Death Marked (9 page)

“No, it shouldn’t,” Evin agreed. “I don’t even know why Karyn had to go handle it herself. Lis, did Karyn tell you any details?”

Ileni shoved her frustration aside. She couldn’t risk pushing for more information, not with the way Lis had looked at her.

Though now Lis was studying the smooth gray ground as if it was more fascinating than any of the people standing on it. Her voice emerged sullenly from behind the dark curtain of her hair. “The governor of the Gaeran territory died after the revolt started. They think it was poison.”

“Assassins?” Evin said, with an edge in his voice that made Ileni snap her head around to stare at him.

Casual. Relaxed.
She didn’t think she was pulling it off. Fortunately, none of them was paying enough attention to notice.

“That’s the suspicion,” Lis mumbled. “Karyn is trying to find the culprit.”

Ileni concentrated on keeping her breathing slow and even, at odds with the racing of her heart. She cleared her throat. “Why would Karyn think she could find an assassin? I thought . . . I mean, I was told . . . even among my people, we heard they were never caught alive.”

Evin was holding himself still—something Ileni should have been used to, after weeks among assassins, who never made an unnecessary motion. But on him, it was unnatural. It drew her gaze toward him, even as she focused on Lis.

Lis pushed her hair back, giving a brief glimpse of her set, pale face before the shiny strands fell back into place. “It’s true. They aren’t.” She sounded almost proud of that, as if she was looking forward to Karyn’s failure. “Most people would know better than to try.”

“The assassins are a threat to the safety of everyone in the Empire,” Cyn said. “They need to be eliminated.”

“It’s more than that, with her,” Lis said.

“
What
is it?” Ileni asked, and heard her voice emerge a bit too eager. She hesitated, then pressed on anyhow, heedless of the risk. “Why is she so obsessed with the assassins?”

In the short, awkward silence, a bird called out high
overhead. Cyn said, cautiously, “They killed some of her family.”

Cyn was being cautious, and Evin was being somber? Even after one day, Ileni could tell that meant something was wrong. She glanced over at Lis and was almost relieved to see bitter sullenness settled on her face.

Then Evin twitched his shoulders. “We’re wasting time. What should we do for the next few days? I have some ideas.”

No one answered. Cyn watched Evin with her eyebrows drawn together, while Lis remained stone-faced. Clearly, they all knew something Ileni didn’t, and they had no intention of sharing it.

Hunching her shoulders, Ileni turned and stared over the edge of the plateau. Against the bright blue sky, two slate-gray pillars rose into the air, their sides unnaturally smooth and even. They looked like long, narrow stone triangles with their points cut off.

“Dramatic, aren’t they?” Evin said, stepping up to her side. Whatever had been on his face earlier was gone; he looked like he hadn’t had a serious thought in a decade.

But that exchange had been a good reminder:
Don’t underestimate anyone.
He was an imperial sorcerer. He used magic to fight. And he, too, might know the truth about the lodestones.

Evin’s eyebrows lifted almost to his unruly hair, and Ileni realized that she was staring at him. She resisted her first impulse and didn’t look away. The breeze stirred her hair, so that it tickled her face and floated a few stands in front of her eyes. “What are they?”

Evin grimaced. “Somewhere you never want to be.”

“The Judgment Spires,” Cyn filled in, somewhat more helpfully, from behind them. “Karyn will stick students up there sometimes, for punishment. When serious punishment is required.”

“Fortunately,” Evin said, “Karyn has never sent anyone to the spires for slacking off.”

“Are we slacking off?” Cyn said.

“Not
yet
,” Evin said. “But we’re about to.”

“We’ll be in trouble later,” Cyn warned.

“So we will.” Evin made a tossing motion with his hand. A ball of colored lights flew up from his palm, spun in the air, and exploded in a shower of rainbow sparks. “But the fun thing about
later
is that it’s not
right now
.”

Cyn rolled her eyes, a bit too dramatically. “Do whatever you want. Ileni, let’s keep going.”

Ileni was still trying to think of a way to ask Evin about the lodestones. “I . . . um . . . I need a break.”

Cyn wrinkled her nose dismissively, and Ileni tensed. But before she could strike back—or change her mind—Cyn stepped away from the edge in a long swish of skirts. “All right, then. Lis?”

