Queen Of Glass

Book 2 Chapter 2

Celaena Sardothien sat in the back of the luggage wagon, crammed in between hatboxes and trunks of clothing. Beneath her, the hard wood groaned as it bumped along the crooked and dusty road, the wagon rocking from side to side. Her legs dangled off of the edge, idly swinging in the night air as she looked around at the passing countryside.
The fact that they were traveling at night frustrated Celaena, who believed she had had more than her fair share of night traveling. Against the cloudy dark backdrop of the sky, the assassin could barely make out the outlines of mountains; and she could only tell that they existed because of the firefly lights of the villages nestled into their sides.
It had been heavily raining on and off all evening, and she had dragged out her old green cloak, which was now thoroughly soaked through. The Baroness du Tremaine had ordered a canvas tarp to be placed over her luggage, but had failed to remember her new employee seated in the wagon that followed behind her ornate carriage. Celaena wasn't surprised at being treated in such a manner—she was a servant now, and one under the order of a woman whose physical and mental likeliness to Kaltain R'ompier was unsettling.
Celaena's fingers fiddled affectionately with the ring that sat on her right hand.
I doubt a servant would be wearing something like this...
She reached to pull it off of her finger, but stopped as she felt the warm metal of the band.
It can wait a couple of hours.
The muscles in her chest tightened for a second as a face flashed across her mind, and suddenly three months seemed like an eternity. She wanted to be on a boat to Adarlan, to Renaril, right now. If she came back empty- handed, he'd protect her. He loved her; of course he'd protect her.
Another face passed by and her hopes of giving up were suddenly suppressed by a heavy weight.
He might be able to protect her, but he wouldn't be able to protect him.
Rain began to fall again, and she pulled her cloak closer around her, flipping her hood back over her head. Despite the warm weather and sunny day, it was freezing outside, especially now that they were driving through the mountains. She had spent the remainder of her day seeing as much of Port Moselian as possible, spending what little gold she had left on tasting new foods and buying a new pair of clothes. Celaena reflexively made sure that her sack was carefully tucked beneath the safety of the canvas. Just to make sure...

She had come so close to losing those glass slippers many times in the past few weeks—mainly due to immigration officials searching through her belongings and asking too many questions. They had let her keep them only when she had faked a bout of hysterics, insisting through her tears and wailing that the shoes had been a gift from her dying sister. It was so easy to con men into letting you have things your way when you had a pretty face and a flare for extreme lying.
The assassin frowned. She'd have to keep track of her lies here. She'd have to remember her name, where she came from, and all of the details of her new personality. Biting down on her lip, Celaena ran through everything that she had made up today. It was hard remembering the differences between Ari Mauve and Elentulyai Hamel. Too hard.
Wiping the rain from her face, she carefully considered keeping the few lies that she had told the Baroness and dropping all the rest that kept on popping into her head. Maybe she could just...
Be yourself? You're an assassin. It's impossible to be yourself without the killing and the fighting and crime... Isn't it?
How much of who I am is Adarlan's assassin and how much of who I am is me? Or am I only Adarlan's assassin? Are all of my other traits and likes and dislikes part of the whole that is Adarlan's assassin? Or is Adarlan's assassin just another trait that's part of Celaena Sardothien, which is in itself just another faux identity, another lie...
Celaena drew her soaking-wet legs up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, truly disturbed.
Who exactly am I?
I...I don't know. I don't know who I am at all! Deep down inside, or out in the wild abyss of the dark, what am I? How can I be myself without knowing what myself is made up of?
Her eyes watched the lights of the little villages on the mountainsides in the distance, their golden balls of flame like isolated and scattered campfires of an army waiting in the dark for orders.
I'll just have to take out the assassin in me around these people. I'll have to ignore my killing instincts and skills and just be a normal person for a while. A person who never met Arobynn Hamel or never killed a man with a hairpin or never played midnight games of pool with the Crown Prince of Adarlan...
Does Dorian even know who I am? Does he love me as Adarlan's assassin or as the person outside of that? Or as both? But what's the difference between them, if any at all? What am I to him?
The rain slowed to a stop and a thick, wild-tasting air filled her nostrils. It was the smell of purity, the smell when the blemishes and dirt in nature had been wiped away. The lukewarm haze on which it was carried caressed her senses and gently cradled her face.
Why does he even love me?
Closing her eyes to feel the waves of the mist refresh her tired face, Celaena deeply breathed in the musky air, its lullaby of scents seducing her into sleep.
"I don't even understand why we're here at this hour, Arobynn. It can wait until morning, I'm sure." Celaena Sardothien lit a cigarette and took a long drag, adjusting her red silk robe with her spare hand.
"Umel's been caught. It was a trap." Arobynn Hamel did not look happy.
"Then kill him," she said bluntly, exhaling the smoke into the open space of the underground chamber.
"What?" Another assassin asked, his eyes wide in disbelief.
Celaena looked around at the gathered guild, scanning the uneasy crowd. It was the middle of the night, she needed rest, and she was beginning to get annoyed at being called out of bed for such a trivial matter.
"It's not that hard to understand," she said casually, flicking ashes into the ornate glass ashtray that rested on the table beside her. "Just send an apprentice to slip something into his food. Nothing painful, of course, just something that will kill him before he has time to talk."