Death Sworn (7 page)

“Where did you get it?”

He looked at her. She sighed. “Let me guess. This is one of the things I don’t need to know.”

“You’re learning,” he said approvingly.

Ileni crossed her arms. She didn’t need—or want—the approval of a killer. “And is this allowed? Should you be giving me . . . gifts?”

“Definitely not.”

“Then why are you doing it, if it’s against the rules?”

“That
is
why.” The gleam was back in his eyes, this time accompanied by the hint of a grin.

I don’t believe you.
She turned away.

His voice stopped her. “You really thought it might be poison, didn’t you?”

Without turning around, she said, “Yes.”

“Then why did you eat it?”

She looked at him over her shoulder. “
You
,” she said, “haven’t learned anything at all.”

He made no response. In the echoing silence, she started down the corridor toward the training cavern. She didn’t look back, and he walked in perfect silence, but she knew he was following her.

Sorin escorted her to the front of the class, then went to sit on his mat. Ileni looked at him, then at the nineteen other faces staring at her. Irun was one of them, leaning back slightly and smirking at her. Some of the other boys exchanged glances. They had all heard the argument in the dining cavern, and it seemed to her their stares held an edge that hadn’t been there yesterday, a scarcely veiled hostility.

She was not finished proving herself.

But after her ill-advised defense spell in the master’s chamber, her power was weaker than ever. She had intended to stall for a few days, until some of it came back, but that was clearly out of the question. She was fairly sure that if she spent the class reviewing meditation—the Elders’ suggestion, back in another world—Irun would start flinging spells around just to force her to react. And when she couldn’t, they would know the truth.

She didn’t know what the consequences would be . . . especially since their master already knew. Why hadn’t he told them? What was his plan, and how did her powerlessness serve it? Because she was sure it did. Everything that happened in these caves served his purposes, somehow. She remembered his dark eyes, his pitiless smile, and dread crept into her.

He had brought her here to die. She knew it, deep in her bones. Maybe this was some sort of test he had devised for his students. A game. Maybe there would be a reward for the first assassin to figure out her secret and kill her for her deception.

“Today,” she said, “fire spells.”

Irun came to attention, his dark hair flipping back. Ileni looked away from him and said, “Bazel. You first.”

Bazel was the round-cheeked boy Irun had attacked yesterday. He gave her a startled look, as if surprised she had noticed he was there. As he rose smoothly to his feet and made his way toward the front of the training room, she had the sense that he walked closer to the walls than any of the other boys would have; and when he came to stand beside her, he stood with his hands clasped behind his back, staring down at the floor instead of meeting her eyes. He had none of Irun’s easy arrogance, none of Sorin’s sense of controlled power.

He did have, without question, the most powerful magic in these caves.

Even just standing next to him, Ileni could feel it radiating from him: magical potential, power he was barely tapping into for these beginners’ spells. He might never have the skill to use it fully, of course—strength and talent did not always go together—but had she been up against him in a Renegai magic contest, she would have been wary. He had almost as much power as she’d once had. Probably as much as Tellis did, and Tellis was—now—the most powerful Renegai alive.

She was going to have to be very careful to keep Bazel from realizing his full potential, which was why she had called him up first. She didn’t want him to watch the others before making his own attempt.

“All right,” she said. “All of you listen carefully, because this is complicated.”

“We always listen carefully.”

Irun, of course. If she had to contend with him all morning, somebody was going to end up dead. Probably her. “Noted,” she said. “Now, you start by forming a mental image of a flame, and then—”

“Absalm said we would learn the spell best by watching him do it.”

Ileni narrowed her eyes. Irun was sitting as upright as everyone else, his face blank, yet somehow he managed to give the impression that he was slouching back and smirking at her. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not Absalm.”

“I’ve noticed.” He said it flatly, without expression, but one of the other students snickered. A brief, quickly swallowed sound, but one that rang in the stillness like a bell.

Ileni allowed herself to imagine how Irun would react if she demonstrated by setting his clothes on fire. Suddenly she was too aware of the power next to her, leaking from Bazel’s skin and sizzling against hers. It made her itch with the desire to somehow draw it in and use it, unleash it, be herself again.

