The Assassin and the Desert

“And when they were gone, I took my father’s sword from his corpse and ran. I ran and ran until I couldn’t run anymore, at the foothills of the White Fang Mountains. And that’s when I collapsed at the campfire of a witch—one of the Ironteeth. I didn’t care if she killed me. But she told me that it was not my fate to die there. That I should journey south, to the Silent Assassins in the Red Desert, and there . . . there I would find my fate. She fed me, and bound my bleeding feet, and gave me gold—gold that I later used to commission my armor—then sent me on my way.”

Ansel wiped at her eyes. “So I’ve been here ever since, training for the day when I’m strong enough and fast enough to return to Briarcliff and take back what is mine. Someday, I’ll march into High King Loch’s hall and repay him for what he did to my family. With my father’s sword.” Her hand grazed the wolf-head hilt. “This sword will end his life. Because this sword is all I have left of them.”

Celaena hadn’t realized she was crying until she tried to take a deep breath. Saying that she was sorry didn’t feel adequate. She knew what this sort of loss was like, and words didn’t do anything at all.

Ansel slowly turned to look at her, her eyes lined with silver. She traced Celaena’s cheekbone, where the bruises had once been. “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.”

“Yes.” Ansel shifted her gaze back to the stars. “Yes, we will.”

Chapter Seven

Celaena and Ansel knew their little escapade with the Asterion horses would have consequences. Celaena had at least expected to have enough time to tell a decent lie about how they acquired the horses. But when they returned to the fortress and found Mikhail waiting, along with three other assassins, she knew that word of their stunt had somehow already reached the Master.

She kept her mouth shut as she and Ansel knelt at the foot of the Master’s dais, heads bowed, eyes on the floor. She certainly wouldn’t convince him to train her now.

His receiving chamber was empty today, and each of his steps scraped softly against the floor. She knew he could be silent if he wished. He wanted them to feel the dread of his approach.

And Celaena felt it. She felt each footstep, the phantom bruises on her face throbbing with the memory of Arobynn’s fists. 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!

Sam had said it like he meant it. He’d bellowed it. Again and again and again.

The clear, unexpected memory was almost jarring enough for her to forget where she was—but then the snow-white robes of the Master came into view. Her mouth went dry.

“We just wanted to have some fun,” Ansel said quietly. “We can return the horses.”

Celaena, eyes still lowered, glanced toward Ansel. She was staring up at the Master as he towered over them. “I’m sorry,” Celaena murmured, wishing she could convey it with her hands, too. Though silence might have been preferable, she needed him to hear her apology.

The Master just stood there, disapproval written all over his face.

Ansel was the first to break under his stare. She sighed. “I know it was foolish. But there’s nothing to worry about. I can handle Lord Berick; I’ve been handling him for ages.”

There was enough bitterness in her words that Celaena’s brows rose slightly. Perhaps his refusal to train her wasn’t easy for Ansel to bear. She was never outright competitive about getting the Master’s attention, but . . . After so many years of living here, being stuck as the mediator between the Master and Berick didn’t exactly seem like the sort of glory Ansel was interested in. Celaena certainly wouldn’t have enjoyed it.

The Master’s clothes whispered as they moved, and Celaena flinched when she felt his calloused fingers hook under her chin. He lifted her face so she was forced to look at him, his face lined with disapproval. She remained perfectly still, bracing herself for the strike, already praying he wouldn’t damage her too significantly. But then the Master’s sea-green eyes narrowed ever so slightly, his head cocking, and he gave her a sad smile as he released her.

Her face burned. He hadn’t been about to hit her. He’d wanted her to look at him, to tell him her side of the story. But even if he wasn’t going to strike her, he still might punish them. And if he kicked out Ansel for what they’d done . . . Ansel needed to be here, to learn all that these assassins could teach her, because Ansel wanted to do something with her life. Ansel had a purpose. And Celaena . . .

“It was my idea,” Celaena blurted, her words too loud in the empty chamber. “I didn’t feel like walking back here, and I thought it would be useful to have horses. And when I saw the Asterion mares . . . I thought we might as well travel in style.” She gave him a shaky half grin, and the Master’s brows rose as he looked between them. For a long, long moment, he just watched them.

Whatever he saw on Ansel’s face suddenly made him nod. Ansel quickly bowed her head. “Before you decide on a punishment . . .” She turned to Celaena, then looked back at the Master. “Since we like horses so much, maybe we could . . . be on stable duty? For the morning shift. Until Celaena leaves.”

