The Assassin and the Princess

The girl could have been from Fenharrow or Eyllwe with her tan skin, but it was the twin gold bracelets—manacles—around her wrists that marked her as a slave. Gold, chainless manacles that had been welded on—and would never come off.

“We can go somewhere else,” Celaena said softly.

Nehemia just stared at the slave-girl, her face blank. The girl was dressed well, and looked well-fed, but the manacles, so horrifyingly beautiful, gleaming in the warm light…

The women were staring at them now, but the slave-girl kept her eyes down. Didn’t even turn toward them. Celaena rotated her own wrists, a tinge of phantom pain going through the scars that marked where her own shackles—iron and scratched—had once been.

Celaena put a hand on Nehemia’s elbow. “We can—”

“No,” Nehemia said, looking away from the girl and giving Kavill and bland smile. “We shall wait. Please—return to your work,” she said to him, and took a seat on the divan. Celaena slowly sat down beside her, and Nehemia flashed her a brighter smile.

Today, they had agreed when setting out, would just be about enjoying themselves—about letting Celaena dress Nehemia up. Today, they were just two ordinary, perfectly happy girls, out to do some shopping.

Celaena gave her best smile in return.

So Kavill went back to his customers, the soft-spoken Marta came to take their cloaks and gloves and replaced them with jasmine tea, delicate cookies, and a selection of the day’s papers.

“Such service,” Nehemia said when Marta had slipped away to assist Kavill in taking down his measurements and seeing to the needs of their customers. The princess ran an eye around the gilded walls, the racks of sample gowns, the displays of jewelry, shoes, hats, and parasols. “Such wealth, too.”

Celaena, who had been watching one of the women debate whether a quarter of an inch would make her neckline too daring, glanced at the princess. “If it makes you feel better, he’s turned down positions as the royal tailor several times.”

Nehemia raised a well-groomed brow, the gold jewelry she wore glinting in the light of the lily-shaped glass sconces. “I don’t mean to be…difficult,” Nehemia said in the common tongue, any trace of her fake, thick accent gone.

The accent, Celaena had learned, was just to deceive the royal court—to get them to think she was dimwitted, and make them speak more freely when they thought she couldn’t understand. But Nehemia spoke better than the most refined of them. And she had been using the knowledge she’d gleaned to uncover any tidbits of maneuverings that might help the plight of her enslaved people.

It was why they had gone shopping in the first place: to find gowns that Queen Georgina would approve of—gowns to enable Nehemia to cozy up to the queen and her inner circle, to see if she might help Eyllwe by winning over the King of Adarlan’s wife.

“Let’s just enjoy ourselves,” Celaena said, taking a long sip of her jasmine tea, almost groaning at the sheer perfection of it, then adjusting the folds of her forest-green gown. A piece that had been made in this very shop—a fact that she was certainKavill had already noted.

The five other customers cast only a few curious glances their way before they finally left the shop in a flurry of fur cloaks, kidskin gloves, and moans about the endless winter. The slave girl never once looked up, and Celaena could have sworn that Nehemia’s hand twitched when she walked by—as if the princess had contemplated reaching for the girl, and then thought better of it.

When they were at last gone, Marta shut the curtains on the front window, lit a few more sconces, and escorted them to the silk couches before the dressing room curtains. Kavill himself bought them another ornate pot of jasmine tea, and then refilled both their cups.

After Celaena explained that Nehemia needed at least four dresses, two of them to be ball gowns, and all fit for Adarlanianroyalty, Kavill crossed his arms behind his back and paced as he inquired after the colors and fabrics that Nehemia preferred or hated, about her feelings toward low or high necklines, how much mobility she desired, and on and on until Celaena started wondering if Nehemia would snap.

But the princess just smiled at the slender man, answering him with the thick, hesitant accent she used for everyone butCelaena. And then she patiently sat through Kavill and Marta’s presentation of color, cloth, beading, and stitching. It wasn’t until Kavill and Marta went into the back—to get a sample of the blue ball gown in the window—that the princess sagged slightly.

“I think I prefer just having the royal dressmaker bring me something,” she said quietly. “This is truly what you—you enjoydoing?”

Celaena winced, but smiled. “When the mood strikes me, yes.” And now that she had the king’s gold burning a hole in her purse, she was more than happy to spend most of it. “I’ve always liked pretty things—dresses, jewelry, shoes… I suppose it’s easy to dismiss it as frivolous, but a gown like the onesKavill makes is art. It’s art, and mathematics, and economics.”

Nehemia’s brows lifted and Celaena shrugged, but turned to point to the red velvet sheath dress in the window display.

“That gown in the window—think about how Kavill had to first come up with the design, then get the measurements just right to match the image in his head, then find the right vendor to supply the perfect red velvet and black lace. Think about where that velvet and lace came from—the velvet from the port in Meah, the lace from Melisande, the thread that holds the whole thing together from a spinner in Fenharrow. Think about where the dyes for the red and the black came from, too—think about all the people and places that had a hand in that dress coming together. It’s like a map of the continent, and every part of it tells a story, and—” Celaena trailed off and snorted. “Well, map and story aside, it’s also pretty as hell.”

Nehemia chuckled quietly. “I think I’m beginning to understand. Though I think you also just like to look better than everyone else, my friend.”

Celaena laughed, “I wish I could deny it.”

Nehemia grinned. “Don’t bother. It’s why I like you.”

Celaena’s heart tightened at that, her smile growing even wider.

Kavill and Marta came back out a moment later, and Marta ushered the princess into the dressing room to try on the blue ball gown. Getting Nehemia out of her clothes and into the sample gown would take a few minutes, so Celaena browsed the selection of gowns displayed in the shop.