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

by Sarah J. Maas

“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.” Please don’t make me kill you was what she truly meant to say.

“Don’t do it,” Ansel whispered, in that voice that she’d so often heard—that girlish, carefree voice. But had it always been a performance?

“You have five minutes to pack your things and leave the fortress,” Celaena said quietly. “Because in twenty minutes, I’m going up to the battlements and I’m going to fire an arrow at you. And you’d better hope that you’re out of range by then, because if you’re not, that arrow is going straight through your neck.”

Celaena looked at the wolf-shaped hilt and the blood staining the steel. The one tie Ansel had left to her father, her family, and whatever twisted shred of hope burned in her heart. Celaena turned the blade and handed it hilt-first to Ansel. The girl’s eyes were wide and damp as she took the sword. She opened her mouth, but Celaena cut her off. “Go home, Ansel.” Ansel’s face went white again. She took the blade from Celaena and sheathed it at her side. She glanced at Celaena only once before she took off at a sprint, leaping over Mikhail’s corpse as if he were nothing more than a bit of debris. Then she was gone.

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.

“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 what it is worth, Celaena,” he rasped, “I believe you were the closest thing to a friend Ansel has ever allowed herself to have. And I think she sent you away because she truly cared for you.” She hated her mouth for wobbling. “That doesn’t make it hurt any less.” “I didn’t think it would. But I think you will leave a lasting imprint on Ansel’s heart. You spared her life, and returned her father’s sword. She will not soon forget that. And maybe when she makes her next move to reclaim her title, she will remember the assassin from the North and the kindness you showed her, and try to leave fewer bodies in her wake.”

And I think my son would be rather happy if you decided to return, too.” He chuckled, and Celaena blushed.

She looked to the open window, to the world beyond. For the first time in a long while, she heard the song of a northern wind, calling her home. And she was not afraid.