#assassin's keep

[foldedficpages]

Growing Up in the Assassin’s Keep — Headcanons

You’d learn early not to show weakness. Arobynn rewards excellence and punishes failure. sometimes subtly, sometimes not.

Celaena is brilliant and she knows it. She advances faster than the other kids and Arobynn makes sure you see it.

We know Arobynn is a master manipulator who makes sure to pit Celaena, Sam and Lysandra against each other you'd definitely be an unwilling part of that.

If Arobynn gives you a gift, it means he wants something. If he praises you, he is isolating you. If he ignores you it is to make you work for his attention.

He encourages rivalry. Especially between Celaena and Sam. He would compare contracts, earnings, efficiency. When you show promise, he’d use you to provoke one of them.

The Keep feels luxurious but suffocating. Silk sheets, fine food, music drifting through halls but you are never free. Every favor is a leash.

Celaena would drag you into ridiculous debates about fashion or books after sparring sessions. She adores beautiful things

When Arobynn praises her too much, you’d see the flicker of doubt. She craves his approval, even if she resents it.

She’d insist on winning everything. Races across rooftops. Knife-throwing contests. Who could scale the courtyard wall fastest.

Sam would be softer in private. He teases Celaena and you mercilessly but never cruelly.

He’d check on you after rough assignments. Never dramatically just a quiet, “You’re not hurt, are you?”

He hates how Arobynn manipulates Celaena and you

You’d see the tension in him long before their break from the Guild.

If you doubt yourself, he’d train with you without making it a lesson. Just repetition.

Sneaking into the kitchens after midnight, especially when there's sweets.

Listening at doors during Arobynn’s meetings and gathering scraps of information.

Sitting on the roof overlooking Rifthold, wondering what freedom might look like.

[tessalivesandbreathesbooks]

You can’t just toss us out. What will we do? Where will we go?” “I hear hell is particularly nice at this time of year.

Queen of Shadows by Sarah J. Maas

[dreamanadventure-blog]

By Sarah J Maas.

Genre. YA Fantasy

Series. Throne of Glass (#0.5)

Synopsis.

Celaena Sardothien is Adarlan’s most feared assassin. As part of the Assassin’s Guild, her allegiance is to her master, Arobynn Hamel, yet Celaena listens to no one and trusts only her fellow killer-for-hire, Sam. In these action-packed novellas – together in one edition for the first time – Celaena embarks on five daring missions. They take her from remote islands to hostile deserts, where she fights to liberate slaves and seeks to avenge the tyrannous. But she is acting against Arobynn’s orders and could suffer an unimaginable punishment for such treachery. Will Celaena ever be truly free? Explore the dark underworld of this kick-ass heroine to find out.

Review.

Assassin’s Blade is the prequel to the amazing Throne of Glass series, we get 5 short stories on Celaena before she is sent to the salt mines. The book is a little dry compared to Maas’s main books as they are all small stories, but they are really interesting in terms of how Celaena was before her world changed forever. I would recommend reading AB before starting TOG but if not at least before Queen of Shadows. Maas has amazingly thought out the plot of her series and she has little things happen in AB that she uses in the main storyline later in the series. As readers, we also get to see Celaena’s relationship with other Assassins and what exactly happened between her and Sam which is so amazingly heart wrenching.

Many people have said that AB is not worth the read, but trust me it is especially by the end of Empire of Storms you see how Maas has made Celaena incredibly smart and resourceful. In all its an enjoyable read but it might be something you have to push yourself to finish in order to better understand the series.