Death Marked (Death Sworn #2)(46)

Was she?

Was she ready to set the assassins loose on the Empire, just because people were dying a few days earlier than they would have died anyhow?

The thought felt slick and ugly in her mind. No Renegai would ever think that way. All lives were worth saving. It was why healing was so central, the most important use of magic. Why they had left the Empire to begin with.

But Ileni hadn’t been thinking like a Renegai for a long time now. The Renegai were a tiny group of outcasts, clinging to centuries-old ideals while hiding away in the mountains, where those ideals were never confronted with reality. Nobody else in the entire world saw life as anything more than a bag of coins, to be counted and valued and, ultimately, traded in.

She wished she still thought like a Renegai, confident in what was pure and good. Now she knew that nothing—nothing—was pure and good.

Including her.

Once, she had believed that she was a good person, that she would always choose right. That she would know what right meant. Now she was so tainted, so muddled, that she couldn’t even make a choice at all.

She heard a sound, an ugly, gulping sob, and clamped her lips together before she could let out another one. Slowly, carefully, she began the finger patterns again, this time doing them backward. Unwinding the spell.

When she was done, she rubbed the floor with her hands until there wasn’t a visible trace of chalk left, then kept scrubbing until no more tears fell onto the gray stone.


Arxis was at breakfast the next morning, sitting next to Evin, the two of them laughing and jostling each other. Judging by Cyn’s irritated expression, Arxis’s presence was a breach of protocol; and judging by Evin’s insouciant grin, it was one he didn’t care about. But when Ileni walked into the room, his brow furrowed.

Arxis glanced at Ileni, too. Even the way he turned his head was taut and disciplined, and his eyes were opaque. She wondered how none of the others could see him for what he was. A hunter. A killer.

Of course, they were all killers, here.

That morning, Ileni had gotten ready without magic, so it had taken her twice as long as usual. She was only halfway through her breakfast when Cyn pushed away from the table and said, “Let’s go.”

Fortunately, Ileni hadn’t had much appetite anyhow.

When they stepped outside, the sky was so gray it melted into the mountain peaks, and mist drifted across Ileni’s skin. She trudged across the bridge while the others soared overhead, Evin towing Arxis along. Apparently they had cemented their friendship while she was watching a man be tortured.

What should I do? She had her answer now, the truth she had come to find: The Empire deserved to end, and she was the only one who could end it. It drew its magic from murder. Torturing the helpless until they surrendered their lives, and their power. . . .

Except the old man at Death’s Door hadn’t surrendered anything. He was still alive, and Lis had walked away.

But he wouldn’t be alive for long. You’ll get only one more chance, Karyn had threatened. That was, clearly, an isolated act of disobedience, and one that would soon be reversed. Did it really matter that Lis felt bad about what she was doing? She was doing it anyhow.

When Ileni stepped onto the plateau, Evin and Cyn were already sparring, flinging balls of colored light at each other. Cyn’s balls were pure white, her strikes direct and dizzyingly fast. Evin’s were swirls of translucent color, more beautiful than dangerous. Even so, Evin was clearly winning. His movements were relaxed, almost lazy, while Cyn’s breath came in short, ragged bursts. On the other side of the plateau, Lis and Arxis were standing with their heads close together, sleek black and unruly red.

Evin snapped his head around when Ileni’s foot touched the plateau. He raised a hand, and a burst of power stopped all the glowing orbs in midair. The vast expenditure of magic almost knocked Ileni back over the edge. She swayed slightly.

“Match over,” Evin said cheerfully. “Well, Ileni? Want to give it a try?”

Ileni did want to, and the longing made her feel tight, about to explode.

“No,” she said. “I don’t.”

She said it without thinking, and didn’t hear the haughtiness in her voice until it was too late.

Evin shrugged, but Cyn stiffened. “I thought,” she said, “that you’d given up the whole shocked-and-superior act. It’s getting boring.”

“I’ll spar with you again—” Evin cut in.

“No. I think I’d like Ileni to have a turn.” Cyn ran her fingers through her short hair. “She’s proven that she’s quite capable of being a challenge, when she can bring herself to forget that she’s a—what are your villagers called again?”

“Renegai,” Ileni snapped. “And I don’t want to forget.”

“Clearly. You have my deepest sympathies for that.”

Her tone cut deep. The contempt was not just for Ileni, but for Ileni’s people, everything the Renegai had achieved and everything they had sacrificed.

Cyn smiled—an ugly smile, the sort she usually aimed at Lis. “Angry now, Renegai girl? Does that mean you’re allowed to fight?” She flung out a hand, and a column of sand rose before her and whirled across the plateau at Ileni.

Ileni drew in power from the lodestones and blasted the column apart. Then she raised a hand, and Cyn flew backward across the plateau, slamming into one of Evin’s frozen lights. It exploded in a graceful spray of color. Cyn, less gracefully, dropped to the ground and lay still.