She had heard of taking another’s power for your own, methods the imperial sorcerers had perfected—but that was evil magic, and her people had rejected it when they broke from the Rathian Empire centuries ago. Even if she had been tempted, Ileni had no idea how that kind of spell worked.

“If you’re such an expert, why don’t you try it first?” she snapped. No, that was a bad idea. She wished her head felt clearer. “Actually, why don’t you all try it at the same time? Bazel, back to your mat. All of you, do as I say.”

Bazel slunk back. He had not, as far as she could tell, changed expression once. She sneaked a glance at Sorin, not wanting to look at Irun. Sorin hadn’t changed expression either. Of course.

Too late to back out. She cleared her throat. “Start with the following phrase . . .”

After ten minutes of instruction, they were ready. She watched as they spoke and gestured in unison, feeling the power build around her, battering at her, taunting her. Sorin’s face was fierce with concentration. It was a difficult spell.

It wasn’t until the last line of the spell that she realized she had failed to properly explain how to shift the accent mid-phrase. By then, it was too late to stop them. The room echoed with the last triumphant word, and the power let loose. Floating balls of water burst into being over the assassins’ heads, then exploded. Water rained down in the small cavern, sluiced through hair and thin gray tunics, then ran in dozens of rivulets over the stone floor and out the opening that led into the main training area.

Total silence. Then someone snickered, and a second later, all twenty drenched young killers doubled over in hysterical laughter.

“That could have killed you!” Ileni shouted. If they had shifted the accent lower instead of higher, the water would have been boiling. She glared at each of them in turn—and noticed, suddenly, that it was nineteen drenched students. Bazel, though he was laughing as hard as everyone—albeit a bit tentatively, and keeping a wary eye on the others—was completely dry.

Ileni advanced upon Bazel. That cut off the laughter. Even a sudden, startled curse from the direction of the training area—where the assassins sometimes trained barefoot—didn’t restart the snickers, though a few students grinned.

“What happened to you?” Ileni demanded.

Bazel looked blank, as if confused by the question, but he couldn’t keep a hint of smugness from his voice. “Cadrel taught us rain-shields before he died, Teacher.”

Silence. Ileni, glancing around the room, saw that no one was grinning anymore. They must all have mastered the rain-shields—among the Renegai, three-year-olds used rain-shields—but Bazel had been the only one to think of using one.

The grins and easy laughter had turned to dark expressions and glares, all directed at Bazel. Sorin in particular looked thunderous, and Ileni could guess why:
he
was supposed to be the one who surprised his teachers with clever tricks, who surpassed the others without half-trying.

Ileni looked at Bazel thoughtfully. “Perhaps we should arrange some private lessons for you.”

That caused another snicker—a far nastier, less friendly one. Bazel stared at her as if she had struck him, then lowered his eyes.

Ileni sighed, and turned to face the rest of the class. Nineteen hard faces: cold, resentful, and dripping wet.

It was Irun, of course, who spoke. “Why only Bazel?”

She blinked at him. “What?”

“Absalm gave extra lessons to everyone who had great power. Perhaps you should do the same.”

She folded her arms. “I suppose you were one of them?”

“Me. Arkai. Elum. Efram.” He pointed to each student as he said their name, then added, with a sneer, “and Bazel.”

She followed his pointing finger, blinking. Sorin, watching her closely, spoke up. “You disagree with his assessments, Teacher?”

“No,” Ileni said, too stunned to lie. She didn’t disagree at all. Irun had correctly identified the five students in her class with the most raw power.

But correctly identifying them was not the tutors’ purpose. The Elders had been clear on that: the treaty required them to train the assassins, but they were to do it as ineffectively as possible without raising suspicion. Non-sorcerers couldn’t sense magical potential, so all the teachers were to single out the least-powerful students for the most training. Creating superior killers was the very last thing they wanted to do.

What were you up to, Absalm?

“I’ll think about it,” she said finally. They all watched her, their faces still unfriendly, and she took a deep breath. “In the meantime, let’s try this spell again.”

