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

by Sarah J. Maas

His eyes—those silver eyes that would probably haunt her for the rest of her life—were bright. “No matter what I have done, I really do love you, Celaena.” The word hit her like a stone to the head. He’d never said that word to her before. Ever. A long silence fell between them. Arobynn’s neck shifted as he swallowed. “I do the things that I do because I’m afraid … and because I don’t know how to express what I feel.” He said it so quietly that she barely heard it. “I did all of those things because I was angry with you for picking Sam.” Was it the King of the Assassins who spoke, or the father, or the lover who had never manifested himself ? Arobynn’s carefully cultivated mask fell, and the wound she’d given him flickered in those magnificent eyes. “Stay with me,” he whispered. “Stay in Rifthold.” She swallowed, and found it particularly hard to do so. “I’m going.” “No,” he said softly. “Don’t go.” No. That was what she’d said to him that night he’d beaten her, in the moment before he’d struck her, when she thought he was going to hurt Sam instead. And then he’d beaten her so badly she’d been knocked unconscious. Then he’d beaten Sam, too. Don’t. That was what Ansel had said to her in the desert, when Celaena had pressed the sword into the back of her neck, when the agony of Ansel’s betrayal had been almost enough to make Celaena kill the girl she’d called a friend. But that betrayal still paled in comparison to what Arobynn had done to her when he’d tricked her into kill...