“What, because your preferred partner isn’t available?” Lis said.

Ileni turned around, feeling the abyss at her back. She was just in time to catch the poisonous look Lis shot her.

Cyn wielded her words like blades, sharp and deliberate. “Really, Lis, you should get used to being second choice. It’s going to happen a lot in your life.”

“I volunteer to be third choice,” Evin said promptly. He propped one elbow back, resting it on thin air, and tilted his head at Cyn. “In fact, if there’s a fourth place available . . .”

Lis ignored him. She glared at her sister. “Someday, you’ll realize that not everybody loves you as much as you think they do. I’m looking forward to that moment.”

“How nice,” Cyn said. “It’s not as if you have much to look forward to.”

“What about that slacking?” Evin said hastily as Lis stepped forward. “We
all
have that to look forward to. I’m brimming with anticipation.”

Lis made a sound that was almost a snarl. Her gaze
snagged on Ileni, and her mouth worked as if she was tasting something sour. “And I’d imagine
you’ve
never been anyone’s first choice in your life.”

“You’re wrong,” Ileni said, but her voice cracked. She had always thought she was first . . . but it had been an illusion. Only her power had mattered. She hadn’t even been first to Tellis, not in the end.

And she had never dreamed she might come first to Sorin.

Ileni stood in front of the mirror that night, marveling that she looked the same. Soon after that morning’s conversation, the training plateau had been taken over by a dozen younger students, whom Cyn had dismissively referred to as “noble novices.” The advanced students had gone to the dining cavern for lunch, and then Ileni had spent the rest of the afternoon training in her room, despite an invitation from Evin and Cyn to join them in some sort of flying game—and despite Lis’s clear delight that she had declined.

She stared at her reflection for a long time, feeding herself reasons for not killing the four people who propped up the Empire, reasons more substantial than
I don’t want to.

Or, worse:
I like them. They don’t deserve to die.

Those thoughts were betrayals, signs of weakness, so
she came up with others. Reasons that would make sense to Sorin.

I don’t know enough yet.

There might be a better way.

The magic hummed within her, calling her a liar.

She had thought, in the Assassins’ Caves, that she was strong. She had wanted Sorin so desperately—she still wanted him—and she had left anyhow. But that had been nothing compared to this.

Sorin was a part of her, a piece of her heart. The constant ache inside her, the pain of ripping out that part, was her price for walking away from him. But magic was
all
of her. She wasn’t sure she was strong enough to walk away from it.

Knowing your weakness is itself a strength.
The master’s words, in Sorin’s voice.

Ileni turned her back on the mirror. She could not spend weeks here, as she had at the caves, learning the truth and making up her mind. She couldn’t trust her mind. Another few days of using magic and she would be trapped by her own weakness.

She had to find the source of the lodestones’ power. Find out if there was another way. If she could stop the flow of power into stones, without killing anyone, she would
do it now. Tonight. Rip away her own magic along with the Empire’s, before it hurt too badly.

Too late.
It
would
hurt, and terribly. But she would do it anyhow.

She pulled her dagger from under her pillow—the dagger Arxis had handed her, as a taunt and a warning. More fool he. A finding spell based merely on touch was immensely difficult—but power filled her, pulled from the testing arena with its hundreds of lodestones, and she knew it wouldn’t be difficult at all.

She shouted the words of the spell, and the silence swallowed them. The magic flowed through her, vast and intoxicating, and she couldn’t stop herself from smiling. What she could do, with this much power . . .

Knowing your weakness.

She didn’t let herself stop to think. When the dagger flared red and violet, when a spark from it hovered in the air, she banished the magic. Then she hastily pulled on a too-loose dress from the wardrobe and followed the spark out into the dark corridor.

By now, Ileni knew better than to surprise an assassin. But she also didn’t want to alert anyone else to her presence in Arxis’s
room. So when her initial soft knock elicited no reaction, she spent a few minutes wrapping a ward around herself, then used a sliver of magic to open the door. She slipped inside and braced herself.

Arxis’s first dagger bounced off her chest. His second slid sideways across her throat without leaving a mark and dropped to the floor at her feet. Then he was behind her, a thin wire wrapped around her neck, jerking Ileni’s head back even as the wire pressed harmlessly against her warded throat.

