Death Marked (3 page)

“I
do
have a talent for that,” he said, as calmly as if there hadn’t been a dagger drawn just a minute ago. “Being in the wrong place at the wrong time, I mean. Though yesterday I was in the wrong place at the
right
time, and that didn’t go much better.”

Everyone ignored him. Ileni kept her eyes on Arxis, on his remorseless face and coiled body. She had seen, a dozen times over, how fast assassins could strike. Sorin had taught her some basic defense moves, but they had only worked because he had held back. If Arxis decided to kill her, she was dead.

And if he knew she had killed his master, nothing would stop him from killing her.

Finally, Arxis took another step back. Ileni’s shoulders
relaxed, even though she knew he could easily kill her from all the way across the room. She forced herself to sheath her dagger.

“Interesting,” Karyn said. It wasn’t clear who she was talking to. “Evin, why don’t you show Ileni to the testing arena. I will meet you there.”

Ileni opened her mouth, then closed it. Karyn knew perfectly well that Ileni had no magic left. Ileni had grown up more powerful than any of her people, but when her power had begun to ebb, she had been sent to the assassins to serve as their tutor for the rest of her life. From future leader to useless sacrifice over the course of a few months.

If Karyn thought she had something to gain by demonstrating Ileni’s powerlessness during a “test,” she was making a mistake. Ileni was quite resistant to humiliation by now.

“I’m looking forward to it,” she said.

“Good.” Karyn seemed sincere, which puzzled Ileni.

“This way,” her new guide said, and waited for her to start walking before he led her out the door and into the Imperial Academy of Sorcery.

CHAPTER

3

H
aving a solid wall between her and the assassin was a huge relief. Ileni tried to put Arxis out of her mind as she followed Evin through winding passageways. These corridors were narrower and prettier than the ones in the Assassins’ Caves, better lit by glowstones that lined the walls in decorative, fanciful patterns. The air was filled with a faint flowery scent that struck Ileni as unpleasantly artificial, a peculiar contrast to the hulking, solid stone that surrounded them.

Magic.

And that was the key. The Empire was vast and powerful, but it depended on magic for everything from transportation
to communication—and, most importantly, to win its wars, quash its rebellions, and defend itself against the relentless strikes of the assassins. Without magic, there was no way it could keep control over its vast territories. If she could take that magic away—or even cripple it—that would be the beginning of the end of the Empire.

“So,” Evin said, as they trotted down a few shallow steps, “looks like things are going to get a little more interesting around here. Where did you say you were from?”

Ileni took a deep breath. Might as well get it over with. “I’m a Renegai.”

Evin nodded politely. “Oh, really? From the Kerosian Grasslands?”

There were other Renegai? Did the Elders know? “No. From the Kierran Mountains.”

“Oh, right! The separatists in the grasslands call themselves the Singers. My apologies.” His voice was higher than she was used to hearing from men, and she realized that what she had thought was Karyn’s high-pitched voice was actually the way people spoke here.

They reached a fork in the passageway, and Evin took the corridor on the left. He was tall and lanky, and walked with a loping, casual stride. It looked awkward to her, compared to
the focused grace she was used to from the assassins. From Sorin.

His voice, too, was nonchalant. “What happened back there, with you and Arxis?”

He didn’t sound condescending, but he did sound amused.
Gullible, romantic village girls
, Arxis had said. Ileni bristled. “It’s not what he said. It was a misunderstanding.”

“Do you always solve your misunderstandings with knives?”

“I find it saves time.”

He looked at her sideways and grinned. “I’d better be careful what I say around you, then.”

“I would advise it.”

Evin’s eyebrows rose. Ileni knew she sounded unfriendly, but that was all right. He was an imperial sorcerer. She had grown up hating him, even if he had grown up not knowing who her people were. “How long has he been here?”

“Arxis? Not long,” Evin said.

“What does he—” she began, but then they turned a corner and, all at once, weren’t underground anymore.

They never had been.

They were standing on a ledge on the side of a mountain. Below the ledge—very, very far below—a mass of tiny
treetops swept downhill in a cascade of blurry green. Above, the sky unfurled, brilliantly blue. The rocks stretched up behind her, steep and craggy, with a hardy bush clinging to a crack in the cliff face above her.

