Death Marked (Death Sworn #2)(62)

She tightened the band, enough to hurt. “So they are. But somehow, I suspect you’re not the best of assassins.”

She flicked a glance at Arxis and saw his eyes narrow. The other assassins had never respected or trusted Bazel.

A flare of magic from Bazel sliced the blue band in two. It reconnected almost instantly, but even the least of the assassins was fast enough to take advantage of that almost. Bazel flung out his hand.

The blue band snapped it back to his side, ruining his aim, and his dagger hit the wall to the left of Ileni’s head.

At the same moment, Arxis lunged sideways and slid a dagger across Bazel’s throat.

It was swift and clean, as Ileni had known it would be. Blood spurted out in vast quantities, drenching Bazel’s tunic. His head dropped forward into the blood, lolling again his chest.

Ileni met Arxis’s eyes briefly, then let the blue band go. Bazel’s body slid to the ground and slumped against the wall. His chin and mouth were stained a shockingly bright red.

“He had another dagger,” Arxis said curtly. He should have tried to sound as if it bothered him more, Ileni thought. “And he was calling up magic. He was about to kill her. I had to do it.”

And that was true. Not the details, but the basics. Bazel would have killed Ileni eventually, if he had lived.

But maybe not before he spilled some of the assassins’ secrets to Karyn. Which was why Arxis had done it.

Exactly as Ileni had known he would.

Weak, Sorin whispered in her mind. What difference did it make whether she killed Bazel with her own hands or arranged it so Arxis would? Did that make her better, that recoil, that cowardice? Did it matter that she was ashamed to kill, and Arxis wasn’t? This death belonged to both of them.

Evin stood silent. Bazel’s dead eyes were wide open above the red mask that covered the bottom of his face. Arxis’s dagger—not a spiral-hilt assassin’s dagger, just a standard knife—was stained the same dark red.

“Karyn will hear about this,” Evin said finally. His voice was carefully calm. “She’ll be notified as soon as the body is found. We have to get Ileni out of here before she shows up.”

“But—” Ileni said, then stopped, not sure what she was objecting to.

Evin was already striding toward the front door. “We won’t get any answers here, anyhow. Not once they discover that Death’s Door was infiltrated by an assassin. It will be chaos. We need to be far away when that happens.”

Arxis’s eyes glittered. He wasn’t bothering to hide his expressions from Ileni anymore. It would be chaos, yes, and terror. A reminder that no place was safe from the assassins.

Bazel’s body lay still in a way that was nothing like sleep, his face blank and empty. Memories flashed through Ileni: Bazel in her training room, one of twenty assassins, his round face fearful beneath his auburn hair. Bazel leaning back on white rock, grinning and raising a mug, the black river sliding past him.

She shook off those memories, replaced them with another: the dagger point thudding to a stop inches from her eyes. She forced herself to stop staring at the corpse, and only then realized that Evin was watching her.

She couldn’t read his expression, couldn’t shake the feeling that, somehow, he suspected what she had done. She said, “What now?”

“First,” Evin said, “let’s get out of here.”

“And go where?” Arxis inquired.

Evin slammed the heavy doors open with a surge of power, and they all followed him toward the sunlight. “I have an idea.”





CHAPTER

22

“All right,” Evin said, when they were several streets and stairways away from Death’s Door. Here, the streets were wide and empty, lined with large elegant buildings decorated in marble. “Here’s my plan. Ileni, how old is the baby?”

“I’m not sure,” Ileni said. She was slightly surprised at how easily Evin seemed able to put Bazel’s death behind him—but then, Bazel was an assassin, one of the enemy. And Evin was a soldier, even if he wasn’t very enthusiastic about it. He had seen people die before. He had killed many of them himself.

She focused. “Her mother died of childbed fever. So I suppose . . . two weeks at most.”

“Well, that’s something to start with. An abandoned baby would probably be taken to the Sisters of the Black God to see if anyone claimed her.” Evin leaned against the side of a pale yellow building and announced, in the tone of one presenting a masterpiece, “We can ask Girad to find her for us.”

Nobody said anything. Somewhere not far off, a horse neighed shrilly.

“That’s your plan?” Ileni said finally. “Ask a five-year-old for help?”

“Girad is six.”

“Oh. Well, that’s entirely different.”

“I have a suggestion,” Arxis cut in. “Why don’t we just choose any random baby in the orphanage and help her? They’re all equally in need of it.”

“Because,” Ileni said, through gritted teeth, “that’s not what I promised.”

Arxis shrugged. “The mother is dead. She won’t know. And instead of spending your time searching for one particular baby who is exactly like all the others, you could save any of them. You could even choose the one who needs saving the most.”