The Assassin's Blade

Sam Cortland is another assassin in Arobynn Hamel’s Assassins’ Guild. He is also Celaena’s rival and romantic interest. Sam lost his mother, who was a courtesan, when he was a child; she was murdered by a jealous client. Because she knew Arobynn, she wanted him to take Sam in if anything happened to her, instead of him having to live on the dangerous streets of Rifthold. Like Celaena, Sam grew up under Arobynn’s tutelage, learning to steal, maim, and kill from a very young age. However, he was not chosen by Arobynn to be his heir, and he feels jealous of Celaena. This jealousy is complicated by his love for her. When he confesses his feelings to Celaena, he tells her that he’s been in love with her “for years,” emphasizing the length and persistence of his feelings for her. Though Arobynn set them up to compete with each other, Sam still fell in love with Celaena, even as she viewed him as her rival and did not, until after Skull’s Bay, reciprocate his romantic feelings. 

Though he does not appear in the second and third novellas, his presence is immensely important. In Sam’s absence, Celaena copes with the memory of him watching her be beaten and swearing to kill Arobynn for harming her. These memories complicate her understanding of Sam, as she grapples with the fact that Sam may view their bond as deeper than friendship. She also wrestles with her own feelings toward Sam, realizing she finds him desirable and does not want to kiss another man. Tragically, Sam’s death comes at the hands of Rourke Farran. He keeps Celaena away from Farran, and because of this, he falls into the trap set by Arobynn and Farran. His death nearly breaks Celaena, but she survives to carry his memory onward and obtain her promised revenge against the men who killed him.

Arobynn Hamel is the antagonist of the prequel novellas. The self-titled King of Assassins, he rules the Assassins’ Guild of Rifthold with an iron fist, cultivating a cutthroat, intense environment characterized by antagonism and competition. He takes in both Celaena and Sam as children, turning them into deadly assassins through intense physical training and displays of brutality, like the beatings he gives Celaena and Sam for freeing the enslaved people of Skull’s Bay. Arobynn tells Celaena that he loves her, but Celaena can never tell if the love is romantic or paternal, as Arobynn is 20 years older than Celaena. 

Arobynn’s manipulative affection for Celaena highlights the novellas’ theme of The Fine Line Between Loyalty and Betrayal. Arobynn views Celaena and Sam as his “belongings” (428), which is how he refers to them when discussing his reasons for having Sam killed and Celaena enslaved. His love is not pure or unconditional but rooted in the idea of ownership. This is mirrored in his purchasing of Lysandra at her Bidding. He feels he’s owed something in return for “investing in her career” (330), which is his way of referring to help groom a teenage girl into becoming a sex worker. He is a morally evil character, doing things only to suit his own interests, like attempting to set up an enslavement trade in Adarlan to enrich himself and profiting off of the blood and labor of teenage assassins who have no other choice in how to live their lives. Arobynn appears again later in the Throne of Glass series to antagonize Celaena and Lysandra further.

Ansel of Briarcliff is the first female friend that Celaena makes, after they meet in the fortress of the Silent Assassins in the Red Desert in the third prequel novella. When Celaena sees Ansel, she thinks that Ansel is “stunning” and has “strange, boyish sort of carelessness to her” (128). Ansel began training with the Silent Assassins when she was 13, having fled from the Flatlands, also known as the Wastes, after the murder of her father and sister by Lord Loch, a neighboring leader with ambitions of conquest. However, she lies to the Mute Master, telling him that she was sent by her father, the Lord of Briarcliff, to train before returning home. However, the Mute Master quickly finds out the truth, as no letters come for Ansel, and he finds out the news of the fall of Briarcliff. 

The Mute Master also notes that Ansel let the pain of her past devour her, and the hatred motivated her to sell out the Silent Assassins in exchange for men to return to the Flatlands and reclaim her homeland and avenge her father. Still, she sent Celaena out into the desert before she let Berick’s men attack the Silent Assassin, demonstrating the depth and reality of their friendship, especially as Celaena was the only person to whom Ansel told her truth. Because of that friendship, Celaena spares Ansel, waiting 21 minutes to shoot her arrow instead of 20. This mercy will come back to help Celaena when Ansel joins her cause at the end of Empire of Storms.

Yrene Towers is the woman that Celaena meets the White Pig in Innish. Yrene is described as having tan skin, common in people from the nation of Fenharrow in the southeast of Erilea, and remarkable golden eyes. She is the daughter of a healer from Fenharrow; her mother was burned alive during the conquest Adarlan levied against Fenharrow, Eyllwe, and Terrasen, as she had healing magic, and the King of Adarlan banned magic. Her mother fought so that Yrene could get away. Yrene wanted to go to the Southern Continent, to Antica, to attend the healing institute the Torre Cesme. However, she made it to the port city Innish before she ran out of money. She took the job at the White Pig tavern to earn enough money to continue her journey, but she found herself stuck in the job as her boss Nolan and fellow barmaid Jessa skimmed off her tips. When Celaena visits Innish, she defends Yrene from violent mercenaries trying to rob her, then teaches her self-defense. Yrene’s earnest nature and desire to return to Fenharrow as a healer inspires Celaena to give her the money she needs to make it to the Torre Cesme. Yrene will also return later in the series, becoming an extremely significant character in Tower of Dawn and Kingdom of Ash.