Death Marked (Death Sworn #2)(68)

“Hello, Tellis,” she said.





CHAPTER

24

They both stood frozen, eyes locked on each other. Tellis’s eyes were wide and blank with pain, riveted to her face as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Ileni felt blank inside, too, but not from pain. It took her a moment to realize what she felt.

Nothing.

That was almost worse than pain. It was staggering. How could she have loved him so much, and now feel nothing? She could still remember how her heart had once leaped every time she saw him, how desperately she had wanted to be near him.

She remembered it, and still she felt nothing.

“Ileni,” Tellis whispered. “He was telling the truth?”

“Who was telling the truth?” Ileni said. “Tellis—how did you—”

“I’m here to help you,” Tellis said. “Elder Absalm opened the portal just enough for you to see me. But together, we can open the portal fully, and you can come through.”

Elder Absalm? “Where are you?”

He shuddered slightly, which was answer enough. “Don’t worry. I’m all right. I was just brought here to talk to you, and to help you escape.”

“I don’t need to escape,” Ileni said. He blinked at her. “I’m not trapped here.” Although that wasn’t entirely true. “I’m—it’s complicated. But I know what I’m doing.”

That was entirely not true, but Tellis nodded, trusting her. He leaned closer, reaching out a hand, as if he could push it through the spell and touch her. He probably could, if he wanted to. He was more than powerful enough.

“Ileni,” he said, and his voice caught on her name. “I miss you.”

“I—” Ileni began, and then couldn’t think of what to say. I miss you, too? She had shattered her heart against memories of him a million times. But now . . . now she was no longer the girl who had loved Tellis so uncomplicatedly and wholeheartedly.

She missed being that girl more than she missed Tellis.

“I knew I would,” Tellis said. “But I didn’t know . . . I didn’t know it would be so hard. I didn’t know, when I told you to leave, that I was making a mistake.”

The thought crept into her mind, stark and inescapable: I’m going to hurt him.

Once, she would have been savagely glad of that. He had hurt her, after all, so badly she hadn’t known how she would survive it. But that felt like so long ago. She had survived it. She had come out on the other side. And she no longer cared enough about Tellis to want to hurt him.

“Thank you,” she said, and immediately hated herself for how stupid it sounded—for not coming up with something better. The intensity on Tellis’s face made her heart twist. But she forced herself to meet his eyes, letting her own face show . . . whatever it showed. And she forced herself not to turn away when he searched her face, the hope in his eyes slowly dying. His throat pulsed, and he was the one to finally drop his eyes.

“So you’re a weapon,” he said.

“I—what?”

“The assassin leader said . . . he said you had a way to destroy the imperial sorcerers. Is it true?”

“What on earth were you doing with Sor—with the assassin leader?”

“It’s a long story,” Tellis said. “But he wanted me to talk to you. To find out what you were doing. What was stopping you from proceeding with the plan.”

Curse you, Sorin.

Ileni had thought she understood what it felt like to be the betrayer, to become loathsome in the eyes of everyone she knew. Now she had an inkling of what it would truly feel like. Her insides clamped shut, shrinking into a thick, agonizing knot.

“It’s . . . not that simple,” she said, hearing and hating the weakness in her voice.

Tellis blinked at her, not angry as Sorin would have been, merely confused. “You’re in the Empire. They drove us into exile, they kill by the thousands, they pervert magic. Why is it not simple?”

For a moment Ileni couldn’t remember why. What Tellis was saying was true. Everything else was just complications.

She opened her mouth, then closed it. There was no point. She understood Tellis perfectly; she had been him, just a year ago. With no idea of how much she didn’t know.

Suddenly she couldn’t bear it anymore. She didn’t want him to know what she had become. Not because she was ashamed—or not only because she was ashamed. But because someone should still be apart from all the death and the compromises and the terrible choices. Some part of the world should still be simple and pure.

Even if that part couldn’t be hers anymore.

“Tellis,” she said. “Are you trapped there? In the caves?”

“No,” Tellis said. “The assassin leader said I can go back as soon as I talk to you.”

“Then go,” Ileni said fiercely. “Go back to the village, right away. Promise me.”

“I will. Of course. But—”

She drew in magic, hoping Tellis couldn’t sense it through the portal, and said, “There’s no time. The portal is closing. Tellis—”

He leaned forward, but she hadn’t planned an end to that sentence. She cut it off by slamming the portal shut, using all her strength and all her skill.