The Assassin and the Empire (Throne of Glass, #0.5)

by Sarah J. Maas

She hated it. Even from the street, she could see people milling about the distant castle grounds— uniformed guards, ladies in voluminous dresses, servants clad in the clothes of their station … What sort of lives did they lead, dwelling within the shadow of the king?

Her eyes rose to the highest gray stone tower, where a small balcony jutted out, covered with creeping ivy. It was so easy to imagine that the people within had nothing to worry about.

“I get scared, too,” he murmured onto her skin. “You want to hear something ridiculous? Whenever I’m scared out of my wits, I tell myself: My name is Sam Cortland … and I will not be afraid. I’ve been doing it for years.”

This was some dream, or she had gone to hell after all, because she couldn’t exist in the world where this had been done to him, where she’d paced like an idiot all night while he suffered, while Farran tortured him, while he ripped out his eyes and—

She yanked out of Arobynn’s grasp. Wordlessly, she unfastened her cloak and spread it over Sam, covering the damage that had been so carefully inflicted. She climbed onto the wooden table and lay out beside him, stretching an arm across his middle, holding him close.

She didn’t want to go out into a world where he didn’t exist. So she watched the light shift and change, and let the world pass by without her.

She was fire, she was darkness, she was dust and blood and shadow. She hurtled through the streets, each step faster than the last as that dark fire burned through thought and feeling until all that remained was her rage and her prey.

And there—standing in a copse of thorns—was a white stag.

Celaena bowed her head, though she kept her eyes upon him. The constellation had watched over her for so many years.

She’d never be ready for this, for Endovier and the world without Sam.

A breeze filled the wagon, lifting away the smells of the past two weeks. Her trembling paused for a heartbeat. She knew that breeze. She knew the chill bite beneath it, knew the hint it carried of pine and snow, knew the mountains from which it hailed. A northern breeze, a breeze of Terrasen.

The breeze grew into a wind, and she closed her eyes, letting it sweep away the ashes of that dead world—of that dead girl. And then there was nothing left except something new, something still glowing red from the forging.

She would tuck Sam into her heart, a bright light for her to take out whenever things were darkest. And then she would remember how it had felt to be loved, when the world had held nothing but possibility. No matter what they did to her, they could never take that away. She would not break.

“My name is Celaena Sardothien,” she whispered, “and I will not be afraid.”