Death Sworn (16 page)

He pulled the door open and was gone before she had a chance to reply. That was probably a good thing.

Alone in her room, she felt suddenly drained. She checked to make sure the door was truly shut. Then she stripped off her dirt-stained clothes, pulled the blanket over her head, and escaped into a dream where she rushed down the black river and emerged under a brilliant blue sky.

The next few days were more unbearable than ever. She had thought these caverns were impenetrable, that the only way out was death. But nobody was guarding that river. She had enough magic in her to breathe underwater—and besides, she could swim. She could
leave
.

But she wouldn’t. She wouldn’t even send a message to Tellis. She felt itchy and short-tempered, and during her classes she lashed out so often that even her younger students began regarding her sullenly.

Every afternoon, after knife-throwing lessons with Sorin, she went with Bazel to an empty cavern and taught him what she called “advanced magical theory.” For the most part, she made up the theories, but she also laid the groundwork for him to perform his own spells . . . powerful spells. She wondered sometimes, watching his set, desperate face, if this was really a good idea. And she wondered all the time how long she could put off the question of why she wasn’t demonstrating any of the skills herself.

She tried not to wonder whether, after the spies returned, that would still be a concern.

She made only one attempt to ask him about Absalm, a casual question about whether the two of them had been friends. Bazel pressed his lips together and turned back to the pattern they had been chalking on the floor. Just before he did, Ileni saw a twinge of—something—cross his face.

Grief? Was that possible?

She made her voice as gentle as she could. “Absalm was the one who showed you the river, wasn’t he?”

Bazel was silent for so long she thought he wasn’t going to answer. Then he said, “He thought it would help me. If I was the one who traded the chocolates, who had something the others wanted.”

“
Absalm
was trading chocolates until then?” She forgot to sound soft; her voice went high with astonishment. But Bazel didn’t seem to notice.

“Absalm made contact with the traders a few years ago. By the time I came along, they had a system, a pair of magic stones. Karyn would throw hers into a fire, and his would glow in his room, so he’d know to go meet them that night. He had been meeting them for years, and nobody knew. Possibly not even the master.” Bazel glanced furtively around the empty cavern as he said it.

Ileni didn’t believe that for a second.
Years?
The master had to have known. He had allowed it to go on, allowed Absalm and Bazel to believe they were getting away with it. This, too, fit into his plans. But she had no idea how. She didn’t even know how to start figuring it out.

Absalm, what were you up to?
And if he’d had a way of getting messages to the Renegai, why hadn’t he used it? Had Sorin been right—had Absalm stopped caring about his own people?

There was a mute plea in Bazel’s blue eyes. Ileni didn’t know what he wanted but was sure it was something she couldn’t give him. She reminded herself that Bazel—and Sorin—had been the only two assassins who knew Absalm’s secret. If he had been killed for it, it was likely one of them who had killed him.

“Do you know why he made contact with the traders?” she asked.

Bazel looked at her dubiously. “To trade things.”

“But
why
? Why was it worth the risk of breaking the rules, going against your master? For some chocolates?”

“It’s not just chocolate.” Bazel hunched his shoulders. “It’s . . . I think it was having something of his own. Something that wasn’t part of the caves, of our mission. He was an outsider. He needed that.”

Sure.
Absalm
needed that. Ileni thought of Bazel’s laughter, of his ease as he talked with the traders. The traders who were really imperial spies. If Sorin had figured it out immediately, there was no way the spies had fooled an Elder for years. Absalm must have known the truth.

“So he liked talking to them,” she said experimentally. “More than trading with them? He just wanted someone to talk to?”

Bazel shrugged. To him, of course, it made sense. Because he didn’t know—or didn’t want to know—what the traders really were. No matter how lonely Absalm felt in a cave full of killers, how could talking to spies for the
Empire
possibly have helped?

“What did he talk to them about?” she asked.

“All sorts of things. Imperial politics, magic . . .”

“Magic?”

Bazel glanced down at the half-drawn chalk pattern. “Well, only once. That I heard. I was too busy bartering to pay attention, usually, and it was all above my head anyhow. He was asking Karyn about the method for transferring power.”

Ileni stared at him for so long that Bazel stood, still clutching his chalk. “That means something to you?”

“Transferring power is black magic,” Ileni said blankly. “All people have power in them, even if most can’t turn it into magic. And when a person dies, he can pass it on to a sorcerer, if the sorcerer knows how to take it. That’s why the Rathian Empire is so powerful. That’s why they’ve always been unbeatable.”

“Because they kill people for their power?”

