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October 2 - October 8, 2023
they looked to one another for learning. Embraced collective wisdom. Older warriors smiled as they taught the acolytes; seasoned assassins swapped techniques. And while they were all competitors, it appeared that an invisible link bound them together. Something had brought them to this place at the ends of the earth. More than a few, she discovered, were actually mute from birth. But all of them seemed full of secrets. As if the fortress and what it offered somehow held the answers they sought. As if they could find whatever they were looking for in the silence.
“That doesn’t mean I have to enjoy it. I suppose that someone from the Western Wastes would find this luxurious.”
“After that, my father walloped us within an inch of our lives, and we were on kitchen duty for six months, but he knew my sister’s guilt would be punishment enough. She never really lost that haunted gleam in her eyes.”
“I’ll tell you a valuable secret: the only way to kill a witch is to cut off her head. Besides, I don’t think an Ironteeth witch stands much of a chance against us.”
There was no sign that anyone knew anything about the ill-fated attack on the Silent Assassins the other night.
And she’d never seen so much of it before. It was so rare that if you wanted it, odds were you had to go and get it for yourself. But here it was, yards of raw material waiting to be shaped. It was a kingdom’s ransom.
“You can’t honestly think no one knows about the sessiz suikast? Why else would a seventeen-year-old girl bearing exquisite daggers be here unescorted?
heard from a city guard that strange dealings go on between Berick and some of the Silent Assassins.”
He’d threatened to kill Arobynn. For hurting her. She tried to work through it, tried to figure out what had changed in Skull’s Bay to make Sam dare say such a thing to the King of the Assassins.
Celaena sloshed the wine around in her glass. If she were being honest, sometimes she thought Sam looked at her that way. But then he’d go and say something absurd, or try to undermine her, and she’d chide herself for even thinking that about him.
If Arobynn ever laid a hand on her or Sam again, she’d see to it that he lost that hand. Actually, she’d see to it that he lost everything up to the elbow.
“I’m sorry,” she said thickly, trying not to look too mortified. “I—I can’t. I mean, I’m leaving in a week. And … and you live here. And I’m in Rifthold, so …” She was babbling. She should stop. Actually, she should just stop talking. Forever.
If only we didn’t live thousands of miles apart. But can you blame me for trying?
No; it was the memory of Sam’s face that had stopped her from kissing him.
“Because everything will be different. Everything is already different. I think everything changed when Arobynn punished me, but … Some part of me still thinks that the world will go back to
way it was before that night. Before I went to Skull’s Bay.”
I’m sorry it had to end this way. The Master said it would be easier to let you go like this, rather than shame you by publicly asking you to leave early. Kasida is yours—as is the Master’s letter of approval, which is in the saddlebag. Go home. I will miss
you, Ansel
Her lips trembled, but she squared her shoulders and scanned the night sky until she found the Stag and the crowning star that led north. Sighing, Celaena blew out the lantern, mounted Kasida, and rode into the night.
If the Master had known about the attack, he would have been fortifying his defenses already; he wouldn’t have sent Celaena away. She was Adarlan’s greatest assassin, and if two hundred men were marching on his fortress, he’d need her. The Master wasn’t proud—not like Arobynn. He truly loved his disciples; he looked after and nurtured them. But he’d never trained Ansel. Why?
“Because Lord Berick promised me a thousand men to march into the Flatlands, that’s why. Stealing those horses was exactly the public excuse he needed to attack this fortress.
“Because I know what it feels like.” She dared another step. “Because I know how it feels to have that kind of hate, Ansel. I know how it feels. And this isn’t the way. This,”
“I’ve become an assassin because I had no choice. But you have a choice, Ansel. You’ve always had a choice. Please don’t kill him.”
True. Ansel might've shared a similar fate with Aelin, but the difference is that Ansel can still have a home and can have people who back her up in her hometown, Aelin's family meanwhile... practically scattered.
“I am glad you did not kill Ansel.” His voice was raw, and his accent thick with the clipped yet rolling sounds of some language she’d never heard before. “I have been wondering when she would decide what to do with her fate.”
