They didn’t have weapons, but their intent was clear enough. The first man, clad in the loose, layered clothing that everyone here wore, reached her, and she dodged the sweeping blow aimed at her face. His arm shot past her, and she grabbed it by the wrist and bicep, locking and twisting his arm so he grunted with pain. She whirled him around, careening him into the second attacker hard enough that the two men went tumbling to the ground.
Celaena leapt back, landing where her escort had been standing only seconds before, careful to avoid crashing into the Master. This was another test—a test to see at what level she might begin her training. And if she was worthy.
Of course she was worthy. She was Celaena Sardothien, gods be damned.
The third man pulled out two crescent-shaped daggers from the folds of his beige tunic and slashed at her. Her layered clothing was too cumbersome for her to dart away fast enough, so as he swiped for her face, she bent back. Her spine strained, but the two blades passed overhead, slicing through an errant strand of her hair. She dropped to the ground and lashed out with a leg, sweeping the man off his feet.
The fourth man, though, had come up behind her, a curved blade flashing in his hand as he made to plunge it through her head. She rolled, and the sword struck stone, sparking.
By the time she got to her feet, he’d raised the sword again. She caught his feint to the left before he struck at her right. She danced aside. The man was still swinging when she drove the base of her palm straight into his nose and slammed her other fist into his gut. The man dropped to the floor, blood gushing from his nose. She panted, the air ragged in her already-burning throat. She really, really needed water.
None of the four men on the ground moved. The Master began smiling, and it was then that the others gathered around the chamber stepped closer to the light. Men and women, all tan, though their hair showed the range of the various kingdoms on the continent. Celaena inclined her head. None of them nodded back. Celaena kept one eye on the four men before her as they got to their feet, sheathed their weapons, and stalked back to the shadows. Hopefully they wouldn’t take it personally.
She scanned the shadows again, bracing herself for more assailants. Nearby, a young woman watched her, and she flashed Celaena a conspirator’s grin. Celaena tried not to look too interested, though the girl was one of the most stunning people she’d ever beheld. It wasn’t just her wine-red hair or the color of her eyes, a red-brown Celaena had never seen before. No, it was the girl’s armor that initially caught her interest: ornate to the point of probably being useless, but still a work of art.
The right shoulder was fashioned into a snarling wolf ’s head, and her helmet, tucked into the crook of her arm, featured a wolf hunched over the noseguard. Another wolf ’s head had been molded into the pommel of her broadsword. On anyone else, the armor might have looked flamboyant and ridiculous, but on the girl … There was a strange, boyish sort of carelessness to her.
Still, Celaena wondered how it was possible not to be sweltering to death inside all that armor.
The Master clapped Celaena on the shoulder and beckoned to the girl to come forward. Not to attack—a friendly invitation. The girl’s armor clinked as it moved, but her boots were near-silent.
The Master used his hands to form a series of motions between the girl and Celaena. The girl bowed low, then gave her that wicked grin again. “I’m Ansel,” she said, her voice bright, amused. She had a barely perceptible lilt to her accent that Celaena couldn’t place. “Looks like we’re sharing a room while you’re here.” The Master gestured again, his calloused, scarred fingers creating rudimentary gestures that Ansel could somehow decipher. “Say, how long will that be, actually?”
Celaena fought her frown. “One month.” She inclined her head to the Master. “If you allow me to stay that long.”
With the month that it took to get here, and the month it would take to get home, she’d be away from Rifthold three months before she returned.
The Master merely nodded and walked back to the cushions atop the dais. “That means you can stay,” Ansel whispered, and then touched Celaena’s shoulder with an armor-clad hand. Apparently not all the assassins here were under a vow of silence—or had a sense of personal space. “You’ll start training tomorrow,” Ansel went on. “At dawn.”
The Master sank onto the cushions, and Celaena almost sagged with relief. Arobynn had made her think that convincing him to train her would be nearly impossible. Fool. Pack her off to the desert to suffer, would he!
“Thank you,” Celaena said to the Master, keenly aware of the eyes watching her in the hall as she bowed again. He waved her away.
