Read Online The Assassin and the Desert by Sarah J. Maas - Free Book Online Page B

that spread beyond, Ansel riding as if the denizens of hell were behind her. Celaena could only race after her, doing her best to keep in the saddle.
    Kasida moved like thunder and turned with the swiftness of lightning. The mare was so fast that Celaena’s eyes watered in the wind. The three guards, astride ordinary horses, were still far off, but not nearly far enough for comfort. In the vastness of the Red Desert, Celaena had no choice but to follow Ansel.
    Celaena clung to Kasida’s mane as they took dune after dune, up and down, down and up, until there was only the red sand and the cloudless sky and the rumble of hooves, hooves, hooves rolling through the world.
    Ansel slowed enough for Celaena to catch up, and they galloped along the broad, flat top of a dune.
    â€œAre you out of your damned mind?” Celaena shouted.
    â€œI don’t want to walk home! We’re taking a shortcut!” Ansel shouted back. Behind them, the three guards still charged onward.
    Celaena debated slamming Kasida into Hisli to send Ansel tumbling onto the dunes—leaving her for the guards to take care of—but the girl pointed over Hisli’s dark head. “Live a little, Sardothien!”
    And just like that, the dunes parted to reveal the turquoise expanse of the Gulf of Oro. The cool sea breeze kissed her face, and Celaena leaned into it, almost moaning with pleasure.
    Ansel let out a whoop, careening down the final dune and heading straight toward the beach and the breaking waves. Despite herself, Celaena smiled and held on tighter.
    Kasida hit the hard-packed red sand and gained speed, faster and faster.
    Celaena had a sudden moment of clarity then, as her hair ripped from her braid and the wind tore at her clothes. Of all the girls in all the world, here she was on a spit of beach in the Red Desert, astride an Asterion horse, racing faster than the wind. Most would never experience this—
she
would never experience anything like this again. And for that one heartbeat, when there was nothing more to it than that, she tasted bliss so complete that she tipped her head back to the sky and laughed.
    The guards reached the beach, their fierce cries nearly swallowed up by the booming surf.
    Ansel cut away, surging toward the dunes and the giant wall of rock that arose nearby. The Desert Cleaver, if Celaena knew her geography correctly—which she did, as she’d studied maps of the Deserted Land for weeks now. A giant wall that arose from the earth and stretched from the eastern coast all the way to the black dunes of the south—split clean down the middle by an enormous fissure. They’d come around it on the way from the fortress, which was on the other side of the Cleaver, and that was what had made their journey so insufferably long. But today . . .
    â€œFaster, Kasida,” she whispered in the horse’s ear. As if the mare understood her, she took off, and soon Celaena was again beside Ansel, cutting up dune after dune as they headed straight for the red wall of rock. “What are you doing?” she called to Ansel.
    Ansel gave her a fiendish grin. “We’re going through it. What good is an Asterion horse if it can’t jump?”
    Celaena’s stomach dropped. “You can’t be serious.”
    Ansel glanced over her shoulder, her red hair streaming past her face. “They’ll chase us to the doors of the fortress if we go the long way!” But the guards couldn’t make the jump, not with ordinary horses.
    A narrow opening in the wall of red rock appeared, twisting away from sight. Ansel headed straight toward it. How
dare
she make such a reckless, stupid decision without consulting Celaena first?
    â€œYou planned this the whole time,” Celaena snapped. Though the guards still remained a good distance away, they were close enough for Celaena to see the weapons, including longbows, strapped to them.
    Ansel didn’t reply. She just sent Hisli