He didn’t sound at all horrified. Well, he wouldn’t be.

“Worse than that,” Ileni said. “The power can’t just be taken. It has to be
given
, voluntarily, by the person who is dying.”

Bazel nodded.

“There are many things you can do to a person,” Ileni said, “to make him beg for death. To give anything you want in exchange for ending the pain.”

Four hundred years ago, their leader, Ciara, had been subjected to those
things
, and had managed to escape. She had written it down, every excruciating detail, before she died—in agony, but with her soul intact. The Elders recited Ciara’s Lament in the square every year, at midnight on the anniversary of her death. Ileni still wept every time.

She supposed she would never hear Ciara’s Lament again. Maybe she would recite it on her own, as much as she could remember, on the next anniversary. . . .

And then she realized. The anniversary had passed two weeks ago.

She hadn’t even noticed.

Tears sprang to her eyes, and she fought them down. Bazel started toward her, but she turned away. She didn’t want his sympathy or his mockery, whichever it was going to be. She didn’t want to be here. She wanted to be home.

She took a deep breath. “The rock. You have it now?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll want to come with you again, next time you go meet them.”

“Why?”

“Because I’ve changed my mind,” Ileni said. “I want to send a message to my village after all.”

He nodded, and only then did she realize she wasn’t lying. She should have sent that message. Not to Tellis, necessarily, but to the Elders, or her mother, or one of the other novices . . . just to let them know she hadn’t forgotten them.

If she had, maybe she would be getting a message back now, to let her know they hadn’t forgotten her.

The knife thudded into the target, directly in the center, a killing throw. Sorin stepped back and gestured at Ileni.

“Your turn,” he said.

Ileni hefted her own knife, focusing on the target. A sharp line of pain shot through her upper arm, and she cheated just a bit with a tiny healing spell. She could hit this. She knew she could.

She stepped back and threw. As soon as the knife left her hand, she knew it would fly true. When it pierced the target, she laughed out loud.

Sorin lifted his eyebrows at her. “Have you been practicing on your own?”

“Of course not.”

“That’s impressive, then.”

She tried not to be too pleased. Over the past three weeks of knife-throwing lessons, Ileni had surprised herself by turning out to have a knack for blades. Not that she had anything approaching Sorin’s level of skill, but if anyone tried to attack her while she happened to be holding a perfectly weighted knife, gave her plenty of time to adjust her grip, and stood in one place long enough for her to aim, she would be more than able to defend herself.

Sorin nodded. “Step back.”

“What?”

He handed her the knife. “Take two short steps back, then throw again.”

She scowled at him, but obeyed. Her heart sped up as she gauged the new distance. She could hit it from here, too. And Sorin wouldn’t look impressed, but he would be.

She lunged and threw. The knife spun through the air, missed the target entirely, and hit the stone wall hilt-first. It landed on the ground with a crash that made Sorin wince.

Ileni swore, which turned his wince into a raised eyebrow. He met her glare for a moment, clearly amused, then loped over to the wall. Even just scooping up the knife, he was all smooth strength and swift movements, precise and deadly. She was starting to envy that instead of fearing it.

He handed her the knife again. “Try using your non-throwing arm to help you aim, the way we did back in our first lesson, and control the release. You threw too hard, and it spun too fast.”

“I know what the problem is.” And she did. She knew exactly how she had to move, what her body had to do. The problem was making her body
do
it.

He stepped to the side. “Then solve it.”

As if it was that easy. But it was, for him, the same way a problem shaping a spell would have been easy for her to fix. Didn’t he understand that her body wasn’t honed the way his was, that she couldn’t solve problems just by throwing perseverance at them? If she had her magic, she would show him. . . .

She stopped, knife in hand, poised in mid-throw.

“Ileni?” Sorin said.

She threw without paying attention, with predictably disastrous results. The knife spun wildly and hit the wall to the left of the target. It thudded to the floor, and she turned to Sorin. “Any assassin in these caves, even the teachers, could hit a target without half-trying.”

“You’re only starting to learn.” He headed toward the targets yet again. “And you have a real talent for—”

“So why,” Ileni said, “would any of them use
magic
to knife Cadrel?”

Sorin stopped in mid-step. “I assume it was to get through some sort of ward.”

“No. That spell was to
throw the knife
. If they used a spell to get through a ward, that was a separate thing. Why would an assassin use a
spell
to throw a knife? Under what circumstances would
you
do that?”

Sorin spun to face her. “None that I can think of,” he said slowly. “So there must be a reason I haven’t thought of.”