“Come,” Ansel said, her hair shimmering in a ray of sunlight. “I suppose you’ll want a bath before you do anything else. I certainly would, if I were you.” Ansel gave her a smile that stretched the splattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose and cheeks.
Celaena glanced sidelong at the girl and her ornate armor, and followed her from the room. “That’s the best thing I’ve heard in weeks,” she said.
Alone with Ansel as they strode through the halls, Celaena keenly felt the absence of the long daggers usually sheathed in her belt. But they’d been taken from her at the gate, along with her sword and her pack. She let her hands dangle at her sides, ready to react to the slightest movement from her guide. Whether or not Ansel noticed Celaena’s readiness to fight, the girl swung her arms casually, her armor clanking with the movement.
Her roommate. That was an unfortunate surprise. Sharing a room with Sam for a few nights was one thing. But a month with a complete stranger? Celaena studied Ansel out of the corner of her eye. She was slightly taller, but Celaena couldn’t see much else about her, thanks to the armor. She’d never spent much time around other girls, save the courtesans that Arobynn invited to the Keep for parties or took to the theater, and most of them were not the sort of person that Celaena cared to know. There were no other female assassins in Arobynn’s guild. But here … in addition to Ansel, there had been just as many women as men. In the Keep, there was no mistaking who she was. Here, she was only another face in the crowd.
For all she knew, Ansel might be better than her. The thought didn’t sit well.
“So,” Ansel said, her brows rising. “Celaena Sardothien.”
“Yes?”
Ansel shrugged—or at least shrugged as well as she could, given the armor. “I thought you’d be … more dramatic.”
“Sorry to disappoint,” Celaena said, not sounding very sorry at all. Ansel steered them up a short staircase, then down a long hall. Children popped in and out of the rooms along the passage, buckets and brooms and mops in hand. The youngest looked about eight, the eldest about twelve.
“Acolytes,” Ansel said in response to Celaena’s silent question. “Cleaning the rooms of the older assassins is part of their training. Teaches them responsibility and humility. Or something like that.” Ansel winked at a child who gaped up at her as she passed. Indeed, several of the children stared after Ansel, their eyes wide with wonder and respect; Ansel must be well regarded, then. None of them bothered to look at Celaena. She raised her chin.
“And how old were you when you came here?” The more she knew the better.
“I had barely turned thirteen,” Ansel said. “So I narrowly missed having to do the drudgery work.”
“And how old are you now?”
“Trying to get a read on me, are you?”
Celaena kept her face blank.
“I just turned eighteen. You look about my age, too.”
Celaena nodded. She certainly didn’t have to yield any information about herself. Even though Arobynn had ordered her not to hide her identity here, that didn’t mean she had to give away details. And at least Celaena had started her training at eight; she had several years on Ansel. That had to count for something. “Has training with the Master been effective?”
Ansel gave her a rueful smile. “I wouldn’t know. I’ve been here for five years, and he’s still refused to train me personally. Not that I care. I’d say I’m pretty damn good with or without his expertise.”
Well, that was certainly odd. How had she gone so long without working with the Master? Though, many of Arobynn’s assassins never received private lessons with him, either. “Where are you from, originally?” Celaena asked.
“The Flatlands.” The Flatlands … Where in hell were the Flatlands? Ansel answered for her. “Along the coast of the Western Wastes—formerly known as the Witch Kingdom.”
The Wastes were certainly familiar. But she’d never heard of the Flatlands.
“My father,” Ansel went on, “is Lord of Briarcliff. He sent me here for training, so I might ‘make myself useful.’ But I don’t think five hundred years would be enough to teach me that.”
Despite herself, Celaena chuckled. She stole another glance at Ansel’s armor. “Don’t you get hot in all that armor?”
“Of course,” Ansel said, tossing her shoulder-length hair. “But you have to admit it’s rather striking. And very well suited for strutting about a fortress full of assassins. How else am I to distinguish myself?”
“Where did you get it from?” Not that she might want some for herself; she had no use for armor like that.
“Oh, I had it made for me.” So—Ansel had money, then. Plenty of it, if she could throw it away on armor. “But the sword”—Ansel patted the wolf-shaped hilt at her side—“belongs to my father. His gift to me when I left. I figured I’d have the armor match it—wolves are a family symbol.”
