After two weeks, the group arrives in Rifthold. As Celaena sees Rifthold’s glass castle, she recalls seeing it for the first time as a child. She still finds it to be “tasteless, a waste of resources and talent” (34). Chaol notices Celaena’s apprehension as they approach Rifthold: She still doesn’t know who betrayed her, leading to her arrest and sentencing to Endovier. Celaena tells Chaol about the abuses she suffered at Endovier, but he doesn’t respond. That night, Celaena has a nightmare about the mass graves at Endovier, and resolves to win the competition and her freedom, wanting to “never again have anything to do with the rise and fall of kingdoms” (37).

As Dorian watches Celaena staring at the glass castle, he struggles to reconcile her beauty with her reputation as a deadly and dangerous assassin. 

As Dorian’s entourage parades through Rifthold, Celaena notes the disparity between the luxurious storefronts and the wretchedness of the enslaved prisoners of war who work at the docks. Celaena hates the implication that she is part of the royal family’s inner circle and longs to tell the crowds how she “freed almost two hundred slaves from the Pirate Lord” several years before (41).