The Assassin and the Empire Read Free

away. His bottom lip was still swollen, and he had a bruise on his cheek, not to mention his raw knuckles, but he looked to be in one piece.
    Sam slid into one of the chairs at the small kitchen table and cut himself a piece of bread. Buying food for the house took up more time than she’d realized it would, and she’d been debating hiring a housekeeper, but … that’d cost money.
Everything
cost money.
    Sam took a bite, poured a glass of water from the ewer she’d left sitting on the oak table, and leaned back in his chair. Behind him, the window above the sink revealed the glittering sprawl of the capital and the illuminated glass castle towering over them all.
    “Are you just not going to speak to me ever again?”
    She shot him a glare. “Moving is expensive. If we were to leave Rifthold, then we’d need a little more money just so we could have something to fall back on if we can’t get work right away.” Celaena thought about it. “One more contract each,” she said. “I might not be Arobynn’s protégée anymore, but I’m still Adarlan’s Assassin, and you’re … well, you’re
you
.” He gave her a dark look, and, despite herself, Celaena grinned. “One more contract,” she repeated, “and we could move. It’d help with the expenses—give us enough of a cushion.”
    “Or we could just say to hell with it and go.”
    “I’m not giving up everything just to slum it somewhere.
If
we leave, we’ll do it my way.”
    Sam crossed his arms. “You keep saying
if
—but what else is there to decide?”
    Again: nothing. Everything.
    She took a long breath. “How will we establish ourselves in a new city without Arobynn’s support?”
    Triumph flashed in Sam’s eyes. She leashed her irritation. She hadn’t said outright that she was agreeing to move, but her question was confirmation enough for both of them.
    Before he could answer, she went on: “We’ve grown up here, and yet in the past month, we haven’t been able to get any hires. Arobynn always handled those things.”
    “Intentionally,” Sam growled. “And we’d do just fine, I think. We’re not going to need his support.
When
we move, we’re leaving the Guild, too. I don’t want to be paying dues to them for the rest of my life, and I don’t want anything to do with that conniving bastard ever again.”
    “Yes, but you
know
that we need his blessing. We need to make … amends. And need him to agree to let us leave the Guild peacefully.” She almost choked on it, but managed to get the words out.
    Sam shot out of his seat. “Do I need to remind you what he did to us? What he’s done to
you
? You know that the reason we can’t find any hires is because Arobynn made sure word got out that we weren’t to be approached.”
    “Exactly. And it will only get worse. The Assassin’s Guild would punish us for leaving the Guild and beginning our own establishment elsewhere without Arobynn’s approval.”
    Which was true. While they’d paid their debts to Arobynn, they were still members of the Guild, and still obligated to pay them dues every year. Every assassin in the Guild answered to Arobynn. Obeyed him. Celaena and Sam had both been dispatched more than once to hunt down Guild members who had gone rogue, refused to pay their dues, or broken some sacred Guild rule. Those assassins had tried to hide, but it had only been a matter of time before they’d been found. And the consequences hadn’t been pleasant.
    Celaena and Sam had brought Arobynn and the Guild a lot of money and earned them a fair amount of notoriety, so their decisions and careers had been closely monitored. They were important to the Guild. Even with their debts paid, they’d still need permission to be allowed to leave. They’d be asked to pay a parting fee, if they were lucky. If not … well, it’d be a very dangerous request to make.
    “So,” she went on, “unless you want to wind up with your throat cut, we need to get Arobynn’s approval to break