Death Marked (Death Sworn #2)(70)

Ileni could hardly argue with that. She swallowed hard and said, instead, “Why haven’t you blocked me from the lodestones yet?”

“Because I think,” Karyn said, “that you’re ready to choose a side now. Do you really want to save Girad’s life? Betraying the assassins is the only way to do that.”

Ileni couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, and—despite all her agonizing, all the thoughts that had worn grooves into her mind—couldn’t think of a thing to say.

So instead of saying anything, she went after Evin.

She caught up with him at the beginning of the bridge, where he was walking instead of flying, his steps slow and heavy. She ran the few steps to catch him, making the bridge sway wildly beneath them, and grabbed his arm.

“Evin, wait—”

He whirled, eyes wide. “Is Girad—”

“No! Girad is sleeping. Still.”

Evin let out a breath, and Ileni stood staring up at him, trying to think of something to say. The moment stretched on and on.

“Don’t cry,” Evin said.

She hadn’t been aware, until he said it, that she was crying. She tasted salt on her lips.

“I mean—I’m sorry. What a stupid thing to say. Of course you can cry.” Evin reached out and, with his thumb, blotted a tear on her cheek. His other hand was still clutching his brother’s wooden dog. “I’m going to change it. I’m going to make sure they never kill again.”

“No.” Ileni tightened her grip on his forearm. “Don’t. Nobody can change the way things are.” Nobody but me. “Girad needs you, and you—you shouldn’t have to be something you’re not.”

“If I change,” Evin said, “that will be what I am.”

And it would be. No one could force themselves back into innocence. She searched Evin’s eyes for a hint of the wry, careless humor she had once despised.

She would never forgive Sorin for killing this.

“Don’t worry,” Evin said. “I’ll still be the best at whatever I end up being.” His smile was small and forced, but in it, Ileni saw a flicker of his old self.

Above them, a sound, so faint it might have been the wind.

Evin followed Ileni’s gaze and sighed. He stepped back. The bridge tilted beneath them.

Lis dove headfirst and straightened when she was hovering beside them. She put one hand on the rail and said to Evin, “I’m sorry.”

Bleakness settled on Evin’s face, wiping away that brief glimmer. “Thank you. He will—I’m sure he will be all right.”

But he didn’t sound sure at all.

Lis drew in a breath, and her face twisted with an expression Ileni recognized.

Guilt.

I know exactly who Arxis is, Lis had said.

Ileni met Lis’s eyes, and Lis whirled so fast her hair whipped audibly through the air. She leaped upward, arms tight at her sides, and streaked across the pink sky.

“I should go,” Evin said. He lifted his hand toward Ileni’s face, then let it drop. “I should train.”

“Yes,” Ileni said. She curled one hand around the railing. “I shouldn’t have—I didn’t mean—I—I have to go, too.”

“Wait. I want to ask you—” He looked down at the wooden dog in his hand, and held it out to her. “Can you give this back to Girad?”

Ileni took the dog, knowing that wasn’t what he had meant to say. She nodded, then turned and ran.

She caught up to Lis on the ledge near the beginning of the bridge. When Ileni grabbed her arm, Lis jerked away, almost throwing the two of them off the mountain. Ileni used a thrust of magic to push herself closer to the gray mountainside.

Lis didn’t. She crouched near the edge of the abyss, her heels at the very rim of the drop. As if she didn’t care whether she fell.

She could fly, of course. But still, unease lodged in Ileni’s throat, choking off her accusation. She recognized that sort of despair.

“What?” Lis said wildly. “What do you want? Do you have more useless warnings to throw at me?”

“I didn’t have to warn you,” Ileni said slowly. “Did I? You already knew what he was.”

Lis laughed, and something about it made Ileni want to back away. She pressed against the mountainside.

“Oh, yes,” Lis said. “But unlike you, I know what we are.”

“And what are we?” Ileni said.

“We’re killers, too.” Lis straightened, but didn’t step away from the edge. “I kept Arxis’s secret because he was right. It’s that simple.”

It’s never that simple. But Ileni had once thought it could be. That right was a simple concept, that she could make a choice that didn’t take into account who she was and who she loved and what she wanted.

“Arxis was just using you,” Ileni said. “You were his way to Evin, who was his way to Girad.”

“You don’t know anything,” Lis snapped. “I was far more important to the assassins than that.”

To the assassins?

It all came together with a click, so fast Ileni wondered if some part of her had already known. Lis and Arxis, heads bent together. His taunt. The assets we already have here.

And the question she had never managed to answer.