“She had embarked on the first mission intending to quickly dispatch the target. She’d prepared herself for the kill, told herself that Sir Carlin was nothing but a stranger and his life meant nothing to her. But when she got to his estate and witnessed the unusual kindness with which he treated his servants, when she saw him playing the lyre with a traveling minstrel he sheltered in his hall, when she realized whose agenda she was aiding…she couldn’t do it. She tried to bully and coax and bribe herself into doing it. But she couldn’t.”

This quote shows Celaena’s true character because she doesn’t want to kill anyone despite being the king’s assassin. She has killed in the past--sometimes quite brutally–be she only does so when necessary and not simply because someone orders her to. Instead, she watches the king’s targets, assessing the kind of people they are, and if they show themselves to be good, she lets them live at significant risk to herself.

“Celaena sank back into her pillows. It was just a nightmare. Cain and the ridderak were gone, and Elena wouldn’t bother her again. It was over.”

The events of Throne of Glass still haunt Celaena and will continue to do so throughout the novel. This passage is an example of irony because she thinks her struggles with evil are over when in fact they are just beginning. Celaena greatly desires freedom to live her life freely and in peace, yet she must take orders from a ruthless king and fulfill the mission of a dead queen.

“‘I’ll never forget the people I’ve killed,’ she said. Her breath curled in the air between them. ‘Even the ones I killed to survive. I still see their faces, still remember the exact blow it took to kill them.’ She looked to the skeletal trees. ‘Some days, it feels like another person did those things. And most of those lives I’m glad I ended. No matter the cause, though, it—it still takes away a little piece of you each time. So I don’t think I’ll ever forget them.’”

Chaol and Celaena have finished their morning run and begin talking about Chaol killing Cain in Throne of Glass. He asks Celaena how often she thinks about the people she has killed, and this is her response. This shows that the King’s Champion retains her empathy and morality and that she suffers with each kill.