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

by Sarah J. Maas

“That means you can stay,” Ansel whispered, and then touched Celaena’s shoulder with an armor-clad hand. Apparently not all the assassins here were under a vow of silence—or had a sense of personal space.

Xd

Sam was dragged out of his chair, his arms pinned back by Tern and Mullin. Harding took a step in front of them, his fist flexing.

Oh no

And Sam kept roaring, shouting words she couldn’t quite hear over the agony.

😭

full of relief that she hadn’t seen him hurt Sam.

Are you this clueless ?

Celaena felt someone’s attention on her, and tried not to blink when she noticed a dark-haired, handsome young man watching her from a few seats down.

Handsome young man? 👀

Well, he was certainly desirable—as desirable as Sam, maybe.

😱

Sam—when had she ever thought of him as desirable? He’d laugh until he died if he ever knew she thought of him like that.

Clueless

“The Master’s son.”

👀

what he’d been shouting when Arobynn beat her, and why Arobynn had thought he’d need three seasoned assassins to restrain him that day.

Yap clueless

“Where do men find it in themselves to do such monstrous things? How do they find it acceptable?”

Great question

And suddenly, as the memory of that day echoed through her, she remembered the words Sam kept screaming at Arobynn as the King of the Assassins beat her, the words that she somehow had forgotten in the fog of pain: I’ll kill you!

SAAAAAM 😭

If Arobynn ever laid a hand on her or Sam again, she’d see to it that he lost that hand.

😭

“You’re just a spoiled, selfish bitch.”

Oof

“I’m scared to go home,”

😭

And the second—which explained the first—was that the wine tasted strange.

PARDON??

Perhaps the Master had also realized that she was spoiled and selfish. Maybe everyone had just been tolerating her, and . . .

girl 😭

Nothing except for the assassins’ fortress.

BITCH GO BACK RIGHT NOW

The assassins could handle themselves. They didn’t need her. They’d made that clear enough.

BITCH NO

Had he sent her away for her own safety, or was he about to be blindsided?

BOM DIA

Celaena had fired after twenty-one.

😭

“If you can learn to endure pain, you can survive anything. Some people learn to embrace it—to love it. Some endure it through drowning it in sorrow, or by making themselves forget. Others turn it into anger. But Ansel let her pain become hate, and let it consume her until she became something else entirely—a person I don’t think she ever wished to be.”

And tell him that in the Red Desert, we do not beat our disciples.”

Bro 😭