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"I love you, and from today onward, I want to never be separated from you. 
Where you go, I go. 
Even if that means going to Hell itself, wherever you are, that's where I want to be.  Forever."

Sam Cortland

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Male | Human

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Loyal to Assassin's Guild

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Lived in the Assassin's Keep, Rifthold

Born in Rifthold

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17-18 | Deceased

Died in The Assassin and the Empire

 

Family

Unnamed Mother 

Unknown Father

 

Love Interests
Celaena Sardothien (The Assassin's Blade)

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Physical Description

    Sam is described as very handsome and physically fit.  Celaena thinks of him as beautiful.  He had a golden skin, with chestnut colored, longish hair, that looked bronze in the sunlight. He had dark and rich brown eyes with emerald flecks.  He had a broad, muscular chest, and was covered in slender scars from years of fighting.

Personality

    Sam was compassionate and a loyal friend.  Celaena, who didn't have friends, thought Sam would make a good friend.  Due to his birth mother, who was a famous courtesan, he felt a mixture of sympathy and sorrow towards courtesan's, and is always polite to them.  Celaena thinks of Sam as beautiful, full of the things that she wanted, and all that she hoped for.  Sam had a lot of pride, and while he loved Celaena, she could also see that there was a part of him that was bitter about the praise and attention she got from Arobynn.  

    At the end of The Assassin's Blade, Celaena can't imagine who would have betrayed Sam, because everybody loved Sam, even Wesley, who didn't like anyone.  

Skills
    
Sam was a very skilled fighter, as he grew up along with Celaena, being trained by Arobynn as an assassin.  Along with fighting and weapons, he was taught how to torture people by being tortured himself.  Along with Celaena, he learned how to skin a man and keep them alive, and awake for hours.  Celaena also describes him as being very fast.

Weapons

Before Book Events
    
Sam was born to a young and famously beautiful courtesan.  Arobynn was one of her favorite clients.  She had asked Arobynn that if anything were to happen to her, if he would take Sam under his wing in the Assassin's Guild, and look after him, to which he agreed.  He was raised in the brothel by his mother until the age of six, when his mother was brutally murdered by a jealous client.  Because of his mother's profession, he was always kind to courtesans, and while they adored him, he never employed them.  He actually had an intense hatred towards those who did.

The Assassin's Blade

For Book Walkthrough, click here.

    When we first meet Sam in The Assassin and the Pirate Lord, he see that he is loyal to Arobynn and the assassin's, but is combative with Celaena, due to his jealousy over Celaena being chosen as Arobynn's heir.  As Celaena gets to know him more, though, we learn that he isn't as loyal to Arobynn as he first appeared to be.  He, like Celaena, is disgusted by Arobynn wanting to get into the slave trade, and offers his help in freeing the slaves.  He tells Celaena that he thinks Arobynn sent them to Skull's Bay to get them out of Rifthold, because he was hiding something from them, and that he knew more about Ben's death than he was letting on, but Celaena didn't want to believe that.  He suggests they run away after freeing the slaves, but Celaena doesn't want to spend her life hiding from Arobynn.

    Sam tries to share the blame of what happens in Skull's Bay, but Arobynn blames the planning on Celaena, and says Sam only involved himself because she was the one who planned it, and it was either help her or let her die. Arobynn had his other favored assassins hold Sam back while he beat Celaena.  Celaena doesn't remember what Sam was screaming at Arobynn until later during the beating, but when she does, she remembers that he was telling Arobynn he would kill him for this.

    While Celaena is sent to the Red Desert after her beating as punishment, Sam was kept at the guild.  Arobynn knew that Sam loved Celaena, so his punishment was to watch as Arobynn beat Celaena.  Afterwards, he was beaten, and was unconscience for a day, and in and out of sleep for three days after.  During the time Celaena was in the desert, Arobynn had Sam on lockdown, guarding Lysandra and Clarisse while they planned Lysandra's bidding.  During this time, Arobynn and Sam discuss how Arobynn wants to expand this Assassin's Guild to the south, and discuss the possibility of Sam relocating to Benjali (Eyllwe) to lead the guild there.

    When Sam and Celaena reunite after she returns from the desert, it takes some time for Celaena to bring her guard down around him.  Not only because she is jealous of the time he is spending with Lysandra, but because after Ansel's betrayal, she is weary or being hurt again.  She ultimately decides to let Sam in, when she remembers that Sam stood by her, supported her, and didn't betray her.

    As Sam helps Celaena with her mission from Arobynn, they grow closer.  Sam admits to her that he is leaving for Benjali in two weeks time, to head an Assassin's Guild there, because he can't stay there with Arobynn without killing him.  When Celaena asks Sam why he can't get over it, Sam tells her that he has loved her for years, and that Arobynn knew, which was why his punishment was to watch her be beaten.  Now that he knows she is back in Rifthold, and is okay, he plans to leave.  That he won't even ask for Celaena to come with him, because he knows she will choose Arobynn.  Celaena calls him a damned idiot, a moron and an ass before kissing him, making her choice.  From this point on Sam and Celaena are for all intents and purposes, together.
    After Celaena learns of Arobynn's betrayal, that led to her killing the very people she wanted to protect, she uses most of the money she had left after paying off her debt with Arobynn, and buying her apartment, and pays off Sam's debt with Arobynn, freeing him from the Assassin's Guild.(check on this)  She moves Sam into the apartment with her.

    Struggling to make money, he takes to fighting in The Vaults, much to Celaena's displeasure.  Despite that, they continue to get closer, and Sam admits that he loves her.  While it takes some convincing, Sam begs Celaena to leave Rifthold and move to the South Continent, where they can be free from their pasts and Arobynn.  Celaena finally decides to leave with him.  Celaena insists that they need Arobynn's blessing, and to buy Sam's freedom from the guild.  Arobynn, who must know how much Celaena has in her account, asks for all of it.  Knowing Arobynn wouldn't budge, she agrees to pay it, which angers Sam.  In an effort to get enough money for them to leave, Sam takes a freelance assassination contract, and refuses Celaena's help in it.  

    This would be his downfall.  

    The job Sam took, was a trap, laid by Arobynn.  The very man Sam was sent to kill, Rourke Farran, drugs Sam to paralize him, and tortures him for hours until his death.

     When Celaena views his body, she describes it was mutilated, and his face being in ruin, his eyes missing.  She lays with his body for hours.

Facts:

  • While Arobynn knew Sam since birth, he never gave Sam gifts that way he did Celaena.  Every item forced on Sam, including housing and training, Arobynn added to Sam's debt, which essentially enslaved him to Arobynn.  Any money Sam made when assigned an assassination, went to Arobynn.

  • In exchange of forgiveness, Sam made Arobynn vow to never lay a hand on Celaena again.

  • Sam's handwriting is described as a "hurried scrawl"

  • ​Arobynn knew that Sam wanted to kill him, which is why he was planning on sending Sam away to Benjali to head an Assassin's Guild there.  Sam said he remained in Rifthold to see Celaena one more time, and make sure she was okay before leaving.

  • Sam believed that Celaena would pick Arobynn over him.

  • The patch of spidersilk that Celaena had the master tinkerer add to Sam's suit over where his heart would be saved Sam's life at the end of The Assassin and the Underworld, when Sam is caught in the cellar, and shot with an arrow.  Because of the spidersilk, it didn't even touch his skin.  Celaena never tells him that it was her who had it added to his suit.

  • Celaena thought of her bond with Sam as so unbreakable and unyielding it made the entire axis of her world shift toward him.  

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