The Assassin's Blade characters

Appears from the start

Sixteen years old and already the most feared assassin in Rifthold, trained since childhood by the King of the Assassins after he took her in off the street. She is vain, arrogant, extravagantly well dressed, and very good at what she does. She has been raised inside a guild that treats her as its finest investment, has never questioned the man who owns her contract, and does not yet think of any of this as something to escape.

Appears from the start

An assassin of the same guild, close to Celaena's age, trained alongside her and treated by everyone as her rival. The two have spent years competing for jobs and for their master's approval and have made a habit of loathing each other in public.

Appears from the start

The King of the Assassins, master of Rifthold's guild, who bought Celaena as a child, trained her, and gave her everything she owns. He is elegant, generous, and rarely raises his voice. Every gift he gives is recorded somewhere as a debt, and his approval is the only currency his people have.

First appears in chapter 4

The Pirate Lord of Skull's Bay in the Dead Islands, young for the title, with a map of the seas tattooed across both hands that shows him what sails on them. He runs the archipelago as his own kingdom and has been doing business with the assassins' guild.

First appears in chapter 14

A young woman working as a barmaid and drudge at a shabby inn in the seaside town of Innish, saving coins in a jar toward passage she has been failing to afford for years. Her mother and grandmother were healers, killed in Adarlan's conquest of Fenharrow, and she has the gift herself with no way to train it.

First appears in chapter 23

Leader of the Silent Assassins, who keep a fortress in the Red Desert and train in discipline, restraint, and the sort of skill that does not advertise itself. He does not speak and communicates in signs, and he accepts an apprentice from Rifthold with more reluctance than welcome.

First appears in chapter 23

A young woman training with the Silent Assassins, red-haired, funny, and reckless, who befriends the newcomer from Rifthold immediately. She is the exiled heir of the Western Wastes, driven out as a child when a warlord took her family's lands, and she talks about going back the way other people talk about the weather.

First appears in chapter 24

Son of the Mute Master and one of the finest of the Silent Assassins, quiet like his father and rather more welcoming than the rest of the fortress.

First appears in chapter 38

Arobynn Hamel's personal bodyguard, a hard, watchful man who stands behind his master's chair and says almost nothing. He has been in the guild a long time and misses very little of what happens in it.

First appears in chapter 38

A courtesan in training in Rifthold, beautiful and carefully schooled, whose debut has been paid for by a wealthy patron. She and Celaena are introduced to each other as rivals and take to it immediately.

First appears in chapter 39

A wealthy Rifthold businessman with political connections and a large house in the merchant quarter, who deals in commodities that include people, and who is holding documents a great many powerful men would rather did not exist.

First appears in chapter 50

The crime lord of Rifthold, who runs the capital's gangs, its gambling dens, and much of its guard, and who has held the city's underworld for years without being seriously challenged.

First appears in chapter 50

Jayne's second in command, who does the crime lord's collecting and correcting personally. He is calm, well presented, and takes an unusual amount of interest in the work.