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

by Sarah J. Maas

“The sessiz suikast are there.” Sessiz suikast. The Silent Assassins—the legendary order that she’d been sent here to train with. “To learn obedience and discipline,” Arobynn Hamel had said. In the height of summer in the Red Desert was what he’d failed to add. It was a punishment.

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

Arobynn encouraged cutthroat behavior. Even when they were children, he’d set her and Sam against each other, use their victories and failures against them. He’d made her see everyone but Arobynn and Ben as a potential enemy. As allies, yes, but also as foes to be closely watched. Weakness was never to be shown at any cost. Brutality was rewarded. And education and culture were equally important—words could be just as deadly as steel.

“When the Crochan Queens ruled five hundred years ago, it was very beautiful. At least, the ruins all over the place seem like they would have been beautiful. But then the three Ironteeth Clans destroyed it all when they overthrew the Crochan Dynasty.” “Ironteeth?” Ansel let out a low hiss. “Some witches, like the Crochans, were gifted with ethereal beauty. But the Ironteeth Clans have iron teeth, sharp as a fish’s.

there was a giant tor with a lone watchtower on top. The upper bits were all ruined because of the witch-wars, but the rest of it was still intact. See, there was this archway that went through the bottom of the watchtower—so you could see through it to the other side of the hill. And one of the stable boys told my sister that if you looked through the archway on the night of the summer solstice, then you might see into another world.”

“So noble of you,” Celaena said. “Ansel of Briarcliff, Defender of the Realm.” Ansel only laughed, and soon was asleep.

She’d heard of Asterion horses, of course. The most ancient breed of horse in Erilea. Legend claimed that the Fae had made them from the four winds—spirit from the north, strength from the south, speed from the east, and wisdom from the west, all rolled into the slender-snouted, high-tailed, lovely creature that stood before her.

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.

“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.”

“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.”