Free The Assassin and the Empire by Sarah J. Maas Page A

her. But years of living in this room had its advantages. She kept her motions quiet as she pulled up the loose floorboards where she’d long ago hidden a set of four daggers. She sheathed two at her waist and tucked the other two into her boots. Then she found the twin swords she’d kept disguised as part of the bed frame since she was fourteen. Neither the daggers nor the sword had been good enough to bring with her when she moved. Today they would do.
    When she’d finished strapping the blades across her back, she rebraided her hair and fitted on her cloak, throwing the hood over her head.
    She’d kill Jayne first. And then she’d drag Farran to a place where she could properly repay him and take however long she wanted. Days, even. When that debt was paid, when Farran had no more agony or blood to offer, she’d place Sam in the embrace of the earth and send him to the afterlife knowing he’d been avenged.
    She eased open the window, scanning the front courtyard. The dew-slick stones gleamed in the lamplight, and the sentries at the iron gate seemed focused on the street beyond.
    Good.
    This was her kill, her revenge to take. No one else’s.
    A black fire rippled in her gut, spreading through her veins as she hopped onto the windowsill and eased outside.
    Her fingers found purchase in the large white stones, and, with one eye on the guards at the distant gate, she climbed down the side of the house. No one noticed her, no one looked her way. The Keep was silent, the calm before the storm that would break when Arobynn and his assassins began their hunt.
    Her landing was soft, no more than a whisper of boots against slick cobblestones. The guards were so focused on the street that they wouldn’t notice when she jumped the fence near the stables around the back.
    Creeping around the exterior of the house was as simple as getting out of her room, and she was well within the shadows of the stables when a hand reached out and grabbed her.
    She was hurled into the side of the wooden building, and had a dagger drawn by the time the thump finished echoing.
    Wesley’s face, set with rage, seethed at her in the dark.
    “Where in hell do you think you’re going?” he breathed, not loosening his grip on her shoulders even as she pressed her dagger to the side of his throat.
    “Get out of my way,” she growled, hardly recognizing her own voice. “Arobynn can’t keep me locked up.”
    “I’m not talking about Arobynn. Use your head and
think
, Celaena!” A flicker of her—a part of her that had somehow vanished since she’d shattered that clock—realized that this might be the first time he’d ever addressed her by her name.
    “Get out of my way,” she repeated, pushing the edge of the blade harder against his exposed throat.
    “I know you want revenge,” he panted. “I do, too—for what he did to Sam. I know you—”
    She flicked the blade, angling it just enough that he reared back to avoid her slicing a deep line across his throat.
    “Don’t you understand?” he pleaded, his eyes gleaming in the dark. “It’s all just a—”
    But the fire rose up in Celaena and she whirled, using a move the Mute Master had taught her that summer, and Wesley’s eyes lost focus as she slammed the pommel of her dagger into the side of his head. He dropped like a stone.
    Before he’d even finished collapsing, Celaena was sprinting for the fence. A moment later, she jumped it and vanished into the city streets.
    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.
    She took alleys and leapt over walls.
    She’d slaughter them all.
    Faster and faster, sprinting for that beautiful house on its quiet street, for the two men who had taken her world apart piece by piece, bone by shattered bone.
    All she had to do was get to Jayne and