to join the Royal Council, like my father; he wanted me to spend some time among my own people, and learn . . . whatever it is councilmen learn. He said that with the King’s army now in the mountains, we could move our interests from fighting the mountain folk to politics.” His golden eyes were distant. “But I missed Rifthold.”

“So you ran away?” She marveled that he was volunteering this much—hadn’t he refused to tell her almost anything about himself while traveling from Endovier?

“Ran away?” Chaol chuckled. “No. Dorian convinced the Captain of the Guard to take me as his apprentice, with the help of Brullo. My father refused. So I abdicated my title as Lord of Anielle to my brother and left the next day.”

The captain’s silence suggested what he could not say. That his father hadn’t objected. What of his mother? He loosed a long breath. “What about you, then?”

She crossed her arms. “I thought you didn’t want to know anything about me.”

There was a ghost of a smile on his face as he watched the sky melt into a smear of tangerine. “What do your parents make of their daughter being Adarlan’s Assassin?”

“My parents are dead,” she said. “They died when I was eight.”

“So you—”

Her heart thundered in her chest. “I was born in Terrasen, then I became an assassin, then I went to Endovier, and now I’m here. And that’s it.”

Silence fell; then he asked, “Where’d you get that scar on your right hand?” She didn’t need to glance at the jagged line that ran along the top of her hand, just above her wrist. She flexed her fingers.

“When I was twelve, Arobynn Hamel decided I wasn’t nearly as skilled at swordplay with my left hand. So he gave me a choice: either he could break my right hand, or I could do it myself.” The phantom memory of the blinding pain lanced through her hand. “That night, I put my hand against a doorframe, and slammed the door shut on it. I split my hand wide open and broke two bones. It took months to heal—months during which I could only use my left hand.” She gave him a vicious smile. “I bet Brullo never did that to you.”

“No,” he said quietly. “No, he didn’t.” He cleared his throat and stood. “The first Test is tomorrow. Are you ready?”

“Of course,” she lied.

He remained standing there for a moment longer, studying her. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning,” he said, and left. In the silence that followed in his wake, she contemplated his story, the paths that had made them so different, but so similar. She wrapped her arms around herself, a cold wind picking up the skirts of her dress and blowing them behind her.





Chapter 15

Though she’d never admit it, Celaena didn’t really know what to expect at their first Test. With all the training over the past five days and fiddling with various weapons and techniques, her body ached. Which was another thing she’d never admit, even though hiding the throbbing pain in her limbs was nearly impossible. As Celaena and Chaol entered the giant sparring room in the morning, she glanced at her competitors and remembered she wasn’t the only one who hadn’t a clue what to expect. A towering black curtain had been swept across half of the room, blocking the other half from sight. Whatever lay beyond that curtain, she realized, was to decide the fate of one of them.

The normal ruckus had been replaced by a rustling quiet—and rather than mill about, the competitors lingered by their trainers’ sides. She kept close to Chaol, which wasn’t a change from the ordinary. But the sponsors atop the mezzanine looking over the black-and-white checkered floor were. Her throat tightened as her gaze met with that of the Crown Prince. Aside from sending her his books, she hadn’t seen or heard from him since the meeting with the king. He flashed her a grin, those sapphire eyes gleaming in the morning light. She offered him a tight smile in return and quickly looked away.

Brullo stood by the curtain, a scarred hand upon his sword, and Celaena studied the scene. Someone stepped to her side. She knew who it was before he spoke. “It’s a bit dramatic, don’t you think?”