We get a summary of the next few days of Cally’s training.  She still gets up early, but also she and Chaol are training in private.  So…why is she getting up early?  The whole point of her ‘extra’ training is so that she doesn’t have to show that off when in the group, but they’re not in the group.

Also, I’m convinced, Chaol isn’t captain of anything, no matter how many times the book calls him that.  This guy has no job at all, or at least no important job, since it can be abandoned to spend all his time with Cally.

Until, that is, she collapsed to the ground and cried that she was about to die of hunger and fatigue.

1) THEN MAYBE YOU SHOULDN’T BE FRONTLOADING YOUR DAY WITH MORE WORK OUTS.  2) It’s not actually a good idea to do this.  You’d tear up your body pretty bad that way.  A good work-out should push you beyond you comfortable limits, but you shouldn’t go until you collapse with fatigue each time.  You’re just going to get injured, and your body will spend more time dealing with the injury than it does building up your strength and stamina.

They train as a group for a couple hours in the afternoon, and Cally spends that time being mediocre but wishing that she got the same amount of praise that Cain did.

I no longer care.  Cally doesn’t want to be the best at anything, she just wants to be recognized as the best, and that’s a different story.  She’s not interested in improving her skills or learning new ones, and she doesn’t care about her craft for the sake of her craft, all she thinks about is getting praise from her peers.  And since we haven’t had any concrete examples of said ‘skills,’ I’m left with the overall impression that she’s not good at stuff, she’s just a self-entitled middle class brat who thinks she deserves to be praised every time she fails to fuck up.

One day Chaol doesn’t show up, and Brullo doesn’t either.  All the guys mill around waiting in the group training area.  Cally and Nox chat about how odd everything is.  One of the unnamed assassins finally gets a name – Pelor – and pops to inform then that Bill was found murdered and torn to shreds that morning.

Everyone seems to think this is odd, but I thought it was expected?  They’re a group of criminals all competing for one shot at freedom and wealth.  Who didn’t see this coming?

Someone comes by to say Brullo isn’t coming and they should all practice however they want, so Cally and Nox go to throw knives at targets.

Who would have killed one of the Champions so brutally? And how had they gotten away with it, if the body was in the hall? This castle was swarming with guards.

You know, killing people in a castle full of guards seems like the JOB DESCRIPTION OF AN ASSASSIN, GOD, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?

As Cally throws knives at the bullseye (finally, some evidence of skill) one of the other guys teases that she’d be better off ‘turning tricks’ in the traditional sense instead of ‘circus tricks.’  However, why has this not been an issue before?  It seems to me that when a guy is naked and alone is a pretty good time to kill him.  No hidden armaments or guards to worry about, and any grunting or weird noises heard from the outside would be assumed to be ‘the throes of passion’ and such.  It’s pretty stereotypical, and I don’t mind getting away from the ‘women only use sex as an attack’ mentality, but it should at least have come up as an option.   Especially since we have no evidence that women are treated differently in this world than they were in our own feudal era.

Cally gives Nox some knife throwing tips, which is honestly a nice scene.  They also chat, talking about Terrassen, their mutual country of origin.

It had been ten years since the royal family had been butchered

This is not the first time this has been brought up.  I’m taking bets now on how long before we find out that she’s some last-remaining-survivor or something.

Chaol comes by later that day, but he refuses to talk about the murder.  They talk about Dorian instead.  And also Chaol’s backstory.  He was oldest son of some noble, but his dad wanted him to do noble stuff instead of be ‘apprentice’ to the Captain of the Guard, so Chaol ‘abdicated’ and ran off.

Can you abdicate from a position you aren’t actually in?

And WTF is this apprentice bullshit?  Shouldn’t the captain of the guard spend some time as an actual guard?  Or at least a low-ranking officer guard.  There is no military organization I can think of where you get to train directly for the highest position without going through some grunt levels first.  He doesn’t have to be a commoner peon; there’s such a thing as entry-level officers.

the White Fang mountain men had been one of the first peoples to be put down by Adarlan’s conquering armies, and very rarely did their rebels make it to slavery. She’d heard tales of mountain men killing their wives and children, then themselves, rather than be taken by Adarlan. The thought of Chaol going up against hundreds of them—against men built like Cain—made her a little sick.

…yes, the genocide victims are so scary, aren’t they?  What with the way they…don’t want their children taken as slaves and all…

In context, this line reads more like “those mountain men were so dangerous before the army went in and slaughtered them all.  Thank goodness!  You can tell how savage they were by how they reacted to getting systematically murdered and enslaved.”  Is there any level of fucked-up you won’t sink to, book?

The next day is the day of the first test.  All the various sponsors are there to watch.  The test ends up being an archery contest.

Some competitors began murmuring, but it was all she could do to keep from beaming. Unfortunately, Cain didn’t bother to hide his triumphant grin. Why couldn’t he have been the Champion who was found dead?

“Stupid Cain.  How dare he feel confident?  Doesn’t he know only I’m allowed to be confident?  I hope he dies because he’s so confident in his own abilities, which is nothing like how I’m overconfident in my own abilities.”

It’s a very dull and straight-forward archery contest.

Brullo’s face was grim. “Didn’t anyone ever teach you how to use a bow, boy?”

Pelor lifted his head, glaring at the Weapons Master with surprising brazenness. “I’m more skilled in poisons.”

“Poisons!” Brullo threw his hands up. “The king wants a Champion—and you couldn’t shoot a cow in a pasture!”

Dafuq and I even looking at?  So the king wants someone to assassinate people for him, but he wants them to assassinate with brute and obvious force and no stealth?  Good god, just form a brute squad out of your army guys and send them around, in that case.

Poisons make for great assassinations!  One of the greatest things you can do against your enemies is not kill them, but scare the snot out of them.  Then you get to keep their usefulness around.  And poisons are mysterious by nature, because it’s often very hard to tell where they came from.  (At least, back then.)  Mystery promotes fear.  If people who are against the king start dropping dead of poison and no one knows how it happens, then they know they think “I can’t stop whatever assassin the king has; better obey instead.”

If, instead, the king just has one guy that kicks in your door so he can shoot you, all you have to do is build a better door.

Everyone in this book is a blithering moron.

It was Nox, actually, who surprised her most, with three bull’s-eyes into the nearer targets and the two final shots along the border of the inner ring. Perhaps she should consider him for an ally.

Has there been any indication so far that you actually need an ally?  Are any of these tests going to be group-effort?

But then Cain stepped up to the white line painted at the back of the room, drew back his yew bow, his black ring glinting, and fired.

Again, and again, and again, within the span of a few seconds.

And when the sound of his final shot stopped echoing in the suddenly silent chamber, Celaena’s stomach turned over. Five bull’s-eyes.

So…magic ring?  I’m now also taking bets on how long it takes for Cally to realize this.

Cally gets all ticked off that Cain is getting praised, because that’s literally their entire relationship so far.  Cain leaves her alone, and Cally just fumes about how he’s from the ‘brutal’ race of people and keeps getting praised.  Rein in your racism there, Cally.

Cally gets her turn and puts up five bullseyes in a row.

After everyone goes, some nameless character gets eliminated and that’s that.

But though she hadn’t lost by any means, Celaena couldn’t stand—absolutely could not stand—the feeling that she hadn’t really won anything at all.

Oh, just shut up already.  What does it take to make you happy?  Genuflecting crowds?  I am so sick of listening to this brat’s whining.

Drinking Game Count:  Epithets – 3, Bragging – 3, Exclamation Marks – 3

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