Death Sworn(31)

The sense of danger pulled her through several dark, curving corridors, down a short flight of stairs, and into another of those narrow passageways that made her feel as if the black stones were pressing in on her from both sides. Farther and farther into the mountains. Fewer wooden doors interrupted the walls of rugged stone, replaced by rough arches and irregularly shaped openings in the rock. She didn’t look through those openings, focused as she was on the spell, but what she glimpsed as she passed sent shivers through her: a cavern full of hanging ropes, crisscrossed with wooden beams; the replica of some sort of throne room; a cave divided in half by a shiny length of wood studded with sharp metal spikes.

She gritted her teeth and kept going. Finally, something wafted toward her, something she hadn’t smelled in so long it took her a moment to identify it. Fresh air.

She breathed deeply, then hurried forward. The passageway ended abruptly in a wall, which she found by walking straight into it. In a blur of confused pain, she realized it wasn’t a dead end, but rather a sharp turn. She followed the turn, more cautiously, her head still ringing. But she forgot the pain when the passageway truly did come to an end—not in a wall, but in an exit to the outside world.

The sky was dusky blue, streaked with pink-gray clouds, and there was no sign of the sun—but it was still lighter than it ever was within the caves, the sort of light that filled the world instead of coming from tiny stones. It was cold, too, and she welcomed that. The breeze brushed across her face, and she breathed it in, icy and sweet. She had almost forgotten what it felt like to have air move against her face. She leaned into it, her skin coming alive.

Before her stretched a large, rocky valley—surrounded by towering black rock on all sides, so not a way out after all, but it was still outdoors. Of course, they must have outdoor training areas, so they could learn to fight in snow and rain . . . even as she thought that, she became conscious of the unnaturally even sound of feet thudding against the ground. She drew back swiftly, just as the assassins came into sight.

A dozen of them, running single file, wearing nothing but breeches and packs. She recognized some from her first class. The oldest students, the closest to being sent out into the Empire. An older man, one of the teachers, was running behind them. His voice pierced the silence: “Faster! You call that running? Faster!”

The rocks on the ground were not, after all, haphazard; they were obstacles, and as she watched, the runners leaped over each one and kept running. Their uniform pace and set faces suggested they had been doing it for a long time.

When the one in the lead got close enough for Ileni to see him clearly, she realized that those weren’t packs on their backs. They were slabs of stone. They must have weighed more than she could easily lift.

She retreated farther back into the cave, but not before she recognized one of the runners, his blond hair slicked back against his head.

She had been wrong. Sorin had left his room long ago.

What now? she asked herself, and had no answer. She sighed and let the remnant of the altered warding spell go, then stood pressed against the rock until the sound of pounding feet passed her and grew distant. A part of her wanted to go outside again, to feel the breeze on her skin.

She shook her head and turned back into the dark, trying to remember the way she had come.

Within seconds, she was completely lost.

After a turn that she thought would take her back to the staircase, she found herself instead in a large cavern full of knives, hundreds of them, hanging on racks stretched across the back of the room. Targets hung on the wall, heavy cloths cut into the shapes of people, with circles drawn over various body parts. One of the targets was child sized. She stared at them, feeling her stomach tighten. Then she turned back to the doorway, and collided with a bare, muscular chest.

She shrieked and raised her hands. Large hands gripped her upper arms, hard enough to hurt, holding her motionless. She looked up into Irun’s rugged face.

“Teacher,” he said, his tone a mockery of respect. “What are you doing here? And without your guardian, too. Not very wise.”

She didn’t bother to struggle, vividly recalling how he had leaped obstacles with a stone slab on his back. She didn’t bother to reply, since she had nothing to say. She met Irun’s hard almond-shaped eyes and did not move.

His thick eyebrows lifted. Then he let her go, though he didn’t move from the doorway. Ileni used every bit of willpower she possessed and did not step back. The marks of his fingers were painful on her arms.

“Good,” she said, hoping her haughty tone would disguise her fear. “I’m glad you’re here. You can lead me back to my room.”