They entered an open walkway, the heat of the midafternoon sun slamming into them with full force. Yet Ansel’s face remained jovial, and if the armor did indeed make her uncomfortable, she didn’t show it. Ansel looked her up and down. “How many people have you killed?”
Celaena almost choked, but kept her chin high. “I don’t see how that is any of your concern.”
Ansel chuckled. “I suppose it’d be easy enough to find out; you must leave some indication if you’re so notorious.” Actually, it was Arobynn who usually saw to it that word got out through the proper channels. She left very little behind once her job was finished. Leaving a sign felt somewhat … cheap. “I’d want everyone to know that I’d done it,” Ansel added.
Well, Celaena did want everyone to know that she was the best, but something about the way Ansel said it seemed different from her own reasoning.
“So, which of you looks worse?” Ansel asked suddenly. “You, or the person who gave those to you?” Celaena knew that she meant the fading bruises and cuts on her face.
Her stomach tightened. It was getting to be a familiar feeling.
“Me,” Celaena said quietly.
She didn’t know why she admitted it. Bravado might have been the better option. But she was tired, and suddenly so heavy with the weight of that memory.
“Did your master do that to you?” Ansel asked. This time, Celaena stayed silent, and Ansel didn’t push her.
At the other end of the walkway, they took a spiral stone staircase down into an empty courtyard where benches and little tables stood in the shade of the towering date trees. Someone had left a book lying atop one of the wooden tables, and as they passed by, Celaena glimpsed the cover. The title was in a scrawling, strange script that she didn’t recognize.
If she’d been alone, she might have paused to flip through the book, just to see words printed in a language so different from anything she knew, but Ansel continued on toward a pair of carved wooden doors.
“The baths. It’s one of the places here where silence is actually enforced, so try to keep quiet. Don’t splash too much, either. Some of the older assassins can get cranky about even that.” Ansel pushed one of the doors open. “Take your time. I’ll see to it that your things are brought to our room. When you’re done, ask an acolyte to take you there. Dinner isn’t for a few hours; I’ll come by the room then.”
Celaena gave her a long look. The idea of Ansel—or anyone—handling the weapons and gear she’d left at the gate wasn’t appealing. Not that she had anything to hide—though she did cringe inwardly at the thought of the guards pawing at her undergarments as they searched her bag. Her taste for very expensive and very delicate underwear wouldn’t do much for her reputation.
But she was here at their mercy, and her letter of approval depended on her good behavior. And good attitude.
So Celaena merely said “Thank you,” before striding past Ansel and into the herb-scented air beyond the doors.
While the fortress had communal baths, they were thankfully separated between men and women, and at that point in the day, the women’s baths were empty.
Hidden by towering palms and date trees sagging with the weight of their fruit, the baths were made from the same sea green and cobalt tiles that had formed the mosaic in the Master’s chamber, kept cool by white awnings jutting out from the walls of the building. There were multiple large pools—some steamed, some bubbled, some steamed and bubbled—but the one Celaena slipped into was utterly calm and clear and cold.
Celaena stifled a groan as she submerged herself and stayed under until her lungs ached. While modesty was a trait she’d learned to live without, she still kept herself low in the water. Of course, it had nothing to do with the fact that her ribs and arms were peppered with fading bruises, and that the sight of them made her sick. Sometimes it was sick with anger; other times it was with sorrow. Often, it was both. She wanted to go back to Rifthold—to see what had happened to Sam, to resume the life that had splintered in a few agonizing minutes. But she also dreaded it.
At least, here at the edge of the world, that night—and all of Rifthold and the people it contained—seemed very far away.
She stayed in the pool until her hands turned uncomfortably pruny.
Ansel wasn’t in their tiny, rectangular room when Celaena arrived, though someone had unpacked Celaena’s belongings. Aside from her sword and daggers, some undergarments, and a few tunics, she hadn’t brought much—and hadn’t bothered to bring her finer clothing. Which she was grateful for, now that she’d seen how quickly the sand had worn through the bulky clothes the nomad had made her wear.
