The Assassin and the Underworld Read Online Free PDF

did?”
    â€œForgive him! I’m not the one cavorting with Lysandra and attending luncheons and doing … doing whatever in hell it is you spent the summer doing!”
    Sam let out a low growl. “You think I particularly enjoy any of that?”
    â€œYou weren’t the one sent off to the Red Desert.”
    â€œBelieve me, I would rather have been thousands of miles away.”
    â€œI
don’t
believe you. How can I believe anything you say?”
    His brows furrowed. “What are you
talking
about?”
    â€œNothing. None of your business. I don’t want to talk about this. And I don’t particularly want to talk to
you
, Sam Cortland.”
    â€œThen go ahead,” he breathed. “Go crawl back to Arobynn’s study and talk to
him
. Let him buy you presents and pet your hair and offer you the best-paying missions we get. It won’t take him long to figure out the price for your forgiveness, not when—”
    She shoved him. “Don’t you
dare
judge me. Don’t you say one more word.”
    A muscle feathered in his jaw. “That’s fine with me. You wouldn’t listen anyway. Celaena Sardothien and Arobynn Hamel: just the two of you, inseparable, until the end of the world. The rest of us might as well be invisible.”
    â€œThat sounds an awful lot like jealousy. Especially considering you had three uninterrupted months with him this summer. What happened, hmm? You failed to convince him to make
you
his favorite? Found you lacking, did he?”
    Sam was in her face so quickly that she fought the urge to jump back. “You know
nothing
about what this summer was like for me.
Nothing
, Celaena.”
    â€œGood. I don’t particularly care.”
    His eyes were so wide that she wondered if she’d struck him without realizing it. At last he stepped away, and she stormed past him. She halted when he spoke again. “You want to know what price I asked for forgiving Arobynn, Celaena?”
    She slowly turned. With the ongoing rain, the hall was full of shadows and light. Sam stood so still that he might have been a statue. “My price was his oath that he’d never lay a hand on you again. I told him I’d forgive him in exchange for that.”
    She wished he’d punched her in the gut. It would have hurt less. Not trusting herself to keep from falling to her knees with shame right there, she just stalked down the hall.
    She didn’t want to speak to Sam ever again. How could she look him in the eye? He’d made Arobynn swear that
for her
. She didn’t know what words could convey the mixture of gratitude and guilt. Hating him had been so much easier … And it would have been far simpler if he’d blamed herfor Arobynn’s punishment. She had said such cruel things to him in the hallway; how could she ever begin to apologize?
    Arobynn came to her room after lunch and told her to have a dress pressed. Doneval, he’d heard, was going to be at the theater that night, and with four days until his exchange, it would be in her best interest to go.
    She’d formulated a plan for stalking Doneval, but she wasn’t proud enough to refuse Arobynn’s offer to use his box at the theater for spying—to see who Doneval spoke to, who sat near him, who guarded him. And to see a classical dance performed with a full orchestra … well, she’d never turn that down. But Arobynn failed to say who would be joining them.
    She found out the hard way when she climbed into Arobynn’s carriage and discovered Lysandra and Sam waiting inside. With four days until her Bidding, the young courtesan needed all the exposure she could get, Arobynn calmly explained. And Sam was there to provide additional security.
    Celaena dared a glance at Sam as she slumped onto the bench beside him. He watched her, his eyes wary, shoulders tensed, as if he expected her to launch a verbal attack at him right there. Like