Death Marked (Death Sworn #2)(25)
Ileni snapped her jaw shut. “I didn’t—”
“Attack him when you first met? With a dagger? We all heard about it.” Cyn sounded amused, but it was Evin she was watching, not Ileni. Ileni braced herself for one of Evin’s quips, but he was suddenly quite focused on his noodles.
She bent her head over her food. Let them believe it. It wasn’t as if she had a better explanation.
Or as if Evin would believe her warning, anyhow.
Besides, what did she care? She wasn’t one of them. She was on a mission, too. The real question might be whether Arxis killed Evin before she did.
When they stepped out onto the mountain ledge after breakfast, cold droplets pelted Ileni’s face. A gray-white sky spread across the mountains, spitting rain, and fog wreathed around the craggy peaks, softening their harsh edges.
A jolt of homesickness took Ileni by surprise. She hadn’t even wanted to go home, back when she’d thought she had to. But in the Renegai village, rain was a nearly everyday occurrence, though it was usually swept swiftly away by the mountain winds. With a day of training ahead of her, with magic flowing through her and the rain forming a cool mist against her face, she could almost have been home.
Almost. With just a few slight differences. The loneliness reared up within her, threatening to overwhelm her, and she shoved it down fiercely. She didn’t have time for that.
On a ledge on one of the farther peaks, a line of people walked slowly alongside the mountain, holding rain shields in tight formation. Someone else—an instructor, probably—flew next to them, directing the raindrops in torrents against the shield. A training exercise.
“Well,” Evin said, “you know what I call this? Napping weather.”
“You would,” Cyn said, with the same disdain Ileni felt.
Evin laughed again. Even after only two days, his laugh was starting to grate on Ileni, like a wrongly accented spell. He seemed incapable of taking anything seriously. She waited for Cyn to put him in his place.
But Cyn just sighed, and a moment later Evin soared away, a speeding black line against the roiling gray clouds.
Cyn held a hand out to Ileni. “Want to fly?”
Ileni hesitated. But it was too damp and too early for noble gestures. She took Cyn’s hand.
Her shoulder was nearly jerked out of its socket as Cyn leaped upward, pulling her along so fast the wind split in front of them. After the first moment of terror, Ileni used a touch of magic to hold herself streamlined, the wind beating at her face and whipping her hair back. The distant treetops sped beneath them, and Cyn laughed, wild and exhilarated.
They slowed down at the last moment and landed gently on the plateau. Ileni let go of Cyn’s hand and swayed unsteadily. She was breathing hard, even though she hadn’t been the one doing the work, and a laugh bubbled out of her.
Cyn’s expression was sheer joy, and Ileni’s laugh died. Her own exhilaration was tainted by envy, deep in the pit of her stomach.
“What does someone have to do,” she said, “to get one of those lodestone bracelets?”
As soon as the question was out of her mouth, she was struck with horror at herself. But Cyn, of course, found it perfectly natural. She ran her fingers through her hair and shook it out. “First you have to test for eighth-level, of course, and do the containment training.”
It was not, Ileni had realized by now, that Cyn was trying to make her feel stupid. She truly didn’t grasp how ignorant Ileni was of things she took for granted. Usually Ileni let it pass—she didn’t particularly want Cyn to see her as ignorant—but this time she gritted her teeth and said, “What does that mean?”
Cyn blinked. “You don’t know . . . well, I guess you wouldn’t. It would take a long time to explain. But I’m not sure how much it matters for you. Even after the required trainings, it’s still up to Karyn. And she doesn’t seem to trust you.” She grimaced. “Can you think of a way to win her over?”
By turning traitor. Though of course, Cyn wouldn’t see it that way.
Cyn summoned up a globe of pink light and began twirling it slowly through the air—warming up. “Don’t think having Evin on your side will help, either. He might be Karyn’s nephew, but he doesn’t exactly go out of his way to curry favor with her.”
“I noticed.” Ileni hesitated. “He’s her nephew? Where are his parents?”
“His parents are dead.” The pink globe stilled. “His mother was a battle commander, and his father was high sorcerer. That family has always had incredible amounts of power.”
Ileni blinked. “The high sorcerer who—”
“Was murdered by assassins.” Cyn muttered a word, and the globe began to spin, faster and faster. “The first high sorcerer to ever fall to a mundane blade. His mother wasn’t a sorceress, but she was murdered by assassins, too.”
It’s so easy, Irun had said, once you’re not afraid. Evin’s father might have been the first, but he wouldn’t be the last.
Was Evin intended to be the second? It made perfect sense, if you thought like an assassin. It would be a deadly warning, a double strike, spreading fear exponentially. A clear message: We can kill any of you whenever we want.
The only question was why Arxis hadn’t done it yet.
A thud behind her signaled Lis’s arrival on the plateau. A moment later, Lis stormed past Ileni toward Cyn, hair swinging violently back and forth. She stopped in front of her sister, her shoulders so tense they shook.