Chapter 6
For the next two weeks, they traveled down through the continent, the nights becoming colder, the days shorter. Icy rain kept them company for four days, during which time Celaena was so miserably cold that she contemplated throwing herself into a ravine, hopefully dragging Chaol with her.
Everything was wet and half-frozen, and while she could bear sodden hair, she couldn’t withstand the agony of wet shoes. She had little sensation in her toes. Each night, she wrapped them in whatever spare, dry clothing she could find. She felt as though she were in a state of partial decay, and with each gust of frigid, stinging wind, she wondered when her skin would rip from her bones. But, as it was autumn weather, the rain suddenly disappeared, and cloudless, brilliant skies once more stretched over them.
Celaena was half-asleep on her horse when the Crown Prince pulled out of line and came trotting toward them, his dark hair bouncing. His red cape rose and fell in a crimson wave. Above his unadorned white shirt was a fine cobalt-blue jerkin trimmed with gold. She would have snorted, but he did look rather good in his knee-high brown boots. And his leather belt did go nicely—even though the hunting knife seemed a bit too bejeweled. He pulled up alongside Chaol. “Come,” he said to the captain, and jerked his head at the steep, grassy hill that the company was starting to ascend.
“Where?” the captain asked, jangling Celaena’s chain for Dorian to notice. Wherever he went, she went.
“Come see the view,” Dorian clarified. “Bring that one, I suppose.” Celaena bristled. “That one”! As if she were a piece of baggage!
Chaol moved them out of line, giving her chain a fierce tug. She grasped the reins as they advanced into a gallop, the tangy smell of horsehair creeping into her nostrils. They rode quickly up the steep hill, the horse jerking and surging beneath her. Celaena tried not to wince as she slid backward in the saddle. If she fell, she’d die of humiliation. But the setting sun emerged from the trees behind them, and her breath caught in her throat as a spire, then three, then six more appeared, piercing the sky.
Atop the hill, Celaena stared at the crowning achievement of Adarlan. The glass castle of Rifthold.
It was gargantuan, a vertical city of shimmering, crystalline towers and bridges, chambers and turrets, domed ballrooms and long, endless hallways. It had been built above the original stone castle, and cost a kingdom’s wealth to construct.
She thought of the first time she’d seen it, eight years ago, cold and still, frozen like the earth beneath her fat pony. Even then, she found the castle tasteless, a waste of resources and talent, its towers reaching into the sky like clawed fingers. She remembered the powder-blue cloak that she kept touching, the weight of her fresh curls, the scratch of her stockings against the saddle, how she’d worried about the spot of mud on her red velvet shoes, and how she kept on thinking about that man—the man she’d killed three days earlier.
“One more tower and the whole thing will collapse,” the Crown Prince said from his spot on the other side of Chaol. The sounds of their approaching party filled the air. “We’ve still got a few miles left, and I’d rather navigate these foothills in the daylight. We’ll camp here tonight.”
“I wonder what your father will think of her,” Chaol said.
“Oh, he’ll be fine—until she opens her mouth. Then the bellowing and the blustering will begin, and I’ll regret wasting the past two months tracking her down. But—well, I think my father has more important matters to worry over.” With that, the prince moved off.
Celaena couldn’t keep her eyes from the castle. She felt so small, even from far away. She’d forgotten how dwarfing the building was.
The soldiers scurried about, lighting fires and raising tents. “You look as if you’re facing the gallows, not your freedom,” the captain said beside her.
She wound and unwound a strap of leather rein around a finger. “It’s odd to see it.”
“The city?”
“The city, the castle, the slums, the river.” The shadow of the castle grew across the city like a hulking beast. “I still don’t entirely know how it happened.”
“How you were captured?”
She nodded. “Despite your visions of a perfect world under an empire, your rulers and politicians are quick to destroy each other. So are assassins, I suppose.”
“You believe one of your kind betrayed you?”
“Everyone knew I received the best hires and could demand any payment.” She scanned the twisting city streets and the winding glimmer of the river. “Were I gone, a vacancy would arise from which they could profit. It might have been one; it might have been many.”