Celaena almost choked, but she schooled her features into neutrality.

A faint glimmer of amusement shone in his eyes, and he considered Ansel’s words for a moment. Then he nodded again. Ansel loosened a breath. “Thank you for your lenience,” she said. The Master just glanced toward the doors behind them. They were dismissed.

Ansel got to her feet, and Celaena followed suit. But as Celaena turned, the Master grabbed her arm. Ansel paused to watch as the Master made a few motions with his hand. When he finished, Ansel’s brows rose. He repeated the motions again—slower, pointing to Celaena repeatedly. When it seemed she was certain she understood him, Ansel turned to Celaena.

“You’re to report to him at sunset tomorrow. For your first lesson.”

Celaena bit back her sigh of relief, and gave the Master a genuine grin. He returned a hint of a smile. She bowed deeply, and couldn’t stop smiling as she and Ansel left the hall and headed to the stables. She had three and a half weeks left—that would be more than enough time to get that letter.

Whatever he had seen in her face, whatever she had said . . . somehow, she’d proven herself to him at last.

It turned out that they weren’t just responsible for shoveling horse dung. Oh, no—they were responsible for cleaning the pens of all the four-legged livestock in the fortress, a task that took them from breakfast until noon. At least they did it in the morning, before the afternoon heat really made the smell atrocious.

Another benefit was that they didn’t have to go running. Though after four hours of shoveling animal droppings, Celaena would have begged to take the six-mile run instead.

Anxious as she was to be out of the stables, she couldn’t contain her growing trepidation as the sun arced across the sky, heading toward sunset. She didn’t know what to expect; even Ansel had no idea what the Master might have in mind. They spent the afternoon sparring as usual—with each other, and with whatever assassins wandered into the shade of the open-air training courtyard. And when the sun finally hovered near the horizon, Ansel gave Celaena a squeeze on the shoulder and sent her to the Master’s hall.

But the Master wasn’t in his receiving hall, and when she ran into Ilias, he just gave her his usual smile and pointed toward the roof. After taking a few staircases and then climbing a wooden ladder and squeezing through a hatch in the ceiling, she found herself in the open air, high atop the fortress.

The Master stood by the parapet, gazing across the desert. She cleared her throat, but he remained with his back to her.

The roof couldn’t have been more than twenty square feet, and the only thing on it was a covered reed basket placed in the center. Torches burned, illuminating the rooftop.

Celaena cleared her throat again, and the Master finally turned. She bowed, which, strangely, was something she felt he actually deserved, rather than something she ought to do. He gave her a nod and pointed to the reed basket, beckoning her to open the lid. Doing her best not to look skeptical, hoping there was a beautiful new weapon inside, she approached. She stopped when she heard the hissing.

Unpleasant, don’t-come-closer hissing. From inside the basket.

She turned to the Master, who hopped onto one of the merlons, his bare feet dangling in the gap between one block of stone and the next, and beckoned her again. Palms sweating, Celaena took a deep breath and snatched back the lid.

A black asp curled into itself, head drawn back low as it hissed.

Celaena leapt away a yard, making for the parapet wall, but the Master let out a low click of his tongue.

His hands moved, flowing and winding through the air like a river—like a snake. Observe it, he seemed to tell her. Move with it.

She looked back at the basket in time to see the slender, black head of the asp slide over the rim, then down to the tiled roof.

Her heart thundered in her chest. It was poisonous, wasn’t it? It had to be. It looked poisonous.

The snake moved across the roof, and Celaena moved away from it, not daring to look away for even a heartbeat. She reached for a dagger, but the Master again clicked his tongue. A glance in his direction was enough for her to understand the meaning of the sound.

Don’t kill it. Absorb.

The snake slithered effortlessly, lazily, and tasted the evening air with its black tongue. With a deep, steadying breath, Celaena observed.

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 above ground to better hear their enemies approaching. Night after night, the Master watched from nearby, never saying a word, never doing anything except occasionally pointing out how an animal moved.

As the remaining weeks passed, she saw Ansel only during meals and for the few hours they spent each morning shoveling manure. And after a long night spent sprinting or hanging upside down or running sideways to see why crabs bothered moving like that, Celaena was usually in no mood to talk. But Ansel was merry—almost gleeful, more and more with every passing day. She never said why, exactly, but Celaena found it rather infectious.