Chapter 7

“Y
ou’re making a mistake,” Sorin said as he walked her into the dining cavern for the midday meal.

Ileni ignored him, heading for her table. She was wrapped in her own thoughts, and Sorin walked in complete silence, so she didn’t notice at first that he was following her. Only when he walked around to the other side of the table did she realize this wasn’t going to be another solitary meal.

The food for the meal was laid out in the center of the table—enough for only one person. Ileni reached for the stew and dumped half of it into her bowl, then tore off a chunk of the bread and dipped it in, not looking at Sorin.

Sorin settled himself on the bench across from her with his typical predatory grace. He made no move toward the food, even though he had obviously spent much of the morning in vigorous training. Sweat still glistened on his forehead and upper arms. “You’re not helping Bazel by singling him out. You’re making things more difficult for him.”

Ileni swallowed a spicy mouthful of stew—someone in these caves knew how to cook, which was one small mercy—and said, “I’m going to train him to use his magic. Why would that make things more difficult for him? Isn’t that why I’m here?”

“You’re here to help us use magic on our missions,” Sorin said. “You shouldn’t waste your time on Bazel. He probably won’t survive long enough to be sent on his first mission.”

Ileni tore off another chunk of bread. “Why? What will happen to him?”

“A fatal accident during a weapons training session, I would imagine.”

Ileni wasn’t sure if he was joking. Sorin leaned back on the bench, regarding her with his head tilted to the side. “Shocked that we’re capable of murder, Sorceress?”

She thought carefully before answering. “Of one of your own? Yes.”

“Ah, you begin to understand us.” It might have sounded like a compliment, but he said it too flatly. “But I said an accident. Bazel’s fighting skills are . . . not up to our standards. And so people are a little less careful when sparring with him. The better to push him to improve, you understand. And the farther behind he falls, the higher the risk.” He twitched his shoulders in a shrug. “It’s simply the way things work.”

She couldn’t think of anything to say and couldn’t hide the disgust on her face. He straightened. “What do you Renegai do, to people born with inadequate magical ability?”

Ileni choked on her bread, but kept her eyes on her food. He couldn’t have guessed how sharp that would cut. “We don’t kill them! Among the Renegai, ordinary people are allowed to live.”

“Ordinary.” He mimicked her pronunciation of the word, and this time she did flinch at the nonchalant contempt in his voice. An exact echo of hers. “How nice for them, if they’re willing to live with that. None of
us
would accept it.”

Ileni pretended to be deeply involved in removing the mushrooms from her stew, not trusting herself to speak. She could feel his eyes boring into the top of her head, but could think of no way to deflect him.

Finally he said, “Death doesn’t mean to us what it does to you. We prefer it to a life of shame.”

She remembered the tight fear on the thin boy’s face, the grimness in those blue eyes as he walked to the window. But he had jumped. Jumped, and fallen, and then that thud . . . she forced her mind away from the memory.

“Bazel will improve,” Sorin said, “or he will die. There’s no in-between.”

“And you’ll try to make sure it’s the latter option, won’t you?” she said.

Even though he couldn’t see her face, he must have sensed something, because his voice softened. “Remember, he’s like the rest of us. Training to kill. You’ve made it clear you abhor us all, so why should you care about Bazel?”

Ileni tore off another chunk of bread, but couldn’t bring herself to eat it. She had been ravenous when she sat down, and now she wasn’t sure she could manage to swallow. “Why do
you
care?” she demanded. “Because he’s not good at fighting, he’s not allowed to be good at anything? Does it bother you so much, that he’s better at magic than you are?”

Sorin sat ramrod straight, and Ileni knew she was right. Bazel had no right, in his classmates’ eyes, to be better than they were. At anything. And by offering him lessons, she had as much as promised that his small victory today wouldn’t be a fluke, that she would ensure he continued to be better. She leaned over the table, feeling suddenly savage. “Besides, you just told me he’ll never be sent on a mission. So he’s not a killer after all, is he?”

“He wishes he could be.” Sorin leaned forward, too. His cheekbones stood out like blades below his fierce eyes. “Don’t think he’s anything like you. He’s as devoted to the master, and to our purpose, as the rest of us.”