“It doesn’t make sense,” Ileni said, and then almost laughed at the understatement. Of course it didn’t.
Nothing
made sense. She was lost in the dark, doing everything wrong, and somewhere, the master was laughing. Somehow, he had trapped her in the center of a web of intrigue she didn’t understand, predicting every move she would make. . . .

“Ileni?” Sorin said. He was right in front of her. “We’ll figure it out. If it does have to do with the spies, we’ll know more about that soon. We just have to wait. Sometimes it’s better to gather the pieces than to try to put together an incomplete puzzle.”

By now she was well used to that practiced, reverent tone. Another of the master’s sayings. The vise around her chest grew tighter. Trusting Sorin, even a little, was stupid. He wasn’t his own person.

And yet. He was inches away from her, a blade in his hand, but she wasn’t the slightest bit afraid of him. And it wasn’t just because of her ward.

It was because she was stupid.

She took a deep breath. “So we wait.”

“We do.”

She held out her hand. “While we’re waiting, let me try that throw again.”

Chapter 14

T
wo nights later, Ileni rolled out of bed at a knock on her door, relief flooding her mind and wiping it clean of restless dreams. Finally, it would be over.

Anticipation was written in every line of Bazel’s body. He greeted Ileni with a curt nod, and she nodded back. They walked without speaking through the dimly lit corridors, scrambled in silence over the labyrinth of rocks, and finally made their way down the narrow ledge that led to the river.

Sorin must be following them—he had been watching Ileni’s room since the night before, when Bazel had told her the spies were on their way—but hard as she strained her ears, Ileni couldn’t hear him.

The spies were waiting for them this time, lounging on the flat rock at the water’s edge. Now that she knew what they were, Ileni found it impossible to greet them with anything resembling friendliness. She stuck close to Bazel, hoping his obvious happiness would somehow encompass them both. Fortunately, she hadn’t been all that friendly last time. Maybe no one would notice the difference.

They didn’t. They traded and bantered and exchanged jibes, and the spies were relaxed and Bazel was happy, up until the moment Sorin appeared at the bottom of the path.

He was so silent that even Ileni, who had been expecting it, couldn’t have said when he stepped onto the flat rock. He was just there, his arms loose by his sides, his black eyes moving swiftly over the scene.

Bazel swore. Ileni tried to look startled, even though she wasn’t certain what the point of that was. The blond man scrambled to his feet, drawing a wicked-looking blade from beneath his tunic. This appeared not to concern Sorin at all.

Karyn remained seated, her hands braced on the ground at her sides. Her attention was wholly on Sorin. “What’s this?”

“His name is Sorin.” Bazel’s voice was flat. Every person in the small space—Bazel, the traders, Sorin—was taut with anticipation. Violence brimmed in the damp air, and a shudder ran through the length of Ileni’s body. She was suddenly certain she had done something terrible.

Karyn’s expression changed from anger to cold calculation. “I don’t suppose you would consider keeping quiet about our presence here? In return for, perhaps—”

Bazel interrupted her with a harsh laugh. “Don’t bother asking him to lie to the master.”

“Well, then.” Karyn leaned forward. “There’s only one way to ensure his silence.”

“Don’t bother trying that, either.” Bazel got to his feet. “He’s one of the best. The three of us together couldn’t so much as ruffle his hair.”

Three—so he assumed Ileni was on Sorin’s side. Or simply irrelevant.

“I know what you are,” Sorin said to Karyn. “You’re an imperial spy.”

Karyn sprang to her feet, and everything happened at once. As she drew a knife, Sorin leaped, with deceptive grace, and kicked. The knife flew from Karyn’s hand and thudded, hilt first, into the blond man’s forehead.

The blond man staggered back with a cry. He recovered, then raised his own blade.

Bazel darted in, grabbed the fallen knife, and sliced it neatly across the blond man’s throat.

He did it so easily, his movements as smooth—though not as fast—as Sorin’s. Blood spurted and the blond man fell, his arms flailing sideways and his heavy body hitting the ground with a thud. He cried out again, a staccato gurgling sound, and then the only noise was the rushing of the river.

It was that fast, that easy, that . . . irreversible. Bazel stepped back, the knife still in his hand, his face showing no more expression than if he had merely knocked the man unconscious. Karyn whirled and ran for the canoe, and Bazel cut her off. Sorin remained where he was.

Ileni stared at the blond man, at the blood spreading slowly across the stone. She could smell it, sharp and metallic. His blue eyes were wide and sightless, his mouth slightly open. A few minutes before, he had been laughing.

