Death Sworn(34)

Sorin laughed. Its harshness reminded her of Irun’s laugh, and she cringed despite herself. “I would say that was smart. But you’ve proven that you’re not very smart at all. Don’t you understand that my task is to protect you?”

Ileni sat back and pulled her knees into her chest. Her hands shook, and she pressed them against her calves to still them. Sorin rubbed a hand across his chin, smearing blood on his knuckles.

“I hope you understand now,” he said grimly. “Get up, and follow me. No more secrets. We’re going to find out who killed Cadrel.”





Chapter 9

“No more secrets,” Ileni agreed—as if she had a choice in the matter; as if Sorin cared whether or not she agreed. She forced her back straight, but didn’t get off the floor. “So tell me this. Did the master order Irun to kill me?”

Even locked in battle with Irun, Sorin hadn’t looked so angry. “No. If Irun was acting on the master’s orders, he wouldn’t have left until you were dead. Or he was.”

Ileni hugged her legs tighter. “He acted against the master’s instructions?”

“Of course not.” Sorin glanced at the blood on the back of his hand, then spat on his sleeve and, with a few practiced, efficient movements, wiped his face clean. “At our level, instructions aren’t always . . . explicit. Sometimes we don’t know we’re being tested until the test is over.”

“Why would Irun think the master wants me dead?” She rested her head on her knees for a moment, then raised it. “He said he was brought to the caves just for this. What does that mean?”

For a moment she thought he was going to ignore the question, yank her to her feet, and march her to his room. She wondered if her ward would interpret that as a threat, and doubted it. She knew, now, what it felt like to be truly threatened by an assassin.

Sorin glanced swiftly at the entrance to the cavern—still empty. Then he turned to her. “When the master ordered Irun taken, sixteen years ago, no one knew why. It was the most dangerous mission we had ever attempted, so daring I’ve heard the story even though it happened several years before I arrived. The master sent four assassins. Three of them died on the mission, and the fourth died of his wounds shortly after arriving here with Irun. It wasn’t until this year that part of the master’s plan became clear, when Irun was sent on a mission that only someone who looks like him—like one of them—could possibly accomplish.”

She lowered her hands slowly to the ground. “Killing the high sorcerer.”

Sorin nodded, a quick jerk of his head. “But the plan goes back farther than that. The master’s last kill, before he became our leader, was also a sorcerer.”

Ileni braced herself on the floor behind her. “The previous high sorcerer?”

Sorin’s eyes slid away from hers, then back. He reached out—unconsciously, she thought—and rested a finger on the hilt of one of the knives. “No.”

A few days ago, she would have thought his face blank. Now she saw the expression on it, but couldn’t tell what it meant. “Then who?”

“Not within the Empire,” Sorin said. He took a deep breath. Though his face was almost clean, there was still blood between his teeth. “The sorcerer he killed was a Renegai.”

Ileni started to push herself up, then thought better of it and remained on the floor. “That’s not—”

“It was many years ago,” Sorin said. His voice was almost sympathetic. He nudged the knife straighter, then turned away from the blades and faced her. “He pretended to be one of you, and he made it look like an accident. None of the Renegai ever found out.”

“One of us,” Ileni repeated numbly. Her fingers dug into the rock, gravel wedging beneath her fingernails. “And what was the purpose of that murder? How was killing an innocent Renegai going to help you bring down the Empire?”

Sorin rubbed his eyebrow. “None of us knew that at the time, either. But as it turned out, it was crucial. He showed that it can be done.”

Ileni blinked at him, remembering what he had said earlier about chipping away at the Empire’s foundations. She knew—everyone knew—what the true foundation of the Empire’s power was: sorcery.

If the assassins were able to bring down the imperial sorcerers—a ridiculous thought, but if they could—the Empire would fall with them.

Could it be a coincidence that while the assassins were targeting sorcery, the two sorcerers within their own caves had been murdered? Had Absalm and Cadrel been killed for practice?