The Ragpicker King (The Chronicles of Castellane, #2)

by Cassandra Clare

Some might have admired the view, the stars picked out across the sky as bright as nailheads, the water like hammered glass.

But she knew better than to say it; her own experience with her grandfather had taught her you could easily hate and love someone at the same time. Especially someone who was supposed to love you.

Mariam, it seemed, had chiefly been interested in the great doings of the Sorcerer-Kings, ranging from the impossibly grandiose (one Sorcerer-King had been irritated that a mountain range blocked his view of the sea, so had relocated the entire range to what was now Marakand) to the slightly ridiculous (a Sorcerer-Queen who had magicked up ten thousand cats to be the attendants at her wedding).