The Assassin and the Desert

  “I don’t want to walk home! We’re taking a shortcut!” Ansel shouted back. Behind them, the three guards still charged onward.

  Celaena debated slamming Kasida into Hisli to send Ansel tumbling onto the dunes—leaving her for the guards to take care of—but the girl pointed over Hisli’s dark head. “Live a little, Sardothien!”

  And just like that, the dunes parted to reveal the turquoise expanse of the Gulf of Oro. The cool sea breeze kissed her face, and Celaena leaned into it, almost moaning with pleasure.

  Ansel let out a whoop, careening down the final dune and heading straight toward the beach and the breaking waves. Despite herself, Celaena smiled and held on tighter.

  Kasida hit the hard-packed red sand and gained speed, faster and faster.

  Celaena had a sudden moment of clarity then, as her hair ripped from her braid and the wind tore at her clothes. Of all the girls in all the world, here she was on a spit of beach in the Red Desert, astride an Asterion horse, racing faster than the wind. Most would never experience this—she would never experience anything like this again. 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.

  The guards reached the beach, their fierce cries nearly swallowed up by the booming surf.

  Ansel cut away, surging toward the dunes and the giant wall of rock that arose nearby. The Desert Cleaver, if Celaena knew her geography correctly—which she did, as she’d studied maps of the Deserted Land for weeks now. A giant wall that arose from the earth and stretched from the eastern coast all the way to the black dunes of the south—split clean down the middle by an enormous fissure. They’d come around it on the way from the fortress, which was on the other side of the Cleaver, and that was what had made their journey so insufferably long. But today . . .

  “Faster, Kasida,” she whispered in the horse’s ear. As if the mare understood her, she took off, and soon Celaena was again beside Ansel, cutting up dune after dune as they headed straight for the red wall of rock. “What are you doing?” she called to Ansel.

  Ansel gave her a fiendish grin. “We’re going through it. What good is an Asterion horse if it can’t jump?”

  Celaena’s stomach dropped. “You can’t be serious.”

  Ansel glanced over her shoulder, her red hair streaming past her face. “They’ll chase us to the doors of the fortress if we go the long way!” But the guards couldn’t make the jump, not with ordinary horses.

  A narrow opening in the wall of red rock appeared, twisting away from sight. Ansel headed straight toward it. How dare she make such a reckless, stupid decision without consulting Celaena first?

  “You planned this the whole time,” Celaena snapped. Though the guards still remained a good distance away, they were close enough for Celaena to see the weapons, including longbows, strapped to them.

  Ansel didn’t reply. She just sent Hisli flying forward.

  Celaena had to choose between the unforgiving walls of the Cleaver and the three guards behind them. She could take the guards in a few seconds—if she slowed enough to draw her daggers. But they were mounted, and aiming might be impossible. Which meant she’d have to get close enough to kill them, as long as they didn’t start firing at her first. They probably wouldn’t shoot at Kasida, not when she was worth more than all of their lives put together, but Celaena couldn’t bring herself to risk the magnificent beast. And if she killed the guards, that still left her alone in the desert, since Ansel surely wouldn’t stop until she was on the other side of the Cleaver. Since she had no desire to die of thirst . . .

  Cursing colorfully, Celaena plunged after Ansel into the passage through the canyon.

  The passage was so narrow that Celaena’s legs nearly grazed the rain-smoothed orange walls. The beating hooves of their horses echoed like firecrackers, the sound only worsening as the three guards entered the canyon. It would have been nice, she realized, to have Sam with her. He might be a pain in her ass, but he’d proven himself to be more than handy in a fight. Extraordinarily skilled, if she felt like admitting it.

  Ansel wove and turned with the passage, fast as a stream down a mountainside, and it was all Celaena could do to hold on to Kasida as they followed.

  A twang snapped through the canyon, and Celaena ducked low to Kasida’s surging head—just as an arrow ricocheted off the rock a few feet away. So much for not firing at the horses. Another sharp turn set her in the clear, but the relief was short-lived as she beheld the long, straight passage—and the ravine beyond it.

  Celaena’s breath lodged in her throat. The jump had to be thirty feet at least—and she didn’t want to know how long a fall it was if she missed.

  Ansel barreled ahead; then her body tensed, and Hisli leapt from the cliff edge.

  The sunlight caught in Ansel’s hair as they flew over the ravine, and she loosed a joyous cry that set the whole canyon humming. A moment later, she landed on the other side, with only inches to spare.

