Death Marked (Death Sworn #2)(23)

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.