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

by Sarah J. Maas

She sketched a bow. “I did nothing of the sort. I told you I was beautiful.”

“If you ever tell anyone about me embracing you … I’ll gut you.”

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?

if you looked through the archway on the night of the summer solstice, then you might see into another world.”

No; it was the memory of Sam’s face that had stopped her from kissing him.

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.

“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.”

“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.”

“Take my body home to Terrasen, Sam,”

She knew it was selfish, and horrible, but she whispered, “Please don’t go.” He let out an uneven breath. “You’ll be fine without me. You always have been.”

He grabbed her shoulders and shook her. “Because I love you!” Her mouth fell open. “I love you,” he repeated, shaking her again. “I have for years. And he hurt you and made me watch because he’s always known how I felt, too. But if I asked you to pick, you’d choose Arobynn, and I. Can’t. Take. It.”

grasped both sides of his face, “Because I’d pick you.” And then she kissed him.

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.”

she’d place Sam in the embrace of the earth and send him to the afterlife knowing he’d been avenged.

Every bite tasted like ash.

Celaena Sardothien lifted her chin and walked into the Salt Mines of Endovier.