Opening
A sixteen-year-old Celaena Sardothien learns that loyalty has a price when grief shatters the Assassins’ Guild—and deception sends her into the den of a pirate lord. These chapters launch a story of power plays, moral lines, and a girl who refuses to bow.
What Happens
Chapter 1: A Death in the Guild
In the Assassins’ Keep in Rifthold, Celaena is summoned in the dead of night by her mentor, Arobynn Hamel, the King of the Assassins. He reports that Gregori, one of their own, has been captured. Worse: Ben—Arobynn’s second-in-command and Celaena’s beloved mentor—was killed in a mission that turned out to be a trap. The news breaks through Celaena’s cultivated composure, and grief flares into rage.
Tensions explode when she clashes with her rival, Sam Cortland. Celaena coldly insists the Guild must silence Gregori to protect their secrets, but she cannot accept that Ben’s body was left behind. Sam argues that retrieving it would expose the Keep and endanger them all. Their argument spirals until Arobynn steps between them, warning Sam not to challenge Celaena that night. Refusing to heed either man, Celaena vows to bring Ben home and storms into the city alone, intent on honoring him no matter the risk.
Chapter 2: The Pirate Lord’s Bargain
Two months later, Celaena has retrieved Ben’s body—and now travels to Skull’s Bay with Sam to confront the infamous Captain Rolfe. Disguised beneath an ebony mask, black cloak, and tunic, she waits in Rolfe’s office, prowling through his things and pocketing a small, gleaming object. Arobynn has sent Sam as her “escort,” though he watches her as much as he guards her.
Rolfe arrives—lean, polished, and deadly calm rather than flamboyant—and immediately dismisses Celaena’s attempted intimidation. When he reads Arobynn’s sealed letters, the mission’s truth detonates: they aren’t here to seek justice for slain assassins. They’re here to finalize a trade agreement—for a shipment of slaves. Arobynn has lied to them both. Sam scrambles to conceal their ignorance, playing along to keep leverage. Celaena seethes, repulsed by the deal and the betrayal, and resolves that she won’t be a party to it.
Character Development
Celaena’s legend meets its first moral crucible: she can kill, but she won’t be complicit in cruelty that violates her code. Around her, allies and enemies reveal their limits—and their leverage.
- Celaena Sardothien: Brilliant, arrogant, and feared, yet her reaction to Ben’s death exposes fierce loyalty and a capacity for love beneath the mask. Defying orders to retrieve Ben’s body asserts her independence; refusing the slave trade reveals a line she won’t cross.
- Sam Cortland: Celaena’s sharpest foil—cautious, pragmatic, and quick-thinking. He prioritizes the Guild’s safety, but his improvisation with Rolfe shows poise and intelligence that complicate his rivalry with Celaena.
- Arobynn Hamel: Controlled, powerful, and calculating. He mourns Ben, but his manipulation—lying about Skull’s Bay to secure a slave deal—shows he values strategy and profit over trust.
- Captain Rolfe: Urbane and unflappable. He rules Skull’s Bay without bluster, matching Celaena’s menace with quiet authority. His embrace of the slave trade marks him as a morally ambiguous adversary.
Themes & Symbols
Betrayal fractures the ground beneath the assassins. Arobynn’s deception undercuts the surrogate family he built, destabilizing Celaena’s faith in the man who shaped her. That breach feeds a larger conflict about Betrayal and Trust: if the King of the Assassins treats loyalty as a tool, what does loyalty mean?
The slave deal ignites Morality and Justice. Celaena accepts targeted killing within the Guild’s code, but slavery represents indiscriminate cruelty—an absolute line. Her revulsion defines a personal ethic distinct from Arobynn’s, setting up a fight not just against enemies but against the system that raised her.
The push-pull of power and constraint threads through every choice: freedom versus servitude. Celaena asserts her will by retrieving Ben’s body, yet she remains bound to Arobynn’s orders and the Guild’s debts. That tension mirrors the absolute lack of agency faced by the enslaved, sharpening the moral stakes and foreshadowing who Celaena will become.
- Symbol: The ebony mask. It grants anonymity and fearsome authority, yet it also hides youth, grief, and conscience. The mask lets Celaena perform “Adarlan’s Assassin,” even as the girl beneath begins to reject what that persona demands.
Key Quotes
“Ben is dead.”
Arobynn’s blunt revelation ruptures the Guild’s stability and pierces Celaena’s armor. It catalyzes her defiance, propelling her into action that privileges loyalty over protocol.
“It was a trap.”
The word reframes the mission as betrayal, not misfortune. It hints at rot in the underworld’s alliances and primes the reader to suspect deeper manipulations ahead.
“There will be no retribution.”
Rolfe’s reading of Arobynn’s letters flips the premise of their journey. Instead of justice, the mission is commerce—exposing Arobynn’s priorities and isolating Celaena morally.
“Slaves.”
This single word redraws the map of right and wrong for Celaena. It marks the boundary she refuses to cross and sets the ethical conflict that drives the plot forward.
Why This Matters and Section Significance
These chapters lay the foundation for the power dynamics and emotional bonds that define The Assassin’s Blade. Ben’s death hardens Celaena while proving the depth of her loyalty. Arobynn’s lie cracks their mentor-protégée relationship, shifting it from tutelage to control—and making resistance inevitable.
The Skull’s Bay reveal pushes Celaena into active opposition to her own world. That pivot propels future choices, escalations with Rolfe and Arobynn, and the chain of consequences that lead to her downfall and imprisonment in Endovier. The stage is set for a violent Loss of Innocence and Coming of Age, as Celaena begins to define justice on her own terms—no matter the cost.