Death Sworn(26)

She remembered the tight fear on the thin boy’s face, the grimness in those blue eyes as he walked to the window. But he had jumped. Jumped, and fallen, and then that thud . . . she forced her mind away from the memory.

“Bazel will improve,” Sorin said, “or he will die. There’s no in-between.”

“And you’ll try to make sure it’s the latter option, won’t you?” she said.

Even though he couldn’t see her face, he must have sensed something, because his voice softened. “Remember, he’s like the rest of us. Training to kill. You’ve made it clear you abhor us all, so why should you care about Bazel?”

Ileni tore off another chunk of bread, but couldn’t bring herself to eat it. She had been ravenous when she sat down, and now she wasn’t sure she could manage to swallow. “Why do you care?” she demanded. “Because he’s not good at fighting, he’s not allowed to be good at anything? Does it bother you so much, that he’s better at magic than you are?”

Sorin sat ramrod straight, and Ileni knew she was right. Bazel had no right, in his classmates’ eyes, to be better than they were. At anything. And by offering him lessons, she had as much as promised that his small victory today wouldn’t be a fluke, that she would ensure he continued to be better. She leaned over the table, feeling suddenly savage. “Besides, you just told me he’ll never be sent on a mission. So he’s not a killer after all, is he?”

“He wishes he could be.” Sorin leaned forward, too. His cheekbones stood out like blades below his fierce eyes. “Don’t think he’s anything like you. He’s as devoted to the master, and to our purpose, as the rest of us.”

“Purpose?” Ileni said. “You’re hired killers. Gold is your purpose.”

Sorin’s jaw clenched. “Do you truly think that’s all we are?”

Ileni put her bread down. “Are you honestly trying to tell me you’re not?”

“Money is necessary,” Sorin admitted, “and sometimes, yes, we kill for pay. But usually we kill because the target’s death, or an alliance with the person hiring us, furthers our greater mission.”

“Which is what, exactly?”

“Bringing down the Empire.”

She stared at him.

Sorin pulled his shoulders back. “That has always been our goal. It seems your Elders didn’t tell you the whole story.”

That stung. “Well,” Ileni retorted, “you’re clearly doing a fantastic job. You’ve only been killing people for, what, four hundred years. . . .”

“And each assassination has been a blow, disrupting the Empire, making the Rathians fear us.” His voice was like his posture, the violence barely discernible beneath his calm tone. “When the Empire does collapse, it will seem to its subjects that it happened overnight. They will not see how we weakened its foundations, one chip here and another there, for centuries. No one sees the whole picture yet. No one but the master.”

He said it as if it was undeniable, and the weight of his certainty crushed her questions. She looked away.

The blaze died out of Sorin’s eyes, and he pressed his lips together. “I need to talk to you about something else.” He stood and turned his back on her. “Follow me.”

Ileni hesitated for only a moment. Then she slid off the bench and hurried after him.

Outside the cavernous dining hall, a few twists and turns through dimly lit passageways brought them to a small chamber—barely more than a widening of the passageway, but full of thickly packed clusters of long, thin stalactites that hung from the ceiling nearly to the floor. A few daggers were lodged among them. Ileni deliberately turned her back on the tendrils of stone and crossed her arms. “What is this?”

Sorin walked over to the dense block of hanging stones and dropped to his back, a lithe, graceful movement. While Ileni stared, he grabbed the bottoms of the stalactites and pulled himself beneath them, sliding along the ground. After a second she couldn’t see him anymore.

Ileni stood where she was. “Um. I don’t think so.”

“Not willing to risk much to find out the truth, are you?” Sorin’s voice was oddly distorted by the rocks between them, but it wasn’t coming from below; clearly, he was standing. There must be a clear space between the hanging stones and the cavern wall behind them.

This is not a good idea. Ileni lowered herself gingerly to the ground and onto her back. She pushed herself with her heels until her head was under the stalactites. Their ends weren’t as pointy as she had thought, but blunt and somewhat knobby. She was fairly sure she would still die if any of them came loose and plunged down on her.