Death Marked (Death Sworn #2)(79)

“But they’ll do it,” Ileni said. “You don’t know them. Even if he was dead, it wouldn’t end this forever.”

Karyn gave her a pitying look. “Nothing will end it forever. But for now, they wouldn’t be a threat.”

Ileni didn’t know if Sorin was dead—she didn’t want to have to hope he was. But she knew what kind of devastation that fire must have wreaked in those dry, narrow stone passageways. Many of the other assassins must be dead, and their stronghold nearly destroyed. Even if Sorin was alive, it would be years before they were at full strength again. Years before they could resume their missions.

Which meant for now, Girad was safe.

Karyn’s lips thinned. She brought her hands together and clasped them in front of her chest. Ileni braced herself.

A low, clear laugh rang through the room.

“Well,” Cyn said from the doorway, “nobody can say the Renegai aren’t brave. Stupid, yes. But that’s an entirely different argument, don’t you think?”

She was leaning against the doorpost, wearing a fluttery bright green dress. Her hair shadowed one of her eyes, but the other was faintly narrowed.

“What plan were you talking about?” Cyn went on, as calmly as if Karyn wasn’t looking daggers at her, as if the air around the sorceress’s hands wasn’t sizzling with power.

Silence. Cyn tilted her head to the side.

“We had a chance to trap and kill the master of the assassins,” Karyn said finally. “But he was prepared. Someone warned him.”

Cyn’s face went very still, and Ileni wondered if she knew—or suspected—her sister’s true allegiance. Cyn knew about Lis’s entanglement with Arxis. And by now, everyone knew what Arxis had been.

Yesterday, Ileni would have been glad to see Lis punished for this. Even if it wasn’t her fault, so many other things were. But now, watching fear transform Cyn’s face, she hesitated. Then she threw her head back and, very deliberately, laughed.

It sounded fake and wooden, but it got their attention.

“No one warned him,” Ileni said. “He is always prepared.”

“Even for treachery from someone he loved?” Karyn said.

Ileni managed not to flinch at that—though Cyn did, so slightly that only the quivering of her hair gave her away. Ileni knew, then, that she was right. Cyn did know about her sister’s treachery and was keeping silent about it.

“Especially for that,” Ileni said. “That was your mistake yesterday. And if not for me, you would have died for that mistake. Sorin would have killed you while you lay there unconscious.”

“That doesn’t mean I’m going to let you stay,” Karyn snapped, and the edge in her voice sliced through the air.

Ileni glanced swiftly, again, at Cyn. Then she focused on Karyn. “You’ll let me stay,” she said, “because I can teach your students something you can’t. I can tutor them in healing.”

“And why,” Karyn said, “would I be interested in that?”

Ileni crossed her arms over her chest. “Because the assassins are no longer an immediate threat. So you won’t need as much power any more. Will you?”

Karyn came to attention, and once again doubt stabbed Ileni. She took a breath. “Evin sent a fireball into the caves. The assassins will be rebuilding for a long time. And when Evin was dying, he gave me his power—”

“Evin appears rather not dead,” Cyn observed.

Karyn was perfectly still. Ileni couldn’t tell what she was thinking. So she spoke to Cyn. “That’s right. He’s not. Because instead of taking his power, I used it to heal him.”

Silence. Karyn’s mouth tightened, the only sign that she understood. Cyn was still staring, not at Ileni or Karyn, but at Evin.

“It didn’t even require all his power.” The words spilled out of Ileni in a rush—not careful, controlled, the way she wanted to tell it. “Healing spells almost never do. And whatever I used, it’s not lost to him forever. He’ll get it back. His power will grow back, because it’s his.”

“Good to know,” Cyn said. Ileni couldn’t read her voice.

“I could do the same for others,” Ileni said. “I could train other sorcerers to heal as well. We could save lives instead of ending them.”

She threw it out like a challenge. Go on, Karyn. Let your most important sorceress hear that it’s their deaths you’re interested in. That you don’t care about lives.

Karyn looked at Ileni, her fury almost palpable. The air around her sizzled—and then, slowly, went still. Karyn smiled, and the smile was more frightening than the power gathered within her.

“Well,” she said slowly. “That’s not entirely true, is it?”

Cyn flung out one arm and shouted, a short, savage spell. A beam of silver sparkles shot from her hands, whizzed past Ileni, and exploded in an iridescent shimmer against Evin’s slumbering form.

Evin jerked awake, eyes wide. He looked first at Cyn, then at Ileni, then at Girad, and then—finally—at Karyn. “What—”

“Ileni was telling us something interesting,” Cyn said sweetly. “I thought you might want to hear it.”

Karyn pressed her lips together. Evin straightened, ran a hand through his rumpled hair, then rubbed his bleary eyes. “Okay?”