Death Marked (Death Sworn #2)(9)

The underlying threat was clear: I can take this away.

Karyn watched Ileni’s face carefully—predatorily. “That’s all I need to see. You’ll be training with the most advanced students.” She turned, and Ileni couldn’t tell whether she meant it or not when she added, over her shoulder, “Congratulations.”


On the way back along the narrow, curving ledge, Ileni tried to feel guilty. The Empire’s sorcery was evil. It was wrong to use power that wasn’t your own, power that could only be given up at the moment of death. And yet she couldn’t feel guilt—or anything, really—through the exaltation bubbling up in her.

And she couldn’t stop smiling.

Karyn led her down a long, flower-scented passageway, where they passed a man in a brown cape who handed Karyn a sheaf of papers, two girls in green dresses giggling as they walked, and a very tall man who vanished in a flare of blue light. Finally, Karyn stopped at one of the closed doors. “This will be your room.”

Ileni still didn’t trust herself to speak. She nodded.

Karyn gave her a dour look that only made Ileni grin wider. The sorceress continued down the passageway, her shoes clicking on the stone. Ileni pulled the door open and stepped inside.

Where Arxis was waiting for her.





CHAPTER

4

The assassin was sitting on the bed by the wall, in the relaxed yet ready pose Ileni knew so well, his arms braced behind him and the balls of his feet resting on the floor.

Good, Ileni thought, and pulled the air around her into a barrier, tough enough to deflect knives. Magic, magic, magic . . . it was so easy, and she was finally as powerful as she had spent all those weeks pretending to be. Buzzing with anticipation, she said, “Well?”

Arxis bowed his head, very slightly, the faintest possible gesture of respect. When he raised it, his eyes were cold. “What are you doing here, Teacher?”

The magic sizzling through her made Ileni brazen, dying to take a crazy risk. She shrugged. “I was sent to help you.”

“And that . . . demonstration . . . earlier? Was that supposed to help? You threatened an identity I’ve spent weeks building up.”

Weeks. So Arxis had been here for most of the time Ileni had been in the caves. Assassins, once sent on their missions, had no contact with the caves until they succeeded. Which meant that not only did he not know she had killed the master, he didn’t know about her and Sorin.

He had no reason to kill her. Attacking him had been a colossally stupid move.

“I apologize.” Ileni crossed the room and sat on the bed, right next to the assassin. “That was a mistake.”

“I would say so.” Arxis stood, a smooth, fluid motion that reminded her of Sorin, and strode for the door.

“Wait,” Ileni said. “The master didn’t tell me who you were sent to kill.”

He didn’t stop until he was at the door, and then he only half-turned, so she couldn’t make out his expression. She had seen Sorin’s profile, at that exact frustrating angle, a dozen times. She hadn’t realized until now that the pose was something he had been trained in.

“He wanted you to tell me,” she added. “So I can help you.”

“You’re lying.”

He said it so flatly she couldn’t muster up a denial. Instead she said, “Oh, really? And how do you know that?”

“Because I don’t need help.” And with that, he was gone.

Assassins, Ileni thought, trying to roll her eyes and not quite managing it. She sat back down. Her hands were shaking.

Why? She wasn’t his target; she was safe. And it wasn’t her responsibility to stop him. The sorcerers were targeting the assassins. She had been in the caves when they attacked. She had almost died. The assassins had a right to strike back.

Sorin’s voice, in her mind: In war people die. You have to accept that, if you’re going to fight.

It took a few moments of steady breathing before she got back to her feet to investigate her new room. It was a small rectangular chamber, with a desk and chair along one wall and a polished wooden wardrobe along the other. With the bed, that made four whole pieces of furniture—grand in comparison to her room in the Assassins’ Caves. But this time, there were no wards on her door, reinforced by generations of Renegai. And there was a window at the end of her room, near the wardrobe, which she went to, immediately. Through it she could see a dusky sky streaked blue and pink. Mountains faded into the distance, solid gray behind a veil of white sunlight. To her left, the mountains sloped into a mosaic of red and white. A city.

She backed away from the window. It reminded her of another window carved into a mountainside, of a wiry boy who had crouched on that windowsill and thrown himself into the night. This window was higher. If someone jumped from it, the thud when he landed probably wouldn’t be audible.

That boy had jumped at the master’s command, proud to die for his cause. The caves were full of young men just like him, waiting for the command to die. And when they did, it would be her turn to attack.

But the sorcerers had thousands of lodestones. The life force of hundreds of assassins—if she agreed to take it, and wield it—couldn’t stand against that.

Unless it was a surprise attack. One blow, swift and sudden, struck at the moment of the assassins’ deaths.