  There wasn’t enough room for Celaena to stop—even if she tried, they wouldn’t have enough space to slow down, and they’d go right over the edge. So she began praying to anyone, anything. Kasida gave a sudden burst of speed, as if she, too, understood that only the gods would see them safely over.

  And then they were at the lip of the ravine, which went down, down, down to a jade river hundreds of feet below. And Kasida was soaring, only air beneath them, nothing to keep her from the death that now wrapped around her completely.

  Celaena could only hold on and wait to fall, to die, to scream as she met her horrible end . . .

  But then there was rock under them, solid rock. She gripped Kasida tighter as they landed in the narrow passage on the other side, the impact exploding through her bones, and kept galloping.

  Back across the ravine, the guards had pulled to a halt, and cursed at them in a language she was grateful she didn’t understand.

  Ansel let out another whoop when they came out the other end of the Cleaver, and she turned to find Celaena still riding close behind her. They rode across the dunes, heading west, the setting sun turning the entire world bloodred.

  When the horses were too winded to keep running, Ansel finally stopped atop a dune, Celaena pulling up beside her. Ansel looked at Celaena, wildness still rampant in her eyes. “Wasn’t that wonderful?”

  Breathing hard, Celaena didn’t say anything as she punched Ansel so hard in the face that the girl went flying off her horse and tumbled onto the sand.

  Ansel just clutched her jaw and laughed.

  Though they could have made it back before midnight, and though Celaena pushed her to continue riding, Ansel insisted on stopping for the night. So when their campfire was nothing but embers and the horses were dozing behind them, Ansel and Celaena lay on their backs on the side of a dune and stared up at the stars.

  Her hands tucked behind her head, Celaena took a long, deep breath, savoring the balmy night breeze, the exhaustion ebbing from her limbs. She rarely got to see stars so bright—not with the lights of Rifthold. The wind moved across the dunes, and the sand sighed.

  “You know,” Ansel said quietly, “I never learned the constellations. Though I think ours are different from yours—the names, I mean.”

  It took Celaena a moment to realize that by “ours” she didn’t mean the Silent Assassins—she meant her people in the Western Wastes. Celaena pointed to a cluster of stars to their left. “That’s the dragon.” She traced the shape. “See the head, legs, and tail?”

  “No.” Ansel chuckled.

  Celaena nudged her with an elbow and pointed to another grouping of stars. “That’s the swan. The lines on either side are the wings, and the arc is its neck.”

  “What about that one?” Ansel said.

  “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 s
mile faded when she stared at the familiar constellation. “Because the stag remains constant—no matter the season, he’s always there.”

  “Why?”

  Celaena took a long breath. “So the people of Terrasen will always know how to find their way home. So they can look up at the sky, no matter where they are, and know Terrasen is forever with them.”

  “Do you ever want to return to Terrasen?”

  Celaena turned her head to look at Ansel. She hadn’t told her she was from Terrasen. Ansel said, “You talk about Terrasen the way my father used to talk about our land.”

  Celaena was about to reply when she caught the word. Used to.

  Ansel’s attention remained on the stars. “I lied to the Master when I came here,” she whispered, as if afraid someone else would hear them in the emptiness of the desert. Celaena looked back to the sky. “My father never sent me to train. And there is no Briarcliff, or Briarcliff Hall. There hasn’t been for five years.”

  A dozen questions sprung up, but Celaena kept her mouth shut, letting Ansel speak.

  “I was twelve,” Ansel said, “when Lord Loch took several territories around Briarcliff, and then demanded we yield to him as well—that we bow to him as High King of the Flatlands. My father refused. He said there was one tyrant already conquering everything east of the mountains—he didn’t want one in the west, too.” Celaena’s blood went cold as she braced herself for what she was certain was coming. “Two weeks later, Lord Loch marched into our land with his men, seizing our villages, our livelihood, our people. And when he got to Briarcliff Hall . . .”

  Ansel drew a shuddering breath. “When he arrived at Briarcliff Hall, I was in the kitchen. I saw them from the window and hid in a cupboard as Loch walked in. My sister and father were upstairs, and Loch stayed in the kitchen as his men brought them down and . . . I didn’t dare make a sound as Lord Loch made my father watch as he . . .” She stumbled, but forced it out, spitting it as if it were poison. “My father begged on his hands and knees, but Loch still made my father watch as he slit my sister’s throat, then his. And I just hid there, even as they killed our servants, too. I hid there and did nothing.”

  “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.