“I have known for years. Several months after Ansel’s arrival, I sent inquiries to the Flatlands. Her family had not written her any letters, and I was worried that something might have happened.”
“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.”
“For saving my life—and sparing hers.” He flipped open the lid of a trunk, then another, and another.
“When you give your master his letter, also give him this. And tell him that in the Red Desert, we do not abuse our disciples.” Celaena smiled slowly. “I think I can manage that.”
“With the time it’d take for the messengers to track you down, you probably would have been on your way home, anyway.”
He loved her like family, yet he put her in the most dangerous positions. He nurtured and educated her, yet he’d obliterated her innocence the first time he’d made her end a life. He’d given her everything, but he’d also taken everything away.
He’d switched loyalties—he’d chosen to stand by her, fight for her. If anything, that made him different from Ansel. Sam could have hurt or betrayed her a dozen times over, but he’d never jumped at the opportunity.
I am more important than you; I have more influence than you; I am everything and you are nothing.
Half a day later—her hair cut and shining, her nails soft and gleaming—Celaena braved the sodden city streets.
“My price was his oath that he’d never lay a hand on you again. I told him I’d forgive him in exchange for that.”
But when they failed to have children and some of his less … desirable behavior was revealed, she managed to get out of the marriage, still young, but far richer.”
If she planned to have him assassinated, then pretending to be his friend would help keep fingers from pointing her way.
The music broke her apart and put her back together, only to rend her asunder again and again.
“Celaena.” She looked back at him, her red gown sweeping around her. His eyes shone as he flashed her a crooked grin. “I missed you this summer.” She met his stare unflinchingly, returning the smile as she said, “I hate to admit it, Sam Cortland, but I missed your sorry ass, too.”
“Sometimes I think so, too. Certainly made my life more interesting. I wonder, though—if I’m helping you, does it mean I get to be your Second when you run the Assassins’ Guild? Or does it just mean that I can boast that the famed Celaena Sardothien finally finds me worthy?”
“I don’t want to be with Lysandra, or anyone else for hire,” he said through gritted teeth. He reached for her hand. “And you’re a damned fool for not seeing it.”
“Well, I care what you think of me. I care enough that I stayed at this disgusting party just for you. And I care enough that I’d attend a thousand more like it so I can spend a few hours with you when you aren’t looking at me like I’m not worth the dirt beneath your shoes.”
“Please,” Sam begged as he beat and yanked on the grate, then tried to wedge another dagger under the lid. “Please don’t.” She knew he wasn’t speaking to her. The water hit her neck. “Please,” Sam moaned, his fingers now touching hers. She’d have one last breath. Her last words. “Take my body home to Terrasen, Sam,” she whispered. And with a gasping breath, she went under.
“Because,” she said, “my list of people to kill is now one person longer.”
“The moment I woke up after he beat me, I realized I had to leave. Because I was going to kill him if I didn’t. But I couldn’t.” He studied her face. “Not until you came back. Not until I knew you were all right—until I saw that you were safe.”
“You’re a damned idiot,” she breathed. “You’re a moron and an ass and a damned idiot.” He looked like she had hit him. But she went on, and grasped both sides of his face, “Because I’d pick you.” And then she kissed him.
In the silence of her bedroom, she swore an oath to the moonlight that if Sam were hurt, no force in the world would hold her back from slaughtering everyone responsible.
“Doneval …,” Philip rasped, “… loved his country …” He took a wet breath, hate and grief mingling in his eyes. “You don’t know anything.” He was dead a moment later. “Maybe,” she said as she looked down at his body. “But I knew enough just then.”
Her hands shaking, she shifted his body into a sitting position so he wouldn’t be face-first on the filthy ground. Why had he sacrificed himself to keep this information safe? Noble or not, foolish or not, she couldn’t let it go. She straightened his coat.
Doneval loves his country, Philip had said. Doneval had been working to set up a system of safe houses and form an alliance of people against slavery across the empire. Doneval, bad habits or not, had been working to help the slaves. And she’d killed him.
Not until she’s had a chance to speak to the people on this list and … persuade them to support her business endeavors. But if they don’t, perhaps those documents will find their way into the glass castle after all.”
