Death Marked (Death Sworn #2)(52)

“My daughter,” the blond girl managed.

“You’ll take care of her yourself,” Ileni promised. “You’ll be all right now. So will she.”

The girl looked at her blankly, eyes glazed with pain, and doubt stabbed Ileni. But healing was often painful and disorienting. She still had vivid memories of having a fever healed when she was seven years old, of how confused and frantic her thoughts had been afterward. So maybe this was normal. Maybe she had succeeded.

The girl sagged back against the pillow, eyes fluttering closed. Ileni hesitated. But if the girl was dying, there was nothing else she could do. She straightened and looked at the boy with the broken arm.

“Why are you here?” she said.

The boy’s eyes were wide and bright. “It set wrong. Can you heal me, too?”

The lack of magic yawned inside Ileni. The room was filled with at least fifty children, and she felt like they were all watching her. “I . . . not now. But I can come back.”

The brightness left the boy’s eyes. “It will be too late.”

“Come with me, then,” Ileni said. “You shouldn’t be here. You won’t die of a broken arm.”

“I can’t live with it, either,” the boy said. “Can’t take care of my brother. But the Black Sisters will.”

“No,” Ileni said. “You don’t have to—”

The girl with the cleft lip spoke in a garbled voice. “Don’t be stupid.”

Ileni looked from her, to the boy with the broken arm, then around the room again. She took a step back, then another.

The blond girl’s eyes popped open. “Don’t go!”

“It’s all right,” Ileni said, though it wasn’t.

“No! Take it.” The girl’s voice rose, shrill and piercing. “I don’t have long. I can’t wait.”

A door slammed. All the glowstones went on, blindingly bright, and across the room, a boy sat up in his bed and screamed.

Ileni spun and ran for the stairs. Behind her, the blond girl shouted, “Stop!” and the boy’s scream went on and on. Another child began wailing.

Light flooded the stairway. A bearded man stormed down the steps, holding a long, curved knife that gleamed in the sudden brightness.

If she’d had any magic left, Ileni wouldn’t have given the knife a second thought. The man advanced, and fear shot through her. In the beds all around her, children stirred and moaned.

“I’m sorry,” she said to the man with the knife, as coolly as she could manage. She had to raise her voice to be heard over the screaming. “I—I didn’t mean to—” To what? “To, uh, disturb. You. Or anyone.”

The man’s eyes flickered over her. “You’re from the Academy?”

“Yes.”

He came closer, and now she was within easy reach of his blade. She forced herself to remain still, tried not to even look at the knife, as if it was of no relevance to her. “We weren’t told to expect anyone.”

“Um,” Ileni said. “I—uh—we—”

“She’s here for me,” the blond girl said. “I’m ready.”

The bearded man slipped past Ileni, nodded quickly—approvingly?—and slid something small and sharp into the blond girl’s hand.

“Wait,” Ileni said.

The blond girl met her eyes. Her chin trembled. “Take care of my baby. Promise.”

And then, without hesitating, she lifted the blade to her throat and slashed it across her smooth skin.

Ileni had seen people die before, and that was the only thing that kept her from screaming. The blond girl gasped, and her mouth opened, as if in protest. The knife dropped to the bed, and blood flowed through her now-limp fingers, soaking the thin blanket.

Power rushed from her into Ileni.

Ileni gasped, first with shock and then with joy. The flood of power was so bright and brilliant it lit her up from the inside. She was too dazzled to see.

With the power came knowledge: the bright glow of the girl’s life, the confusion and dizziness of her fever, the pain and terror and despair as blood flowed out of her body. Ileni could feel the frantic beat of her heart, her blood struggling to circulate. It was an echo of a pain she recognized.

She knew how much it hurt to die.

But that pain was hers for only a second before the power rushed over it, overwhelmed it, drowned it. And after that, she felt nothing but joy.

By the time she blinked back to reality, the girl was dead. Her slim body was slumped against the pillow, blue eyes closed, blood soaking into her shirt and blanket. A stillness subtly but dreadfully different from sleep.

Alive just a moment ago, and now irretrievably gone. Ileni began to shake. Did that part ever get easier to understand?

The bearded man scowled at her. “Where’s the lodestone? What kind of game are you playing?”

“I—” It was too much. She couldn’t think. “Karyn—I have to go—”

He shook his head. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but you’re not going anywhere until I find out.”

With the magic flowing through her, Ileni was able to ignore that. He couldn’t make her do anything. She could throw him across the room with a thought, if she wanted to.

And she wanted to.