There were two narrow beds, and it took her a moment to figure out which was Ansel’s. The red stone wall behind it was bare. Aside from the small iron wolf figurine on the bedside table, and a human-sized dummy that must be used to store Ansel’s extraordinary armor, Celaena would have had no idea that she was sharing a room with anyone.
Peeking through Ansel’s chest of drawers was equally futile. Burgundy tunics and black pants, all neatly folded. The only things that offset the monotony were several white tunics—garb that many of the men and women had been wearing. Even the undergarments were plain—and folded. Who folded their undergarments? Celaena thought of her enormous closet back home, exploding with color and different fabrics and patterns, all tossed together. Her undergarments, while expensive, usually wound up in a heap in their drawer.
Sam probably folded his undergarments. Though, depending on how much of him Arobynn had left intact, he might not even be able to now. Arobynn would never permanently maim her, but Sam might have fared worse. Sam had always been the expendable one.
She shoved the thought away and nestled farther into the bed. Through the small window, the silence of the fortress lulled her to sleep.
She’d never seen Arobynn so angry, and it was scaring the hell out of her. He didn’t yell, and he didn’t curse—he just went very still and very quiet. The only signs of his rage were his silver eyes, glittering with a deadly calm.
She tried not to flinch in her chair as he stood from the giant wooden desk. Sam, seated beside her, sucked in a breath. She couldn’t speak; if she started talking, her trembling voice would betray her. She couldn’t endure that kind of humiliation.
“Do you know how much money you’ve cost me?” Arobynn asked her softly.
Celaena’s palms began sweating. It was worth it, she told herself. Freeing those two hundred slaves was worth it. No matter what was about to happen, she’d never regret doing it.
“It’s not her fault,” Sam cut in, and she flashed him a warning glare. “We both thought it was—”
“Don’t lie to me, Sam Cortland,” Arobynn growled. “The only way you became involved in this was because she decided to do it—and it was either let her die trying, or help her.”
Sam opened his mouth to object, but Arobynn silenced him with a sharp whistle through his teeth. His office doors opened. Wesley, Arobynn’s bodyguard, peered in. Arobynn kept his eyes on Celaena as he said, “Get Tern, Mullin, and Harding.”
This wasn’t a good sign. She kept her face neutral, though, as Arobynn continued watching her. Neither she nor Sam dared speak in the long minutes that passed. She tried not to shake.
At last, the three assassins—all men, all cut from muscle and armed to the teeth, filed in. “Shut the door,” Arobynn said to Harding, the last one to enter. Then he told the others, “Hold him.”
Instantly, Sam was dragged out of his chair, his arms pinned back by Tern and Mullin. Harding took a step in front of them, his fist flexing.
“No,” Celaena breathed as she met Sam’s wide-eyed stare. Arobynn wouldn’t be that cruel—he wouldn’t make her watch as he hurt Sam. Something tight and aching built in her throat.
But Celaena kept her head high, even as Arobynn said quietly to her, “You are not going to enjoy this. You will not forget this. And I don’t want you to.”
She whipped her head back to Sam, a plea for Harding not to hurt him on her lips.
She sensed the blow only a heartbeat before Arobynn struck her.
She toppled out of her chair and didn’t have time to raise herself properly before Arobynn grabbed her by the collar and swung again, his fist connecting with her cheek. Light and darkness reeled. Another blow, hard enough that she felt the warmth of her blood on her face before she felt the pain.
Sam began screaming something. But Arobynn hit her again. She tasted blood, yet she didn’t fight back, didn’t dare to. Sam struggled against Tern and Mullin. They held him firm, Harding putting a warning arm in front of Sam to block his path.
Arobynn hit her—her ribs, her jaw, her gut. And her face. Again and again and again. Careful blows—blows meant to inflict as much pain as possible without doing permanent damage. And Sam kept roaring, shouting words she couldn’t quite hear over the agony.
The last thing she remembered was a pang of guilt at the sight of her blood staining Arobynn’s exquisite red carpet. And then darkness, blissful darkness, full of relief that she hadn’t seen him hurt Sam.