The prince’s eyes shone with amusement at her brashness but lingered a bit too long on her body.

So either Dorian has an anorexia fetish, or Celaena isn’t really on a ‘you’ll be dead in a few months so whatever’ diet.

Dorian sends everyone out of the room except Chaol.

He couldn’t honestly believe he’d contain her if she tried to escape!

Let’s make a new drinking game.  One shot each for every instance of bragging and exclamation point.

Take a shot of beer instead of liquor so you don’t die.

\~/  \~/

Dorian’s father has decided he needs a Champion, which is pretty loosely defined here but seems to mean just a personal assassin and mess-cleaner-uper?  It’s pretty weird, since King’s Champion is an actual position, and is nothing like what they’re talking about here.  Basically, over here in reality, the Champion stands in for the king if the king is ever challenged to a duel, because the king can’t fight himself due to reasons of royal mumbo jumbo.  Now, of course a fantasy novel doesn’t have to keep the exact same roles and duties as over here, but when you’re using the same words to describe a position, the position should be at least reminiscent of reality.  In the Tortall books, the King’s Champion position was basically the same, but had expanded scope.  In this book, they’re confusing a King’s Champion with an actual assassin.  Assassins are secret, Champions are openly acknowledged. 

“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.”

I mean, if that’s all he needs, then he should already have it.  He’s got a fucking army, and presumably a spymaster, and he’s a conquering king so he has no qualms about just beating down other countries.  He could just find a general and say “hey, get one of your sneakiest scouts to go kill that dude I don’t like.”

To sweeten the pot, the king is offering her freedom and a good bit of money if she serves for six years.

But there’s a catch: she isn’t being offered the position, but instead the opportunity to compete for it.  Her other competitors will be more outlaw types, who presumably also get pardoned in six years if they win?

I don’t get it.  Why doesn’t he just hire all of them?  The more the merrier; I’m sure he’s got plenty of people he wants killed.  It’s not like there’s a rule somewhere that says you can only hire one assassin at a time.

Also, she’ll be competing under an alias, because after she was caught the government told the world she was much older to avoid the embarrassment of having a kid get away with all she got away with.  (What did she even do?  We still don’t know.) 

“I’m capable of quite a lot, thank you,” she said, picking at her jagged nails. She tried not to cringe at all the dirt beneath them. When was the last time her hands had been clean?

Seriously, why are you so obsessed with dirt?

“Yes, but I don’t see why I have to go through the training and the competition. I mean, I’m bound to be a bit … out of shape, but … what else do you expect when I have to make do with rocks and pickaxes in this place?”

So, yeah, she’s fine except for being dirty and not having access to a gym.

She bargains the prince down to four years of service instead of six.  If she loses, she’ll be sent back to the mines.

“Then I might as well leap from the window. A year in this place has worn me through—imagine what will happen if I return. I’d be dead by my second year.”

Sweetie, you can’t say that a year has left you ‘a bit out of shape’ and then claim it’s ‘worn you through’ all on the same page.

She gets servants to bathe her and a fancy room and dinner.  She claims that she threw up after a few bits of dinner because real food was too much for her after being starving so long, but it rings pretty false when she 1) hasn’t shown any sign of being physically hampered by malnourishment and 2) decided to complain about the chicken being dry.  Priorities, book.  Get you some.

She’d wasted away to nothing. Beneath her nightgown, her ribs reached out from inside of her, showing bones where flesh and meat should have been.

Yeah, Dorian has a starvation fetish, then.

The next day, there’s actually nice little bit with Caleana getting all giddy over seeing sunlight, because she’s usually down in a mine in the dark all the time.  It’s actually fairly well done and a nice little spot of quality.

Her lips peeled into a smile.

And then we return to our regularly scheduled programming.  *sigh*

She loved clothes—loved the feeling of silk, of velvet, of satin, of suede and chiffon—and was fascinated by the grace of seams, the intricate perfection of an embossed surface. And when she won this ridiculous competition, when she was free … she could buy all the clothes she wanted.

Thank god, at least this time we won’t have to deal with any of that “I’m not like those girls that talk about clothes” bullshit.  Yes, you can like dresses and still stab people!  Bonus points for you, book!

There’s even another pretty good point right after that, where Caleana is all happy about finally get out, but then her mood changes when she realizes that her getting out don’t mean shit for all the people still in the mines.  It’s not overplayed, it’s just a nice little contrast there.

…Which gets immediately forgotten a moment later in favor of puppies.  The prince’s group is all gathered to leave, and apparently he has a pair of dogs that just love Caleana, so we spend a bit of time with dog-petting and prince-bantering.

The mount up, but Chaol chains her wrist to his horse, so she’s on a leash.  Obvious safety measure is obvious.

She shifted her hands in their shackles, watching the chains sway and clank between her and the Captain of the Guard. It was attached to his saddle, which was cinched around his horse, which, when they stopped, could be subtly unbridled, just enough so that with a fierce tug from her end, the chain would rip the saddle off the beast, he’d tumble to the ground, and she would—

Look, either do something or stop taunting me.  I’m sick to death of hearing about all the things she could do and not getting to see anything.

\~/  

The problem is, this is almost an interesting trait.  It shows us what her mind is preoccupied with, that she’s always thinking about this sort of thing.  Like people who walk into a room and the first thing they think of is ‘how many exits are there,’ even if they’re not about to flee or something.  Or people who always size up someone as if they’re an opponent, even if they’re just meeting them in a neutral social situation.  These are valid responses to the kind of life you need to leave to be a top-dog fighter.  But in this book’s case…there’s a line, and this book pole vaulted over that line, crossed from subtle character trait into straight-up bragging.  First of all, half of these lines are physically impossible anyway.  Second, they’re not backed up in the least by her actions.  Third, they’re too long and convoluted, so they stand out of the narrative.  They’re not small lines that can be excused as a passing observation, they’re practically Scrubs-level fantasies, and something that has that much focus needs to have some narrative payoff.  These don’t. 

By midmorning they were within Oakwald Forest, the wood that surrounded Endovier and served as a continental divide between the “civilized” countries of the East and the uncharted lands of the West.

Words: they still mean things.

As they ride, Caleana tries to chat up Chaol, but she doesn’t get very far.  He’s dodgy about his family/title, he’s 22, Caleana is 18.  That’s about all the relevant information that we get after three pages of talking.  *yawn*

Here’s all your exclamation shots for this chapter.

\~/  \~/  \~/  \~/  \~/  \~/  \~/  \~/  \~/  \~/  \~/