Death Marked (Death Sworn #2)(29)

The impact thudded all the way up her spine. But the collision didn’t hurt as much as the sudden absence within her. She reached desperately for the lodestones, knowing what she would find.

Nothing. She couldn’t draw on the magic anymore. It was gone.

As she had always known, deep down, it would be.

That pain should have been familiar to her by now, but it still felt like someone had scooped out a part of her soul. She didn’t even try to get to her feet. Instead, she heard herself say, “I could help you defeat the assassins.”

Karyn looked both interested and unsurprised. “Could you indeed?”

“I—” What was she saying? What was she thinking? “I mean—I don’t—”

“Because if you could,” Karyn purred, “that would be reason to allow you to stay.”

Ileni was so hot with shame it was hard to think. Betrayer. Just a week ago, she had sworn she would never do this.

She could only be glad that no one but an imperial sorceress was here to see how loathsome she was. How weak.

Karyn murmured a word, and a white cloth appeared in her right hand. She pressed it to her arm, and it turned swiftly crimson as blood soaked it. “But if you can’t, I’m afraid it’s not just a question of letting you leave. It’s a question of letting you live.”

Ileni couldn’t even manage to be afraid. “If you kill me,” she said, “the assassins will stop at nothing until you’re dead.”

“Oh, indeed? Are they stopping at something now?” Karyn snorted. “I wonder if I was this stupid when I was young, or if it’s only assassins who turn girls’ heads around. Are you implying that the blond killer you were so dove-eyed with in the caves would change his strategy because of you?”

“Yes,” Ileni said. The thought of Sorin steadied her, and she tried to think of what he would do, if he were here. He would never dream of accepting Karyn’s offer. . . .

Except he would. Of course he would. As a ruse.

The fog of shame lifted, leaving her head a bit clearer. It could be a ruse. She knew an assassin who had lived at the emperor’s court for forty years, then accomplished his mission and walked away. He hadn’t been seduced from his cause. Surely she could manage that kind of steadfastness for a few weeks.

Surely. Except her heart was already pounding, fast and eager, at the thought of getting the magic back.

Karyn’s face pulled into a sneer. “Really? Even after you’ve polluted yourself with imperial magic? He must truly love you.”

“He does,” Ileni said, without hesitation.

“So he wouldn’t betray you?”

“Oh, no,” Ileni said. “He would.”

Karyn blinked. Then she leaned forward. “So I suppose it’s only fair that you would betray him as well.”

Ileni paused for only a moment before she nodded.

Karyn lifted the blood-soaked cloth from her arm. “You will tell me all about their magical training, what spells they know, what defenses they have. And about the wards around the caves.” She crumpled the cloth into a ball. “To start with.”

It won’t matter, Ileni thought. Once she put an end to the Empire, it wouldn’t matter what Karyn knew.

“All right,” she said. “I’ll tell you. But first, give me my magic back.”


The sky outside her window was faintly pink when Ileni left her room, tingling all over with magic, aching with guilt. Karyn, though clearly not finished, had left for “a meeting with the skyriders’ battle commander.” “But this is most useful,” she had added. “I hadn’t realized their fire spells were still so primitive. I will be back for another talk soon.”

“What are the skyriders?” Ileni had asked. But Karyn had simply vanished.

The assassins’ fire spells were, in fact, far from primitive. Ileni had done her best to mix falsehoods with truths, supplying as much misinformation as she thought Karyn would believe. Which wasn’t much, but was better than nothing. It seemed she had gotten away with it. Next time, when she wasn’t caught off guard, she could probably get away with more. . . .

Next time. The contents of her stomach surged upward, making her clamp her mouth shut. How many mornings could she play the betrayer—be the betrayer—with an imperial sorceress, spilling secrets the assassins had kept for centuries?

Why not end it now? Sorin whispered in her mind, and she had no coherent answer. But she never had, in the face of his certainty.

She reached for magic—finally, even though she didn’t deserve to—and called up a magelight. Power rushed through her like cool water, a thread of joy even in her turmoil.

Maybe she could get in some early practice today.

By now she knew her way through the corridors, so she kept the magelight dim, just enough of a glow to prevent her from walking into a wall. She didn’t want to attract attention—not because she was afraid, but because she was in no mood to talk to anyone. When she heard a door creak, she stopped and snuffed the magelight out, standing cloaked in darkness until whoever it was could pass and leave her alone.

A new magelight flickered on—also softly, but bright enough to illuminate the face of the person closing the door.

Arxis.

And judging by the rumpled state of his clothes, the room he was coming out of wasn’t his own.