The Assassin and the Underworld (Throne of Glass 0.4)(17)

“So we have our meeting time,” Sam said.

“Indeed we do.” She turned to him with a triumphant smirk, but Sam was now watching Doneval, his frown growing as the man continued pawing at the girls around him.

The music shifted, becoming livelier, the twins’ voices rising in a wraithlike harmony. “And now that I got what I came here for, I want to dance,” Celaena said. “So drink up, Sam Cortland. We’re not washing our hands in blood tonight.”

She danced and danced. The beautiful youths of Melisande had gathered near the platform that held the twin singers, and Celaena had gravitated toward them. Bottles of sparkling wine passed from hand to hand, mouth to mouth. Celaena swigged from all of them.

Around midnight, the music changed, going from organized, elegant dances to a frenzied, sensual sound that had her clapping her hands and stomping her feet in time. The Melisanders seemed eager to writhe and fling themselves about. If there were music and movements that embodied the wildness and recklessness and immortality of youth, they were here, on this dance floor.

Doneval remained where he sat on the cushions, drinking bottle after bottle. He never once glanced in her direction; whoever he had thought Dianna Brackyn was, she was now forgotten. Good.

Sweat ran along every part of her body, but she flung her head back, arms upraised, content to bask in the music. One of the courtesans on the swings flew by so low that their fingers brushed. The touch sent sparks shooting through her. This was more than a party: it was a performance, an orgy, and a call to worship at the altar of excess. Celaena was a willing sacrifice.

The music shifted again, a riot of pounding drums and the staccato notes of the twins. Sam kept a respectful distance—dancing alone, occasionally detangling himself from the arms of a girl who saw his beautiful face and tried to seize him for her own. Celaena tried not to smirk when she saw him politely, but firmly, telling the girl to find someone else.

Many of the older partygoers had long since left, ceding the dance floor to the young and beautiful. Celaena focused long enough to check on Doneval—and to see Arobynn sitting with Bardingale in another one of the nearby alcoves. A few others sat with them, and though glasses of wine littered their table, they all had lowered brows and tight-lipped expressions. While Doneval had come here to feast off his former wife’s fortune, it seemed like she had other thoughts on how to enjoy her party. What sort of strength had it taken to accept that assassinating her former husband was the only option left? Or was it weakness?

The clock struck three—three! How had so many hours passed? A glimmer of movement caught her eye by the towering doors atop the stairs. Four young men wearing masks stood atop the steps, surveying the crowd. It took all of two heartbeats for her to see that the dark-haired youth was their ringleader, and that the fine clothes and the masks they wore marked them as nobility. Probably nobles looking to escape a stuffy function and savor the delights of Rifthold.

The masked strangers swaggered down the steps, one of them keeping close to the dark-haired youth. That one had a sword, she noticed, and from his tensed shoulders, she could tell he wasn’t entirely pleased to be here. But the lips of the ringleader parted in a grin as he stalked into the crowd. Gods above, even with the mask obscuring half of his features, he was handsome.

She danced as she watched him, and, as if he had somehow sensed her all this time, their eyes met from across the room. She gave him a smile, then deliberately turned back toward the singers, her dancing a little more careful, a little more inviting. She found Sam frowning at her. She gave him a shrug.

It took the masked stranger a few minutes—and a knowing smile from her to suggest that she, too, knew exactly where he was—but soon she felt a hand slide around her waist.

“Some party,” the stranger whispered in her ear. She twisted to see sapphire eyes gleaming at her. “Are you from Melisande?”

She swayed with the music. “Perhaps.”

His smile grew. She itched to pull off the mask. Any young nobles who were out at this hour were certainly not here for innocent purposes. Still—who was to say that she couldn’t have some fun, too? “What’s your name?” he asked above the roar of the music.

She leaned close. “My name is Wind,” she whispered. “And Rain. And Bone and Dust. My name is a snippet of a half-remembered song.”

He chuckled, a low, delightful sound. She was drunk, and silly, and so full of the glory of being young and alive and in the capital of the world that she could hardly contain herself.

“I have no name,” she purred. “I am whoever the keepers of my fate tell me to be.”

He grasped her by her wrist, running a thumb along the sensitive skin underneath. “Then let me call you Mine for a dance or two.”

She grinned, but someone was suddenly between them, a tall, powerfully built person. Sam. He ripped the stranger’s hand off of her wrist. “She’s spoken for,” he growled, all too close to the young man’s masked face. The stranger’s friend was behind him in an instant, his bronze eyes fixed on Sam.

Celaena grabbed Sam’s elbow. “Enough,” she warned him.

The masked stranger looked Sam up and down, then held up his hands. “My mistake,” he said, but winked at Celaena before he disappeared into the crowd, his armed friend close behind.

Celaena whirled to face Sam. “What in hell was that for?”