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?”
“You’re drunk,” he told her, so close her chest brushed his. “And he knew it, too.”
“So?” Even as she said it, someone dancing wildly crashed into her and set her reeling. Sam caught her around the waist, his hands firm on her as he kept her from falling to the ground.
“You’ll thank me in the morning.”
“Just because we’re working together doesn’t mean I’m suddenly incapable of handling myself.” His hands were still on her waist.
“Let me take you home.” She glanced toward the alcoves. Doneval was passed out cold on the shoulder of a very bored-looking courtesan. Arobynn and Bardingale were still deep in their conversation.
“No,” she said. “I don’t need an escort. I’ll go home when I feel like it.” She slipped out of his grasp, slamming into the shoulder of someone behind her. The man apologized and moved away. “Besides,” Celaena said, unable to stop the words or the stupid, useless jealousy that grabbed control of her, “don’t you have Lysandra or someone equally for hire to be with?”
“I don’t want to be with Lysandra, or anyone else for hire,” he said through gritted teeth. He reached for her hand. “And you’re a damned fool for not seeing it.”
She shook off his grip. “I am what I am, and I don’t particularly care what you think of me.” Maybe once he might have believed that, but now …
“Well, I care what you think of me. I care enough that I stayed at this disgusting party just for you. And I care enough that I’d attend a thousand more like it so I can spend a few hours with you when you aren’t looking at me like I’m not worth the dirt beneath your shoes.”
That made her anger stumble. She swallowed hard, her head spinning. “We have enough going on with Doneval. I don’t need to be fighting with you.” She wanted to rub her eyes, but she would have ruined the cosmetics on them. She let out a long sigh. “Can’t we just … try to enjoy ourselves right now?”
Sam shrugged, but his eyes were still dark and gleaming. “If you want to dance with that man, then go ahead.”
“It’s not about that.”
“Then tell me what it’s about.”
She began wringing her fingers, then stopped herself. “Look,” she said, the music so loud it was hard to hear her own thoughts. “I—Sam, I don’t know how to be your friend yet. I don’t know if I know how to be anyone’s friend. And … Can we just talk about this tomorrow?”
He shook his head slowly, but gave her a smile, even though it didn’t reach his eyes. “Sure. If you can remember anything tomorrow,” he said with forced lightness. She made herself smile back at him. He jerked his chin toward the dancing. “Go have fun. We’ll talk in the morning.” He stepped closer, as if he’d kiss her cheek, but then thought better of it. She couldn’t tell if she was disappointed or not as he squeezed her shoulder instead.
With that, he vanished into the crowd. Celaena stared after him until a young woman pulled her into a circle of dancing girls, and the revelry took hold of her again.
The rooftop of her new apartment looked out over the Avery River, and Celaena sat on the walled edge, her legs dangling off the side. The stone beneath her was chill and damp, but the rain had stopped during the night, and fierce winds had blown the clouds away as the stars faded and the sky lightened.
The sun broke over the horizon, flooding the snaking arm of the Avery with light. It became a living band of gold.
The capital began to stir, chimneys puffing up smoke from the first of the day’s fires, fishermen calling to each other from the nearby docks, young children rushing through the streets with bundles of wood or the morning papers or buckets of water. Behind her, the glass castle shimmered in the dawn.
She hadn’t been to her new apartment since she’d returned from the desert, so she’d taken a few minutes to walk through the spacious rooms hidden on the upper floor of a fake warehouse. It was the last place anyone would expect her to purchase a home, and the warehouse itself was filled with bottles of ink—a supply no one was likely to break in and steal. This was a place that was hers and hers alone. Or it would be, as soon as she told Arobynn she was leaving. Which she’d do as soon as she finished this business with Doneval. Or sometime soon after that. Maybe.
She inhaled the damp morning air, letting it wash through her. Seated on the roof ledge, she felt wonderfully insignificant—a mere speck in the vastness of the great city. Yet she also felt as if all of it were hers for the taking.
Yes, the party had been delightful, but there was more to the world than that. Bigger things, more beautiful things, more real things. Her future was hers, and she had three trunks of gold hidden in her room that would solidify it. She could make of her life what she wanted.
Celaena leaned back on her hands, drinking in the awakening city. And as she watched the capital, she had the joyous feeling that the capital watched her back.
Chapter Six
Since she’d forgotten to do it at the party the night before, she meant to thank Sam for the music during their usual tumbling lesson after breakfast. But several of the other assassins were also in the training hall, and she had no desire to explain the gift to any of the older men. They would undoubtedly take it the wrong way. Not that they particularly cared about what she was up to; they did their best to stay out of her way, and she didn’t bother to get to know them, either. Besides, her head was throbbing thanks to staying up until dawn and drinking all that sparkling wine, so she couldn’t even think of the right words just now.
She went through her training exercises until noon, impressing their instructor with the new ways she’d learned to move while she was in the Red Desert. She felt Sam watching her from the mats a few feet away. She tried not to look at his shirtless chest, gleaming with sweat, as he took a running jump, nimbly flipping through the air and landing almost soundlessly on the ground. By the Wyrd, he was fast. He’d certainly spent the summer training, too.
“Milady,” the instructor coughed, and she turned to him, giving a glare that warned him not to comment. She slid into a backbend, then flipped out of it, her legs smoothly rising over her head and back to the floor.
She landed in a kneel, and looked up to see Sam approaching. Stopping before her, he gave the instructor a sharp jerk of his chin, and the stocky, compact man found somewhere else to be.
“He was helping me,” Celaena said. Her muscles quivered as she stood. She’d trained hard this morning, despite how little sleep she’d gotten—which had nothing to do with the fact that she hadn’t wanted to spend a moment alone with Sam in the training hall.
“He’s here every other day. I don’t think you’re missing anything vital,” Sam replied. She kept her gaze on his face. She’d seen Sam shirtless before—she’d seen all of the assassins in various stages of undress thanks to their training—but this felt different.