Death Marked (Death Sworn #2)(17)

That night, Ileni couldn’t sleep. A cold ache spread through her chest, painful and deeply familiar. Even though, a mere half year ago, she’d had no idea that loneliness could actually hurt.

She reached for thoughts of Sorin, but that only made the empty feeling deepen. Even with him, she had felt alone. He had always been half her enemy. But he had eased the loneliness anyhow, if only by distracting her from it.

Odd that the excitement of having magic couldn’t do the same.

A sob pushed its way up her throat, and she forced it down. She sat up abruptly, making the glowstones flicker.

She reached for magic. The power was easy to grasp, to pull in and around herself. The magic swirled through her, making her feel both safe and tainted.

And bringing home the true import of what she had learned that day.

She had told Sorin she was leaving to find out if the imperial sorcerers were evil—and she had hoped, deep down, that they were. That her choice would be clear and simple and totally right.

That she and Sorin would be on the same side.

But back in the caves, she hadn’t known that most of the sorcerers weren’t true sorcerers at all. That their power came almost entirely from lodestones.

All her life, she had thought the Empire was invincible, a destructive force. And maybe it was. But it was also a tottering edifice, propped up by the lodestones. If she destroyed the lodestones, she could tip over that edifice.

Killing was one thing. She wouldn’t—couldn’t—do that, not unless she was absolutely sure she had to. But maybe she could bring down the Empire without killing a single person.

She could almost see Sorin’s sneer, but she pushed it to the back of her mind as she got dressed and stepped out into the hall.

A quick spell, a nudge of power, and she could see in the dark. Everything looked hazy and red, as was usual with this spell, but it was more than enough to make her way through the corridors unobserved. She crept through the dark curved passageways, using more power to keep the glowstones from flickering on. Finding her way was no problem. The power from the testing arena was a roaring fire, pulling her toward its warmth and brightness.

The testing arena was empty. Ileni paced slowly around its edges, touching her fingers to the lodestones embedded in the walls. There were hundreds.

Power stolen, power misused, power drawn from pain and death. How many times had she chanted that Renegai children’s song? She found herself humming the familiar tune as she paced, as that same power surrounded her and filled her.

She put her hand on one lodestone and tried a spell—a small, simple one, that would have cracked an ordinary piece of glass. She didn’t really expect it to work, but it would give her a sense of what she was up against.

The lodestone grabbed the spell and sucked it in, so fiercely Ileni cried out. Her scream echoed in the large cavern. A sharp pain pierced the center of her chest, as if the spell had gouged out some of her flesh.

She waited, teeth clenched, as the echoes of her scream died. After several moments passed and no one came, she forced herself closer to the stone. Time for a more complex attack. She called up a piece of chalk, drew a swift pattern around her feet, and began a chant. It wasn’t one of the silent spells—her words rang musically in the stillness of the cave, echoing back and forth—which meant that if someone did come, she wouldn’t be able to hide what she was doing. But it was the most powerful spell she knew for dissolving magical wards and protections. She chanted as fast as she dared, the magic twisting and bending, forming an intricate pattern. Despite the danger, she lost herself in its creation, and regret twinged through her when it was done.

The spell strained within her, beautiful and dangerous. She glanced back at the wooden door—not that it mattered, now, if anyone came—and let it go.

She was prepared, this time, for the lodestone’s reaction. She gasped, but didn’t scream, when the magic was ripped out of her. She bit her lip hard, tears filling her eyes, and doubled over. But she didn’t make a sound, and finally the pain faded.

She had planned to try a third time, but she didn’t need to. No matter how much power she threw at them, the lodestones would do exactly what they were made for: pull it in. They were indestructible.

If it had been a ward, or a defense, she could have tried to figure something out. But the Renegai didn’t believe in changing the intrinsic nature of things. Nothing she had ever learned could be used to destroy these stones.

Well. So much for that.

“Satisfied?” Karyn inquired archly.

Ileni jumped, but managed not to scream again.

“There are quite a lot of them, aren’t there?” Karyn said. The sorceress was leaning against the wall across the cavern.

“Yes,” Ileni said. She tried to say it neutrally, but some of her revulsion must have shown, because Karyn stiffened.

“We need every one,” the sorceress said. “Without magic, the Empire would disintegrate into a hundred warring nations—the way it was centuries ago. Far more people would die than the number of lodestones in this cavern. And they would die in far more terrible ways.”

“But you wouldn’t be the one killing them,” Ileni said.

“That might make me feel better. I suspect, however, it wouldn’t help the dead.” Karyn straightened. “But let’s not pretend you’re here to engage in moral debates. If you want a lodestone of your own, I’m the only one who can give that to you.”