Throne of Glass: Chapters 1–9

After a day of cleaving rock salt from the innards of the mountain, finding him standing there with six guards hadn’t improved her mood.

They turned down another hallway, and she studied the stranger’s finely crafted sword. Its shimmering pommel was shaped like an eagle midflight.

A glass chandelier shaped like a grapevine occupied most of the ceiling, spitting seeds of diamond fire onto the windows along the far side of the room. Compared to the bleakness outside those windows, the opulence felt like a slap to the face.

Celaena stumbled, her calloused feet slipping on the smooth floor as she straightened herself.

If she were bound for the gallows, she would most certainly not spend the last moments of her life in groveling submission.

On his black doublet, an emblazoned gold rendering of the royal wyvern occupied the entirety of the chest.

“She has somewhat of a tongue, doesn’t she? And she doesn’t sound like a member of the rabble.”

“There’s no hope of escaping from Endovier. Your father made sure that each of Endovier’s sentries could shoot a squirrel from two hundred paces away. To attempt to flee is suicide.”

She shrugged and he smiled, forcing the mood to lift as he stepped from the dais.

“My father needs someone to aid the empire—someone to help him maneuver around difficult people.”
“You mean he needs a lackey for his dirty work.”

Her wrists chafed against her shackles badly enough that her eyes watered.

She’d felt everything—the reverberations of the key turning in the lock of her irons, then again as they loosened and fell to the floor.

It was haggard: her cheekbones were sharp, her jaw pronounced, and her eyes slightly, but ever so disturbingly, sunken in.

However, the unbearable urge to splatter someone across a wall lessened when they brought her a piebald mare to ride.

With most of the slaves working the mines, and only a few toiling inside the ramshackle refining sheds, the giant yard was almost deserted.

She knew plenty about this forest, knew that the denizens of this place had once been faeries: gnomes, sprites, nymphs, goblins, more names than anyone could count or remember.

The king had claimed that magic was an affront to the Goddess and her gods—that to wield it was to impertinently imitate their power.

“Bring that one, I suppose.” Celaena bristled. “That one”! As if she were a piece of baggage!

It was gargantuan, a vertical city of shimmering, crystalline towers and bridges, chambers and turrets, domed ballrooms and long, endless hallways.

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.

“You look as if you’re facing the gallows, not your freedom,” the captain said beside her.

Trumpeters signaled their arrival as they passed through the looming alabaster walls of Rifthold.

They followed the Crown Prince, who, like Chaol, was swathed in a red cape, pinned over the left breast with a brooch fashioned after the royal seal.

The prince wore a golden crown upon his neat hair, and she had to concede that he looked rather regal.

Celaena couldn’t help but notice the sharp stares from the same women when they beheld her in the prince’s retinue.

Celaena opened and closed the doors of her armoire, dresser, and vanity.

When she was certain no one was in her chambers, she entered the foyer and strode through it to the gaming room.

She wore a dress with skirts and long sleeves of white, streaked and spotted with orchid-purple. The indigo bodice was bordered with a thin line of gold, and an ice-white cape hung from her shoulders.

“Beautiful,” said an older, female voice, and Celaena pivoted, the yards of cumbersome fabric twisting with her.

“She owes allegiance to none but herself, and won’t balk at putting a knife through your heart.”

Dorian, realizing how close he was to crossing a boundary between impertinence and rebellion—a boundary that he’d been very, very careful to maintain—mumbled his apologies.

Marry a proper woman, then dally as you will after you give me a grandson or two.

The back of the king’s hand connected with Dorian’s cheek, and the prince staggered, but regained his countenance.

“Is there no menagerie or library that we could see?”

The sounds of lilting speech reached them, along with the gentle strumming of a harp.

Compared to the sunlit hallway, the interior that stretched beyond them seemed formidably dark, but as she stepped inside, candelabras came into view, along with black-and-white marble floors, large mahogany tables with red velvet chairs, a slumbering fire, mezzanines, bridges, ladders, railings, and then books—books and books and books.

Compared to the sunlit hallway, the interior that stretched beyond them seemed formidably dark, but as she stepped inside, candelabras came into view, along with black-and-white marble floors, large mahogany tables with red velvet chairs, a slumbering fire, mezzanines, bridges, ladders, railings, and then books—books and books and books.

Since I am deprived of company and entertainment, this act of kindness is the least someone of your importance could deign to bestow upon a lowly, miserable wretch such as I.

She made to sit down upon the mauve ottoman.

She curtsied, looking up at him beneath lowered lashes. “Where, pray tell, are we going?”
“Oh, don’t simper at me.”