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The Assassin's Blade

The Assassin's Blade

The Throne of Glass Novellas
NovellaSeveral booksDark FantasyFantasy
Pages
451
Published
2014
Language
English

Synopsis

A collection of five novellas set before the events of Throne of Glass, following Celaena Sardothien — Adarlan's most notorious young assassin — across the jobs, travels, and losses that define who she is when the main series begins. In The Assassin and the Pirate Lord, she and fellow assassin Sam Cortland discover that a mission to Skull's Bay is a cover for slave trading. In The Assassin and the Healer, she passes through a remote harbour town and crosses paths with a young woman named Yrene Towers, whose future will intersect with the fate of a continent. In The Assassin and the Desert, she trains with the legendary Silent Assassins and confronts the cost of a friendship built on concealment. In The Assassin and the Underworld, back in Rifthold, she and Sam begin to imagine a different life — one outside the guild. And in The Assassin and the Empire, that dream is destroyed in a single night of betrayal that sends Celaena to the salt mines of Endovier. Together, these five stories trace the full arc of how Adarlan's greatest assassin became its most famous prisoner — and why she is the way she is when a prince offers her a chance at freedom.

Prose complexity
4/10

Books inside

5 books
Book cover of The Assassin and the Pirate Lord
#1.00
The Assassin and the Pirate Lord
Book cover of The Assassin and the Healer
#2.00
The Assassin and the Healer
Book cover of The Assassin and the Desert
#3.00
The Assassin and the Desert
Book cover of The Assassin and the Underworld
#4.00
The Assassin and the Underworld
Book cover of The Assassin and the Empire
#5.00
The Assassin and the Empire

Vibe

DarkTenseAtmosphericEmotional
Morally GreyBetrayalSacrificeComing of AgeRivalsForbidden Love
Writing3.0Impact5.0Characters4.0Plot5.0Atmosphere4.0

Genres

Dark Fantasy Fantasy High Fantasy Romance Romantasy YA Fantasy Short Stories Young Adult

About the author

S
Sarah J. Maas

Sarah J. Maas is a #1 New York Times and internationally bestselling author known for her epic fantasy novels and their devoted global readership. She began writing what would become the Throne of Glass series as a teenager, posting early chapters online before the series was acquired by Bloomsbury. Her three interconnected fantasy universes — Throne of Glass, A Court of Thorns and Roses, and Crescent City — have sold tens of millions of copies worldwide and been translated into dozens of langua...

Characters

Celaena SardothienProtagonist

Across all five novellas, Celaena is portrayed as brilliant, vain, and deeply principled in ways she would never admit; the arc traces her from a ruthless young assassin to someone capable of love — and then to someone who has lost it.

Arobynn AhamarAntagonist

The King of Assassins, Celaena's guardian and captor; his manipulation and eventual betrayal of both Celaena and Sam are the collection's central act of villainy.

RolfeAntagonist

The Pirate Lord of Skull's Bay; the antagonist of the first novella, who reappears in the main series with expanded significance.

Sam CortlandSupporting

Celaena's fellow assassin, rival, and eventual love; his death in the final novella is the emotional anchor of the entire collection and the key to understanding Celaena's state of mind at the start of Throne of Glass.

Ansel of BriarcliffSupporting

A fellow trainee at the Silent Assassins whose friendship with Celaena is complicated by her secret agenda; her reappearance in the main series rewards readers who know her origin.

All characters in The Assassin's Blade

Frequently asked questions

  • Should I read The Assassin's Blade before or after Throne of Glass?

    Most readers and SJM herself have suggested reading the novellas either before Throne of Glass or after the first book. Reading them first provides context for Celaena's emotional state and her grief. Reading after the first book also works well, as Throne of Glass is designed to function without prior knowledge of the novellas. Many readers report that a re-read of the novellas after completing the full series is equally rewarding.

  • Are these novellas originally published as one book or separately?

    The five novellas were originally published individually as e-novellas between 2012 and 2013, before and shortly after the release of Throne of Glass. The Assassin's Blade is the print anthology that collects all five in a single volume, published in 2014. Most readers today encounter them in this collected form.

  • Who is Sam Cortland, and why does he matter?

    Sam Cortland is Celaena's fellow assassin, rival, and the first person she genuinely loves. He does not appear in Throne of Glass because he is dead before that book begins — his death, engineered by Arobynn Ahamar, is the emotional wound that shapes Celaena's entire arc in the main series. The novellas make that wound comprehensible.

  • Does Yrene Towers from The Assassin and the Healer appear in the main series?

    Yes — Yrene is a central character in Tower of Dawn, the sixth book of the Throne of Glass series. The money Celaena gives her in the novella funds her training at the Torre Cesme in Antica, where she becomes one of the world's foremost healers. Her role in Tower of Dawn is directly tied to the encounter depicted in The Assassin and the Healer.

  • What is the reading order of the five novellas within the collection?

    The novellas appear in The Assassin's Blade in chronological order of the story's events: Pirate Lord, Healer, Desert, Underworld, Empire. This is also the order in which they are recommended to be read. Each novella builds on the one before, and the emotional arc only works in sequence.

  • Is this appropriate for younger readers within the YA category?

    The novellas contain violence, abuse dynamics (Arobynn's relationship with Celaena is psychologically coercive), and the death of a character Celaena loves. The content is solidly at the upper end of the young adult range. The final novella in particular — The Assassin and the Empire — deals with betrayal, loss, and torture (off-page) at a level of emotional intensity that is more demanding than standard YA.

  • Does Arobynn Ahamar appear in the main Throne of Glass series?

    Yes. Arobynn is a recurring presence in the main series, most significantly in Queen of Shadows (book 4), where the full consequences of his actions in the novellas are addressed. His relationship with Celaena (later revealed to be Aelin) is one of the main series's most complex antagonist dynamics.

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