“Purpose?” Ileni said. “You’re hired killers.
Gold
is your purpose.”

Sorin’s jaw clenched. “Do you truly think that’s all we are?”

Ileni put her bread down. “Are you honestly trying to tell me you’re
not
?”

“Money is necessary,” Sorin admitted, “and sometimes, yes, we kill for pay. But usually we kill because the target’s death, or an alliance with the person hiring us, furthers our greater mission.”

“Which is what, exactly?”

“Bringing down the Empire.”

She stared at him.

Sorin pulled his shoulders back. “That has always been our goal. It seems your Elders didn’t tell you the whole story.”

That stung. “Well,” Ileni retorted, “you’re clearly doing a fantastic job. You’ve only been killing people for, what, four hundred years. . . .”

“And each assassination has been a blow, disrupting the Empire, making the Rathians fear us.” His voice was like his posture, the violence barely discernible beneath his calm tone. “When the Empire does collapse, it will seem to its subjects that it happened overnight. They will not see how we weakened its foundations, one chip here and another there, for centuries. No one sees the whole picture yet. No one but the master.”

He said it as if it was undeniable, and the weight of his certainty crushed her questions. She looked away.

The blaze died out of Sorin’s eyes, and he pressed his lips together. “I need to talk to you about something else.” He stood and turned his back on her. “Follow me.”

Ileni hesitated for only a moment. Then she slid off the bench and hurried after him.

Outside the cavernous dining hall, a few twists and turns through dimly lit passageways brought them to a small chamber—barely more than a widening of the passageway, but full of thickly packed clusters of long, thin stalactites that hung from the ceiling nearly to the floor. A few daggers were lodged among them. Ileni deliberately turned her back on the tendrils of stone and crossed her arms. “What is this?”

Sorin walked over to the dense block of hanging stones and dropped to his back, a lithe, graceful movement. While Ileni stared, he grabbed the bottoms of the stalactites and pulled himself beneath them, sliding along the ground. After a second she couldn’t see him anymore.

Ileni stood where she was. “Um. I don’t think so.”

“Not willing to risk much to find out the truth, are you?” Sorin’s voice was oddly distorted by the rocks between them, but it wasn’t coming from below; clearly, he was standing. There must be a clear space between the hanging stones and the cavern wall behind them.

This is not a good idea.
Ileni lowered herself gingerly to the ground and onto her back. She pushed herself with her heels until her head was under the stalactites. Their ends weren’t as pointy as she had thought, but blunt and somewhat knobby. She was fairly sure she would still die if any of them came loose and plunged down on her.

She lifted her hands, closing them around the two thickest-looking stones. They seemed solid and sturdy. She took a deep breath and pulled.

It wasn’t quite that easy, of course. Sorin had done it in one motion, but she had to pull herself onward three times before she was on the other side. By the time she stood up, her arms and back felt covered with bruises, and dirt rained from her hair.

They were in a small space barely big enough for the two of them. It seemed pitch-black until Ileni’s eyes adjusted to the faint light creeping in between the hanging stones.

“All right,” she said. “Do you have a reason for these elaborate precautions, or are you just having fun?”

“Both.” Sorin held his hand up, and something flashed in the dimness: a blade. Ileni leaned back sharply, bumping against a sliver of stone. Trapped. She felt for her ward, and sensed it as a faint tingle wrapped around her skin. “I found the knife. The one used to kill Cadrel.”

Ileni blinked. He smiled at her, sly and proud, and she stopped paying attention to her ward. “How?”

“That’s not important. Can you find out who used it on him?”

Her throat felt suddenly like a block of wood.

“Well?” he said impatiently. She felt the whoosh of his breath on her cheek.

She tried to pull up some power, knowing it would be futile. The effort—and the sickening lack of response—made her faintly nauseated. She did her best to hide it as she bent forward to examine the knife. Her mind whirled, frantically and uselessly. “I . . . I can’t. Not here. There’s not enough space.”

Sorin rested one finger against his chin. “You think I can’t tell that you’re lying? We’re trained to read people. Do it
now
, Sorceress.”

