The Assassin and the Desert (Throne of Glass, #0.3)

by Sarah J. Maas

Ansel kept glancing at the palace, still a few blocks away. Nervous that she’d be late? Or nervous that she was going to confront Berick on behalf of the Master?

“A reminder of what?” She shut the lid and tucked the small box into the inner pocket of her white tunic. The merchant smiled sadly. “That everything has a price.” A phantom pain flashed through her face. “I know,” she said, and left.

“Where do men find it in themselves to do such monstrous things? How do they find it acceptable?” “We’ll make them pay for it in the end.” Celaena grasped Ansel’s hand. The girl squeezed back hard. “We’ll see to it that they pay.” “Yes.” Ansel shifted her gaze back to the stars. “Yes, we will.”

Alone in the hallway, Celaena watched the shadows cast by the torches. It hadn’t been the mere impossibility of a relationship with Ilias that had made her pull away. No; it was the memory of Sam’s face that had stopped her from kissing him.

As she swallowed a large mouthful of wine, she had two thoughts. The first was that Ansel’s eyes were now filled with unmasked sorrow. And the second—which explained the first—was that the wine tasted strange. But Celaena didn’t have time to consider what poison it was before she heard her own goblet clatter to the floor, and the world spun and went black.

“When you give your master his letter, also give him this. And tell him that in the Red Desert, we do not beat our disciples.”