“What is this?” she breathed.

“The way to the testing arena, of course.” Evin was already walking along the ledge—which, Ileni realized, was actually a path that hugged the side of the mountain. His feet practically touched the edge of the ledge, but he seemed not to notice the precipitous drop. “The Academy spans a couple of mountain peaks. You can see why it’s the ideal location for magic-users.”

Ileni didn’t see that at all. But she nodded. “Right. Of course.”

Evin continued down the path, clearly expecting her to follow. Ileni wanted nothing more than to shrink back into the darkness of the cave, far from the vast space below. She couldn’t make her feet move forward.

We know how to overcome fear,
Sorin had told her once. She could imagine his scorn. He might have been afraid, if he was here, but he would never let fear stop him.

She set her jaw and took one step out, then another. The ledge was solid white stone, but terribly narrow. She put one
hand flat on the pitted rock of the mountainside and inched forward. She kept her eyes focused straight ahead and did not—did
not
—look down.

Evin glanced back. His surprise was a prickle of heat against her skin, but she couldn’t force herself to move faster. Once, she would have been as fearless as he was, but now she didn’t have the safeguard of magic. One misstep and she would fall, shattered to pieces far below.

Her life was full of fears like that now, reminders of small safeties she no longer had.

By the time she caught up to Evin, her entire body was shaking, little tremors that made her legs weak and her hands unsteady. Evin waited for her at an archway that led back inside the mountain. The opening, where light shaded into darkness, was such a welcome sight that Ileni stopped caring how pathetic she looked. She lunged past Evin into the dimness, pressed her back against the rock, and took several deep breaths.

“Fear of heights?” Evin said sympathetically. His face was open and earnest, his mouth twisted slightly, but with empathy rather than mockery—another difference from the caves. “I’ve seen it before. It will pass.”

Ileni wanted to say something nonchalant, but she
couldn’t stop trembling. She closed her eyes and tried to think of something calming. It had been a long time since anything in her life could be described as
calming
, but she reached all the way back, to before Karyn had grabbed her, before she had been sent to the Assassins’ Caves, before the Elders had told her she was losing her magic. She remembered sitting with Tellis in one of the Renegai practice rooms, back to back, focusing on the rhythms of a relaxation spell.

She had let her discipline go in the caves, hadn’t bothered with the mental exercises designed to hone magic she no longer had. Now they came slowly and jerkily, and she forced them gracelessly through her mind. Eventually the rhythms came back to her, halting but effective, and her breath fell into the pattern. No magic accompanied the rhythm, of course, a lack that scraped sharply and painfully against her concentration. But slowly, steadily, her muscles relaxed.

She wasn’t sure how long it took. When she opened her eyes, her hands were steady, and Evin was leaning on the opposite wall watching her. There was no hint of impatience in his stance, which probably meant he was very good at hiding it.

“Thank you for waiting,” Ileni said. “I’m ready to continue now.”

“Of course,” Evin replied, his voice as neutral as hers. His brown eyes were calm and steady, shaded by long dark lashes. “It wouldn’t be fair to test you when you were shaken up. The testing arena is this way.”

He led her deeper into the passageway and through a doorway to the left. Keeping her newfound calm wrapped tightly around herself, Ileni followed.

When she entered the testing arena, recognition ran through her with a chill sense of inevitability. It was smaller than the training room in the Assassins’ Caves, and the weapons lined up near one wall were fewer in number and far less exotic in type. But otherwise it was the same: round, cavernous, and sparse, lit by glowstones that covered the walls and the high arched ceiling. There were no stalactites here, though. The ceiling was a smooth, polished curve stretching from wall to wall.

“All right,” Evin said, and she forced her feet to move. In the center of the chamber was a simple raised rock, the perfect height for sitting. Evin stopped next to it and faced her.

Whatever expression was on her face, it made his brow furrow. But all he said was, “Do you want to get in some
practice before Karyn gets here? We can start with something simple, like . . . can you call up fire?”

