The Assassin and the Underworld Read Free

brooch in her lap. “And how well will this pay?”
    â€œExtraordinarily well.” She heard the smile in his voice, but kept her attention on the lovely green jewel. “And I won’t take a cut of it. It’s all yours.”
    She raised her head at that. There was a glimmer of pleading in his eyes. Perhaps he truly was sorry for what he’d done. And perhaps he’d picked this mission just for her—to prove, in his way, that he understood why she’d freed those slaves in Skull’s Bay. “I can assume Doneval is well guarded?”
    â€œVery,” Arobynn said, fishing a letter from the desk behind him. “He’s waiting to do the deal until after the citywide celebrations, so he can run home the next day.”
    Celaena glanced toward the ceiling, as if she could see through the wood beams and into her room on the floor above, where her trunks of gold now sat. She didn’t
need
the money, but if she were going to pay off her debt to Arobynn, her funds would be severely depleted. And to take this mission wouldn’t just be about killing—it would be about helping others, too. How many lives would be destroyed if she didn’t dispatch Doneval and his partner and retrieve those sensitive documents?
    Arobynn approached her again, and she rose from her chair. He brushed her hair back from her face. “I missed you,” he said.
    He opened his arms to her, but didn’t make a further move to embrace her. She studied his face. The Mute Master had told her that people dealt with their pain in different ways—that some chose to drown it, some chose to love it, and some chose to let it turn into rage. While she had no regrets about freeing those two hundred slaves from Skull’s Bay, she had betrayed Arobynn in doing it. Perhaps hurting her had been his way of coping with the pain of that.
    And even though there was no excuse in this world for what he had done, Arobynn was all she had. The history that lay between them, dark and twisted and full of secrets, was forged by more than just gold. And if she left him, if she paid off her debts right now and never saw him again …
    She took a step back, and Arobynn casually lowered his arms, not at all fazed by her rejection. “I’ll think about taking on Doneval.” It wasn’t a lie. She always took time to consider her missions—Arobynn had always encouraged that.
    â€œI’m sorry,” he said again.
    Celaena just gave him another long look before she left.
    Her exhaustion hit her the moment she began climbing the polished marble steps of the sweeping grand staircase. A month of hard travel—after a month of grueling training and heartache. Every time she saw the scar on her neck, or touched it, or felt her clothes brush against it, a tremor of pain went through her as she remembered the betrayal that had caused it. She’d believed Ansel was her friend—a life-friend, a friend of the heart. But Ansel’s need for revenge had been greater than anything else. Still, wherever Ansel now was, Celaena hoped that she was finally facing what had haunted her for so long.
    A passing servant saw her and bowed his head, eyes averted. Everyone who worked here knew more or less who she was, and would keep her identity secret on pain of death. Not that there was much of a point to it now, given that every single one of the Silent Assassins could identify her.
    Celaena took a ragged breath, running a hand through her hair. Before entering the city this morning, she’d stopped at a tavern just outside Rifthold to bathe, to wash her filthy clothes, to put on some cosmetics. She hadn’t wanted to stride into the Keep looking like a gutter rat. But she still felt
dirty
.
    She passed one of the upstairs drawing rooms, her brows rising at the sound of a pianoforte and laughing people inside. If Arobynn had company, then why had he been in his study,
ever so busy
, when she