She moved carefully this time and managed to lean against the wall without scraping any part of her body against stone. She put her hand on the knife hilt, right next to Sorin’s fingers. His skin brushed hers, dry and warm, as he edged his hand away. She closed her eyes, assumed what she hoped was an expression of deep concentration, and murmured some random spell-words. They sounded thin and weak in the dry air. But when she opened her eyes, Sorin was waiting expectantly.

She took her hand away, a dull leadenness in her chest. “It’s been too long, been handled by too many people. The traces of whoever used it to kill Cadrel are gone.”

Sorin looked disappointed, but not—thankfully—suspicious. “Are you sure? Is there another spell—”

“No,” she said. Too swiftly? She tried to sound angry and disappointed. “Nothing. Magefire!”

Sorin didn’t move. He was so close she imagined she could hear his heartbeat. “You’re sure?”

Ileni shifted. “I’m sure.”

The space felt oppressive and small. She should have been afraid—and she was, a little bit; what if he realized she was lying?—but mostly she was ashamed. Tears pressed at the insides of her eyes. She
had the knife
, and yet she was not one step closer to learning who had used it, because she wasn’t strong enough.

I’m sorry, Cadrel.

She clenched her jaw and let the silence stretch longer, so she could gain control of her voice. She had no idea what Sorin was thinking. She was sure he could feel her inadequacy radiating off her.

“Well,” she said finally. Her voice was
almost
steady. “If that’s all . . .”

When he didn’t move, she lowered herself to the floor and began inching her way under the stones. Sorin landed on the ground behind her with a quiet thud, then shot past her. She pulled herself halfway through, then rolled over onto her stomach and crawled the rest of the way. When she was finally out, she turned away from him as she pushed her hair from her face and combed her fingers through it to get the dust out.

Sorin’s voice was sharp. “What is that?”

She stiffened. “What?”

He reached forward and brushed her hair away from her neck. The touch sent a shiver through her, and she went even stiffer.

His breath whispered against the back of her neck. “What is that?”

Suddenly she understood. She felt his finger press against her skin, right below the hairline. “What does it look like to you?”

He didn’t move or speak for so long that, if not for his breath against her skin and the finger still resting on her neck, she would have turned to see if he had gone. It should have made her afraid, his hands so close to her throat—all he had to do was slip them forward and close them, and he could strangle her before she had a chance to call for help. It should have, but it didn’t. She had to force herself not to turn around and meet his eyes.

“Like a picture,” he said finally. “One man walking, one man falling.”

“That’s how it was, when the Empire exiled us. Half of us died before we reached the mountains. From starvation, from exhaustion, from arrows. Some of the emperor’s archers came after us and picked us off. We managed to capture one and ask him why. He said it was for fun.”

She did turn then, after the silence got long enough. Sorin was staring at her as if he had never seen her before. “That was four hundred years ago,” he said.

“Yes. We don’t forget.” She reached back and touched the tattoo. Her fingers brushed his, and he snatched his hand back as if suddenly noticing where it was. “We make sure to never forget, because someday we will return.”

He kept looking at her, and this was different from his usual controlled silence. She had actually put him at a loss for words. Finally he said, “You’re all tattooed?”

“Every last one of us.”

“But Absalm wasn’t. . . .”

“Our parents choose where to put the tattoo. Some families like for it to be more visible than others.” Tellis’s tattoo was on his shoulder.

His fingers twitched, but he didn’t reach for her neck again. “Then shouldn’t you be glad to tutor us? Our goal is the same as yours. We also want to release the world from the Empire’s grip. We also want to make the Rathians pay for all they have done.”

“Our methods are not the same.” She smoothed her hair back over her shoulder, and it brushed across her neck, hiding the tattoo again. “The Renegai don’t murder innocents.”

“What we do is not murder.” The contempt in his voice stung her. He wasn’t trying to convince her; he was explaining the obvious to a slow child. “Every person we kill dies to serve a greater purpose.”

“I’m sure they would be happy if they knew it,” Ileni said sarcastically, but her voice sounded weak even to her. “If you would explain it to them, perhaps they would volunteer for your knives.”