“I just want to talk,” Ileni croaked.

Arxis’s response was to pull the garrote tighter. If Ileni’s ward had been less well made, she wouldn’t have been able to make a sound. Irun’s method for killing sorcerers was, apparently, now common knowledge among the assassins.

But she had been prepared for this, and what would have worked on an imperial sorcerer was less effective against a carefully prepared Renegai ward. Ileni drew in a breath and uttered a spell.

The garrote snapped in half. Arxis rolled and came to his feet in front of her. With a word, Ileni froze him where he stood.

“I’m on your side,” she snapped.
Well, sort of.
“Stop trying to kill me.”

Arxis didn’t bother to strain against her spell. He didn’t try a counterspell, either—which was smart; against Ileni, it would have been futile. He pressed his lips together and said nothing.

“I came,” Ileni said, “because I need your help to accomplish my own mission.”

Still Arxis said nothing. Cautiously, Ileni released him, holding the spell ready just in case. The assassin didn’t move.

She took a deep breath. “I am here to stop the flow of power to the lodestones.”

Arxis leaned back slightly, and she tensed, but all he did was smile scornfully. “Are you.”

“Yes. But in order to do that, I have to know where the source of that power is.” Sweat tickled the edge of her brow. She resisted the urge to wipe it away, though she was sure he had already noticed it. “The master told me you would take me there.”

Silence.

“He said . . .” A surge of inspiration. “He said you would understand what had to be done.”

A muscle twitched in Arxis’s jaw.

In her village—and, probably, in the Empire—people
spoke of the assassins as blindly obedient, killing tools with no thoughts of their own. Ileni knew better. The master had always challenged his students to make their own decisions.

“And he said,” Ileni added, “that we are both being tested.”

Arxis’s lips remained curled in a sneer, but his eyes were thoughtful. The master’s tests were both legendary and constant within the caves. It was a rare advantage to actually be told one was being tested.

At least, it was an advantage when it wasn’t a trick.

Ileni couldn’t tell whether Arxis believed her or not. Finally, he jerked his chin and said, “I will show you. But not tonight.”

When?
and
How?
and
Show me what?
jostled against her teeth. Ileni said, “Why not tonight?”

“Because my own mission takes precedence. I have no excuse for going into the city in the middle of the night. If we’re caught, I’ll be exposed.”

“In the city? That’s where they keep them?” Ileni frowned. “Wouldn’t it be safer to keep them here?”

Arxis tilted his head to the side. “When you say
them
, Teacher, who exactly do you mean?”

The way he said
Teacher
reminded her of Irun, of his fingers
clamped over her mouth. She shivered slightly. “The slaves.”

Arxis remained perfectly still for a moment, and then he began to laugh.

A flush crept over Ileni’s body. “You know what I mean. The people they breed and keep in cages—” He laughed harder, though no louder, and she ground to a halt.

His laugh shut off as abruptly as her words. “You know, Teacher, I find it hard to believe the master sent you here still believing Renegai children’s stories.”

The sense of danger overwhelmed Ileni’s embarrassment. She tried to fight down her blush, and when that didn’t work, she tried to ignore it. “He told me I wouldn’t understand the truth until I saw it.”

Arxis snorted. “That’s probably true. I hope he’s right about you understanding it once you
do
see it.” He started toward his bed.

“Wait,” Ileni said. “When will you show me?”

He spoke without turning. “In two weeks.”

“
Two weeks
?” Ileni’s chest tightened. “That’s too long. What’s going to happen in two weeks?”

“I’ve made arrangements to go to the city then. Find a reason to come with me.”

“But—”

Arxis sighed and looked at her over his shoulder. “Do you think you can manage that?”

Ileni ground her teeth together. “I’ll do my best,” she said as haughtily as she could.

“Excellent.”

He waited, watching her, his body relaxed and predatory at once. After a moment, Ileni let herself out.

Arxis’s laughter rang in her ears as she headed down the corridors toward her room. Her skin tingled with embarassment. Was
nothing
she knew about the world true? And if so, how could she—ignorant, naive, wrong about everything—possibly make a decision that would affect the world so drastically?