The Assassin's Blade (Throne of Glass, #0.1-0.5)

by Sarah J. Maas

“Just so you know,” she said, speaking to all of them but still watching Sam, “I’m going to retrieve Ben’s body.” A muscle feathered in Sam’s jaw, though he wisely kept his eyes averted. “But don’t expect me to extend the same courtesy to the rest of you when your time comes.”

Slowly, Celaena turned north, toward the source of the breeze, which smelled of a faraway land she hadn’t seen in eight years. Pine and snow—a

daddy rowan

She leaned closer to Rolfe. “If you make my master and me as much money as you claim, I’ll show you my face.” Rolfe glanced at the tattooed map on his hands. “Did you really sell your soul for that?” she asked. “When you show me your face, I’ll tell you the truth.” She extended her hand. “Deal.”

They hadn’t bothered to listen when her mother explained that her power, like Yrene’s, had already disappeared months before, along with the rest of the magic in the land—abandoned by the gods, her mother had claimed. No, the soldiers hadn’t listened at all. And neither had any of those vanished gods to whom her mother and Yrene had pleaded for salvation.

This girl wasn’t like wildfire—she was wildfire. Deadly and uncontrollable. And slightly out of her wits.

The gods had vanished, her mother had once claimed. But had they? Had it been some god who had visited tonight, clothed in the skin of a battered young woman?

Magic had been gone all these years. And the gods were dead, or simply didn’t care anymore. Yet there, deep in her gut, was a small but insistent tug. A tug on a strand of some invisible web. So Celaena decided to tug back, just to see how far and wide the reverberations would go.

Hoped that an assassin’s jewel would pay for a healer’s education. So maybe it was the gods at work. Maybe it was some force beyond them, beyond mortal comprehension. Or maybe it was just for what and who Celaena would never be.

“Looks like we’re sharing a room while you’re here.” The Master gestured again, his calloused, scarred fingers creating rudimentary gestures that Ansel could somehow decipher. “Say, how long will that be, actually?” Celaena fought her frown. “One month.” She inclined her head to the Master. “If you allow me to stay that long.” With the month that it took to get here, and the month it would take to get home, she’d be away from Rifthold three months before she returned.

Yeah no shit

“Looks like we’re sharing a room while you’re here.” The Master gestured again, his calloused, scarred fingers creating rudimentary gestures that Ansel could somehow decipher. “Say, how long will that be, actually?” Celaena fought her frown. “One month.” She inclined her head to the Master. “If you allow me to stay that long.” With the month that it took to get here, and the month it would take to get home, she’d be away from Rifthold three months before she returned.

Yeah that’s how math works guys

Arobynn would never permanently maim her, but Sam might have fared worse. Sam had always been the expendable one.

But the Ironteeth Clans have iron teeth, sharp as a fish’s.

No shit

“So noble of you,” Celaena said. “Ansel of Briarcliff, Defender of the Realm.”

“Is there anything to be done about the years you lost?” He waved a hand. “I followed the western side of the mountains on my way here, and met an old witch along the way. I asked if she could fix me, but she said what was taken was taken, and only the death of the spider who consumed my twenty years could return them to me.” He examined his hands, already lined with age. “For a copper more, she told me that only a great warrior could slay a stygian spider. The greatest warrior in the land … Though perhaps an assassin from the North might do.”

I ran and ran until I couldn’t run anymore, at the foothills of the White Fang Mountains. And that’s when I collapsed at the campfire of a witch—one of the Ironteeth. I didn’t care if she killed me. But she told me that it was not my fate to die there. That I should journey south, to the Silent Assassins in the Red Desert, and there … there I would find my fate. She fed me, and bound my bleeding feet, and gave me gold—gold that I later used to commission my armor—then

Celaena didn’t move. “Go to hell.” Ansel chuckled. “I’ve been to hell. I spent some time there when I was twelve, remember?

I did my waiting, 12 years of it, in Azkaban

Celaena lowered her bow and watched until Ansel disappeared beyond the horizon. One arrow, that had been her promise. But she’d also promised Ansel that she had twenty minutes to get out of range. Celaena had fired after twenty-one.

“How is it that you’re speaking to me now? I thought your vow of silence was eternal.” He shrugged. “The world seems to think so, but as far as my memory serves me, I’ve never officially sworn to be silent. I choose to be silent most of the time, and I’ve become so used to it that I often forget I have the capacity for speech, but there are some times when words are necessary—when explanations are needed that mere gestures cannot convey.”

No missing limbs, no limp, no indication of anything haunting him. His chestnut hair had gotten a little longer, but it suited him. And he was tan—gloriously tan, as if he’d spent the whole summer basking in the sun. Hadn’t Arobynn punished him at all?

The music broke her apart and put her back together, only to rend her asunder again and again.

As the final note swelled, a gasp broke from her, setting the tears in her eyes spilling down her face. She didn’t care who saw. Then, silence. The silence was the worst thing she’d ever heard. The silence brought back everything around her.

Then, silence. The silence was the worst thing she’d ever heard.

“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.”

She nodded, inching nearer to him. Of course, it was just to absorb his warmth against the freezing rain. She tried not to notice when he pressed closer to her, too.

“I think I preferred it when you wanted to kill me.” “Sometimes I think so, too.

This was more than a party: it was a performance, an orgy, and a call to worship at the altar of excess. Celaena was a willing sacrifice.

shore

“What’s your name?” he asked above the roar of the music. She leaned close. “My name is Wind,” she whispered. “And Rain. And Bone and Dust. My name is a snippet of a half-remembered song.”

“I have no name,” she purred. “I am whoever the keepers of my fate tell me to be.” He grasped her by her wrist, running a thumb along the sensitive skin underneath. “Then let me call you Mine for a dance or two.”

She lifted her chin and found him looking at the scar along her neck. The narrow ridge would fade—someday.

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.

Why shower her with gifts only to do this? Why deceive her about Doneval and then torture her with it? Why had he saved her life nine years ago just to treat her this way?

He brushed his lips against hers. “I love you,” he breathed against her mouth. “And from today onward, I want to never be separated from you. Wherever you go, I go. Even if that means going to Hell itself, wherever you are, that’s where I want to be. Forever.”

He kissed her thoroughly, lazily, as if he had a lifetime of kisses to look forward to.

“I can wait,” he said thickly, kissing her collarbone. “We have all the time in the world.” Maybe he was right.

“I get scared, too,” he murmured onto her skin. “You want to hear something ridiculous? Whenever I’m scared out of my wits, I tell myself: My name is Sam Cortland … and I will not be afraid. I’ve been doing it for years.”

Sam glanced at her, a hint of amusement shining in his eyes. Celaena smiled at him, and the world, for one flickering heartbeat, felt right.

There was no end to this silence. There would never be an end, only this beginning.

Farran studied his new ally, his gaze glittering. “You have no idea.” After another moment of quiet, he asked, “Why did you do it?” Arobynn’s attention drifted back to the wagon, already a small dot in the rolling foothills above Rifthold. “Because I don’t like sharing my belongings.”