Ileni’s stomach twisted into a knot so tight she couldn’t breathe; then all at once it untwisted, and she was spewing its contents onto the white rock. She dropped to her hands and knees, stomach heaving again and again, even when there was nothing left to expel.

When she looked up, her throat burning, Bazel had Karyn trapped against the cliffside. He held the knife ready—a red drop dripped from its edge and splattered on the rock—but didn’t make a move toward her. Instead he glanced at Sorin.

“It’s not enough,” Sorin snarled at him. “This doesn’t make up for what you did.”

Bazel laughed wildly. Then he lunged at Karyn.

She dodged. Bazel’s blade slid across the side of her neck, not deep enough to kill. At the same moment, a surge of magic pulsed through the cavern. Ileni jerked her head up as the spell washed over her.

A thin shimmer of white flew down from the top of the cliff: a rope, lashing against the rock. While Ileni scrambled to her feet, Bazel grabbed the end of the rope and leaped upward, bracing his feet against the rock wall, moving faster than she would have believed possible. By the time she had closed her mouth, he was already invisible in the darkness above, the end of the rope twitching violently against the cliffside.

Sorin swore. He took a step toward Karyn, who was still as a statue. Then he flung himself at the rope, which thudded against the cliff as the two assassins raced up into darkness.

“I think,” Karyn said, pressing her hand to her neck, “that’s my cue to leave.”

Ileni turned sharply, her throat burning and tears stinging her eyes. Her voice came out in a croak. “You’re going to abandon Bazel?”

“He’s not exactly under my protection.” Karyn wiped her bloody hand on her tunic, then strode toward the blond man’s corpse. Ileni opened her mouth and closed it, feeling acutely helpless. If she’d had a knife . . . but she didn’t have a knife. “Besides, he’s probably already dead.”

Ileni hoped Bazel hadn’t heard that—or rather, hadn’t heard the total unconcern with which Karyn said it.

Why
had
Sorin gone after Bazel and left Karyn free to escape?

Karyn knelt by the blond man’s body, and Ileni thought she was going to say something, or close those staring blue eyes. Instead she slid both her arms under him, lifted the corpse, and without any sign of strain dragged it to the river and heaved it in.

The splash sent a spray of water against Ileni’s face, making her flinch away. By the time its echoes died, Karyn had gathered their cups and flung them into the boat, then pushed it into the dark water. A jagged stain marked the rock where she had dragged her friend’s body.

“Wait,” Ileni gasped. “You can’t—”

“I know.” Karyn gave the canoe a final shove, sending it into the river, then leaped in. “You can come with me.”

That was the last thing Ileni had expected. “What?”

“
You
’re not dead—yet. Wouldn’t you like to stay that way? You can jump overboard as soon as we’re out of the caves and return to your own people.”

Your own people.
People who wouldn’t be trying to kill her, or turn her into a killer. Her teachers. Her fellow students. Tellis. Ileni shook her head, her hair whipping into her eyes. “Why should I believe you?”

“I don’t care if you do or not. You can risk coming with me, or you can stay here and die for certain.” She lifted the oars.

The canoe picked up speed. The stretch of water between it and Ileni was now too wide to jump; she would have to swim. Ileni strode to the water’s edge, then stopped.

“I can’t,” she said. “I can’t leave. My people sent me here for a reason.”

Karyn snorted. “What reason? To die?”

“Yes,” Ileni said.

Karyn shrugged and began turning the boat. The canoe raced forward with the current, turned around a bend in the river, and was gone.

When Sorin returned, he was alone. Ileni heard his feet thudding against the cliffside as he flew down the rope, but didn’t turn around until he had leaped to the ground and was standing a few feet away from her. He looked completely unruffled except for a faint smudge of dirt on one cheekbone.

“Where’s Bazel?” she asked sharply.

Sorin ignored the question. He frowned at her, a crease between his eyes. “I thought you wouldn’t be here.”

“Sorry to disappoint.” Ileni knew her bitterness should be directed at herself—
stupid, stupid
kept going through her mind—but she couldn’t help aiming some of it at Sorin. She hated him for making all of this happen, for the blood on the white rock, for the dead man in the water, for the canoe racing away down the river. “Don’t worry. I’m sure your master will figure out a better way to have me killed.”

Sorin went on looking at her. Ileni leaned down and scooped river water into her mouth, spitting it out along with the acrid taste of vomit. Then she turned and stalked across the slick stone, giving the puddle of blood a wide berth. She started up the path.

“Why didn’t you leave with her?” Sorin asked.

Ileni whirled, putting one hand on the white rock to steady herself. She had a sudden feeling that she had miscalculated badly. “Wouldn’t you have stopped me?”

