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

by Sarah J. Maas

But sweating, her nomad guide had told her, was a good thing—it was when you didn’t sweat that the Red Desert became deadly.

Arobynn’s orders had been simple: she had one month to win the Mute Master’s respect. And if she didn’t return home with his letter of approval—a letter about Celaena Sardothien—she’d better find a new city to live in. Possibly a new continent.

Actually, it was Arobynn who usually saw to it that word got out through the proper channels. She left very little behind once her job was finished. Leaving a sign felt somewhat . . . cheap.

Well, Celaena did want everyone to know that she was the best, but something about the way Ansel said it seemed different from her own reasoning.

“The baths. It’s one of the places here where silence is actually enforced, so try to keep quiet. Don’t splash too much, either. Some of the older assassins can get cranky about even that.”

Celaena gave her a long look. The idea of Ansel—or anyone—handling the weapons and gear she’d left at the gate wasn’t appealing.

Her taste for very expensive and very delicate underwear wouldn’t do much for her reputation.

Lol

There were multiple large pools—some steamed, some bubbled, some steamed and bubbled—but the one Celaena slipped into was utterly calm and clear and cold.

Celaena thought of her enormous closet back home, exploding with color and different fabrics and patterns, all tossed together.

I never really picture her wearing colors

“It’s not her fault,” Sam cut in, and she flashed him a warning glare. “We both thought it was—” “Don’t lie to me, Sam Cortland,”

Sam tried to defend her

The last thing she remembered was a pang of guilt at the sight of her blood staining Arobynn’s exquisite red carpet. And then darkness, blissful darkness, full of relief that she hadn’t seen him hurt Sam.

And though most of the people here were trained killers, there was an air of peace and contentment—of joy, even.

“They’re just squabbling over which of us they want to make a bid for.” “Bid?” Mikhail leaned forward to see the ambassadors through the crowd. “They come here from foreign courts to offer us positions. They make offers for the assassins that most impress them—sometimes just for one mission, other times for a lifelong contract. Any of us are free to go, if we wish. But not all of us want to leave.”

“My father would wallop me from here to the ends of the earth if I bound myself to a foreign court. He’d say it’s a form of prostitution.”

Mikhail laughed under his breath. “Personally, I like it here. When I want to leave, I’ll let the Master know I’m available. But until then . . .” He glanced at Ansel, and Celaena could have sworn she saw the girl’s face flush slightly. “Until then, I’ve got my reasons to stay.”

They must be together

Given what Arobynn had done to her, she hardly felt defensive of the assassins in Adarlan’s empire. But . . . but to see all these assassins gathered here, so much collective power and knowledge, and to know that they wouldn’t dare intrude on Arobynn’s—on her—territory . . .

I’m confused on if she’s still a member of the assassin group or not. I know she betrayed their trust but I don’t understand if this is her proving herself trustworthy or just proving that they should keep her alive

“That’s Ilias,” Ansel whispered, leaning closer than Celaena would like. Didn’t she have any sense of personal space? “The Master’s son.”

That sounds like a bad idea

“I’m surprised you caught Ilias’s eye,” Ansel teased, keeping her voice low enough for only Celaena and Mikhail to hear. “He’s usually too focused on his training and meditating to notice anyone—even pretty girls.”

As she turned away, she noticed that Mikhail took Ansel’s hand and held it in the shadows beneath the table.

“Tomorrow will be better. It might be only a foot more than today, but it will be a foot longer that you can run.”

With nothing else to distract her, Celaena eventually returned to thinking about Sam. Even weeks later, she had no idea how she’d somehow gotten attached to him, 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.

There were legends about the horse-sized stygian spiders that lurked in the woods of the Ruhnn Mountains of the north, spinning their thread for hefty costs. Some said they offered it in exchange for human flesh; others claimed the spiders dealt in years and dreams, and could take either as payment. Regardless, the thread was as delicate as gossamer, lovelier than silk, and stronger than steel. And she’d never seen so much of it before.

“Everything has a price,” he said. “Twenty years for two hundred yards of Spidersilk. I thought they meant to take them off the end of my life. But even if they’d warned me, I would have said yes.”

“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.” “How did you—” “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? And one who holds such fine company in Rifthold, no less. Are you here to spy for Lord Berick?”

And for that one heartbeat, when there was nothing more to it than that, she tasted bliss so complete that she tipped her head back to the sky and laughed.

“That’s the stag,” Celaena breathed. “The Lord of the North.” “Why does he get a fancy title? What about the swan and the dragon?” Celaena snorted, but the smile faded when she stared at the familiar constellation. “Because the stag remains constant—no matter the season, he’s always there.”

“Where do men find it in themselves to do such monstrous things? How do they find it acceptable?” “We’ll make them pay for it in the end.” Celaena grasped Ansel’s hand. The girl squeezed back hard. “We’ll see to it that they pay.”

She’s planning on helping her

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!

She spent every night that week on the roof with the asp, watching it, copying its movements, internalizing its rhythm and sounds until she could move like it moved, until they could face each other and she could anticipate how it would strike; until she could strike like the asp, swift and unflinching.

After that, she spent three days dangling from the rafters of the fortress stables with the bats. It took her longer to figure out their strengths—how they became so silent that no one noticed they were there, how they could drown out the external noise and focus only on the sound of their prey.

And after that, it was two nights spent with jackrabbits on the dunes, learning their stillness, absorbing how they used their speed and dexterity to evade talons and claws, how they slept ab...

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 to say such a thing to the King of the Assassins. But whenever she caught herself thinking about it too much, she shoved those thoughts into the back of her mind.

She hadn’t told anyone—partially because she was worried she might change her mind while she was away—but with each day here, with each lesson with the kind and gentle Master, she was more and more resolved to tell Arobynn she was moving out.

“No, he won’t. They’ll congratulate him, just like they always do, for a conquest well made.” She let out a long sigh from her nose. “But me? I’ll get teased until I snap at them. It’s always the same.”

As she swallowed a large mouthful of wine, she had two thoughts. The first was that Ansel’s eyes were now filled with unmasked sorrow. And the second—which explained the first—was that the wine tasted strange.

Berick and the Master had certainly been communicating in the past few weeks. What had gone wrong? Ansel had made another trip a week ago to see him, and hadn’t mentioned trouble. She’d seemed quite jovial, actually.

Ansel is working for Berick and she didn’t want Celaena to get killed in the attack he was planning on their home so she pushed her away. This is my guess

“When you give your master his letter, also give him this. And tell him that in the Red Desert, we do not beat our disciples.”