Ileni had called fire dozens of times a day, once. Nothing would explain a sudden fit of crying, so she pushed down the stab of loss and said, “That’s all right. I’ll wait for Karyn.”

“Are you sure? It’s not as if I have anything important to do right now.”

“Then go do something unimportant,” she snapped.

“Well. I do have a lot of
that
to do,” he said. “All right, then. Good luck.”

“I won’t need it.” Which was untrue as well as obnoxious.
Calm down, Ileni.

Evin looked over his shoulder. “I wasn’t talking to you.”

Ileni whirled. Karyn was leaning against the far wall of the cavern, watching them, the light of the glowstones turning the edges of her hair silver.

Ileni turned again, just in time to see Evin saunter out the door.

“This should be interesting,” Karyn said. “Are you ready to begin?”

Are you ready to begin?
the Elder had said. His voice was kind, and that was the worst part. In Ileni’s other testings—the ones where she had
been expected to excel, where failure merely meant she had to push herself harder—the Elders had never been kind. They had been harsh and pitiless.

They had not been kind until they started expecting her to fail.

Karyn stood with her feet braced far apart, fingers lightly curled. There was nothing kind in
her
face. Clearly, the sorceress was looking forward to this.

I could refuse.
But then what? Ileni was here on Karyn’s sufferance. And she had to stay here, to discover the truth about the Empire. She needed that truth before she could make her choice.

She had grown up believing that destroying the Empire was her life’s goal, the hope of every Renegai. But too many of her childhood beliefs had been shattered in the Assassins’ Caves. She needed to see for herself. And if she wanted the chance to do that, she had to go along with Karyn’s cruel little game.

Ileni bit her lip. She walked to the raised rock and sat on it.

The rock, it was immediately obvious, was not intended for sitting. It was curved upward and extraordinarily uncomfortable. But Karyn was watching, so Ileni remained seated, trying to appear at ease.

Karyn’s lips twitched, but all she said was, “Should we start with basic sparring?”

Ileni wondered again why Karyn hadn’t killed her already. Maybe the sorceress just wanted to play with her first.

“No? Something simpler, then.” Karyn raised her hand, fist closed, then slowly opened it. A glowing orb hovered in front of her palm, intensely white. Karyn flicked her fingers, and the orb shot through the air.

Ileni had just enough time to block her face. The orb splattered against her bare forearm and vanished. Burning pain tore into Ileni’s skin, and she bit down on a scream.

Karyn blinked at her. “What was that?”

Before Ileni could think up an answer, Karyn sent another orb flying at her.

This one was aimed at her shoulder. Ileni managed to avoid it by twisting to the side, but at the cost of her balance. She slid off the rock, flailed, and landed hard on the ground.

Grunting, she got to her feet just in time for the next orb to hit her cheek. This time she did scream, tears stinging her eyes.

None of them had been large or hot enough to seriously injure her. The point of this was not to test Ileni. It was to humiliate her.

Adding an entry to the
Reasons to kill them all
list in her head, Ileni dodged the next orb. It flew clear across the cavern and hit the wall, where it exploded harmlessly, a shower of white sparks against the gray rock.

“Oh, come
on
,” Karyn snapped. “You bedded an assassin, and you’re still stuck on these stupid scruples?”

Ileni had a swift recollection of Karyn’s face bulging, her feet kicking helplessly against white stone, while Sorin’s hands tightened inexorably around her neck. Sorin had almost killed Karyn, back in the caves, when he had discovered that she was from the Empire.

It was really Sorin who Karyn wanted to hurt and humiliate. But Sorin wasn’t here, and Ileni was.

How would Sorin handle this? Ileni couldn’t imagine him ever getting into a situation where he was so helpless.

She had to throw herself to the ground to avoid the next orb. It whizzed so close over her head that her hair sizzled.

“I’ll keep throwing them,” Karyn warned, “until—”

“Until
what
?” Ileni shouted. But another white light spun toward her, too fast to avoid, and she gave in. She knew what Karyn wanted to see: the terrible truth, the ultimate humiliation. She wanted Ileni to try and fail.

Ileni couldn’t help it. As the white ball whizzed toward
her, she called instinctively upon the powers that were lost to her, reaching inside herself for magic.