“I was up on the rocks. How could I have stopped you?”

That
was why he had gone after Bazel. To give her a chance to escape.

The door to her prison had been wide open, and she had turned away.

Ileni felt her lips twist as she gave him the truth, knowing he wouldn’t believe it. “I was sent here for a reason. And I’m certainly not leaving until I find out who killed Absalm and Cadrel.”

Something passed swiftly over his face, something that wasn’t disbelief, before it went blank again. “Or until you become the next victim?”

She turned away from him. “Or that.”

Sorin had left Bazel bound hand and foot on a slippery, tilted rock, using a section of the rope they had climbed up on. There was, Ileni saw instantly, a practical reason for that cruelty: Bazel was so busy struggling not to slide off that he had no opportunity to try to get loose. But she doubted that was the only reason, and she shot Sorin a glare as they approached the trussed-up assassin.

Sorin had no attention to spare for her. He reached out with one hand, grabbed Bazel’s tunic, and hauled him to his feet. Bazel stopped struggling immediately, his entire body limp, his face miserable with resignation.

Sorin looked at him, just looked. Ileni shrank away. The implacable menace on Sorin’s face was terrible, and it wasn’t even directed at her.

Something shivered deep inside her. Right now, she could easily imagine Sorin killing Absalm for his betrayal. For endangering the mission he was so devoted to.

She knew he could kill. He had killed before. He was no different from any other assassin in these caves.

Except none of them would have given her a chance to escape.

“I didn’t know what they were,” Bazel whispered. “I swear I didn’t. I know what you think of me, but you can’t imagine that even I would knowingly allow the Empire’s spies into our caves.”

“And do you imagine,” Sorin asked softly, “that it will make a difference whether you knew or not?”

“No,” Bazel said. “I don’t.”

Sorin jerked Bazel closer, so their faces were only inches apart. “That was a clever trick with the rope. How long did you have that set up?”

Bazel didn’t answer. Sorin shook him. “This is your chance to make it easier for yourself. Answer me.”

A defiant light flared in Bazel’s eyes, without changing the defeated set of his face. “You won’t get to torture me,” he said. “Too many traded with me and would be implicated if I talked. They’ll make sure I’m dead before I have a chance to betray them.”

“Then you die,” Sorin said.

“I would rather die,” Bazel whispered, “than have to face the master when he finds out what I’ve done. And I
will
die. You can’t protect me against all of them.”

“I’m not so sure of that,” Sorin said, “but to be on the safe side, I could torture the answers out of you right now.”

“Sorin,” Ileni said.

Sorin held Bazel upright without any sign of strain. In the dim light, his jaw was a grim line. “I said he wouldn’t die. I made no promises about how pleasant his life would be.”

Bazel’s head came up sharply. He looked at Ileni, then Sorin, then back at Ileni. “Why?”

“I don’t like it,” Ileni said, “when people die. You wouldn’t understand.”

“I meant why did you
tell
him?”

The anguish underlying his voice made her drop her eyes. She was very conscious of Sorin watching her. “Because it’s true. They
are
imperial spies.”

“You tell me everything you know,” Sorin said to Bazel, “and maybe I can figure out a way to deal with this without implicating you.”

“I don’t know anything,” Bazel whispered. “Absalm told me about them. I don’t know how he found them.”

“And did Absalm teach you that trick with the rope? Or was it
her
?”

Ileni hissed through her teeth. “It wasn’t me.”

“Absalm always thought we might need an escape route.” Bazel wriggled slightly as Sorin’s fist tightened on his shirt. “He prepared the rope. It’s an easy enough spell to uncoil it.”

So it was . . . and would have required much less power than Bazel had spent. Was that lack of skill and training? Or was he lying?

Sorin let Bazel drop to the ground. Bazel hit the rock with a thud and struggled frantically to keep himself from sliding off, all without uttering a sound. Sorin watched him, expressionless, then drew a dagger and cut through the rope in three neat slashes. “Let’s go. I think that’s about enough of this.”

It was enough a long time ago,
Ileni thought angrily at his back. Then she devoted her attention to keeping up with the two assassins as they scrambled nimbly over the rocks and through the tunnel.

As soon as they were back in the built-up part of the caves, Bazel vanished down a side corridor, and Ileni followed Sorin to the now-familiar section where her room was. Sorin didn’t say a word or even turn around, but when they reached her room, he stepped in with her and closed the door.

She turned, and their eyes met. From this close, his face was all lines and angles. She couldn’t believe she had ever thought he looked like Tellis.