The Assassin's Blade by Sarah J. Maas

With his attention still on the document he was reading, Arobynn picked up the Mute Master’s letter of approval and set it atop a nearby stack of papers. Celaena blinked. Once. Twice. He didn’t look up at her. He just kept reading. The message was clear enough: she was to wait until he was ready. And until then, even if she screamed until her lungs burst, he wouldn’t acknowledge her existence.

So Celaena sat down.

Rain plinked against the windows of the study. Seconds passed, then minutes. Her plans for a grand speech with sweeping gestures faded into silence. Arobynn read three other documents before he even picked up the Mute Master’s letter.

And as he read it, she could only think of the last time she’d sat in this chair.

She looked at the exquisite red carpet beneath her feet. Someone had done a splendid job of getting all the blood out. How much of the blood on the carpet had been hers—and how much of it had belonged to Sam Cortland, her rival and coconspirator in the destruction of Arobynn’s slave agreement? She still didn’t know what Arobynn had done to him that night. When she’d arrived just now, she hadn’t seen Sam in the entrance hall. But then again, she hadn’t seen any of the other assassins who lived here. So maybe Sam was busy. She hoped he was busy, because that would mean he was alive.

Arobynn finally looked at her, setting aside the Mute Master’s letter as if it were nothing more than a scrap of paper. She kept her back straight and her chin upheld, even as Arobynn’s silver eyes scanned every inch of her. They lingered the longest on the narrow pink scar across the side of her neck, inches away from her jaw and ear. “Well,” Arobynn said at last, “I thought you’d be tanner.”

She almost laughed, but she kept a tight rein on her features. “Head-to-toe clothes to avoid the sun,” she explained. Her words were quieter—weaker—than she wanted. The first words she’d spoken to him since he’d beaten her into oblivion. They weren’t exactly satisfying.

“Ah,” he said, his long, elegant fingers twisting a golden ring around his forefinger.

She sucked in a breath through her nose, remembering all that she’d been burning to say to him these past few months and during the journey back to Rifthold. A few sentences, and it would be over. More than eight years with him, finished with a string of words and a mountain of gold.

She braced herself to begin, but Arobynn spoke first.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

Yet again, the words vanished from her lips.

His eyes were intent on hers, and he stopped toying with his ring. “If I could take back that night, Celaena, I would.” He leaned over the edge of the desk, his hands now forming fists. The last time she’d seen those hands, they’d been smeared with her blood.

“I’m sorry,” Arobynn repeated. He was nearly twenty years her senior, and though his red hair had a few strands of silver, his face remained young. Elegant, sharp features, blazingly clear gray eyes … He might not have been the handsomest man she’d ever seen, but he was one of the most alluring.

“Every day,” he went on. “Every day since you left, I’ve gone to the temple of Kiva to pray for forgiveness.” She might have snorted at the idea of the King of the Assassins kneeling before a statue of the God of Atonement, but his words were so raw. Was it possible that he actually regretted what he had done?

“I shouldn’t have let my temper get the better of me. I shouldn’t have sent you away.”

“Then why didn’t you retrieve me?” It was out before she had a chance to control the snap in her voice.

Arobynn’s eyes narrowed slightly, as close to a wince as he’d let himself come, she supposed. “With the time it’d take for the messengers to track you down, you probably would have been on your way home, anyway.”

She clenched her jaw. An easy excuse.

He read the ire in her eyes—and her disbelief. “Allow me to make it up to you.” He rose from his leather chair and strode around the desk. His long legs and years of training made his movements effortlessly graceful, even as he swiped a box off the edge of the table. He sank to one knee before her, his face near level with hers. She’d forgotten how tall he was.

He extended the gift to her. The box in itself was a work of art, inlaid with mother-of-pearl, but she kept her face blank as she flipped open the lid.

An emerald-and-gold brooch glittered in the gray afternoon light. It was stunning, the work of a master craftsman—and she instantly knew what dresses and tunics it would best complement. He’d bought it because he also knew her wardrobe, her tastes, everything about her. Of all the people in the world, only Arobynn knew the absolute truth.

“For you,” he said. “The first of many.” She was keenly aware of each of his movements, and braced herself as he lifted a hand, carefully bringing it to her face. He brushed a finger from her temple down to the arc of her cheekbones. “I’m sorry,” he whispered again, and Celaena raised her eyes to his.

Father, brother, lover—he’d never really declared himself any of them. Certainly not the lover part, though if Celaena had been another sort of girl, and if Arobynn had raised her differently, perhaps it might have come to that. He loved her like family, yet he put her in the most dangerous positions. He nurtured and educated her, yet he’d obliterated her innocence the first time he’d made her end a life. He’d given her everything, but he’d also taken everything away. She could no sooner sort out her feelings toward the King of the Assassins than she could count the stars in the sky.