Death Sworn(38)

Ileni knew they could hear her, but she couldn’t help a small sigh as she began to walk through the training room, checking and correcting them as they went through the exercises. She might have lost their respect, but she still had their obedience.

For now.



This time, Ileni thought grimly as Sorin came toward her, his fist aimed at her jaw, I’m going to throw him against the wall.

She didn’t, of course. Just as she hadn’t the first three times that afternoon; just as she hadn’t gotten anything right in the four days since they had started these ridiculous fighting lessons. The only difference was that this time, she failed more spectacularly than before, ending up flat on her back on the rock floor, sweat stained and frustrated and with a sharp pain shooting up her wrist.

One of these days, I’ll forget that this is practice and my wards will react. Somehow, the thought didn’t give her as much satisfaction as it should have.

Sorin sighed and lowered his arms. He looked as composed as if he had been sitting on a mat for the past hour, not a drop of sweat on his skin. “You do realize what the problem is?”

“There’s only one?” Ileni said sourly, sitting up. She didn’t even feel her usual surge of satisfaction when she made a crease appear in the corner of his normally grim mouth.

“The problem,” he said, adjusting his tunic, “is that you don’t believe you can do it. If you believed it, you could.”

“Inspiring,” Ileni said, getting to her feet. Muscles she hadn’t even known she had ached. “Is that another of your master’s teachings?”

His mouth flattened, and he sighed again. “Let’s try those stretches one more time, and then we’ll give it another try.”

Or we could give up, Ileni thought, but didn’t say. She didn’t know why she should care if Sorin looked down on her, but when he stretched one leg in front of him and leaned down to sweep his hand along the floor, she followed suit. Even though she was only able to reach the middle of her calf.

Sorin swiveled his legs neatly so that he was facing forward, bending low and resting his elbows on the black rock. As always, Ileni was struck by the effortless grace of his movements. He fought the way he used magic, with something wild and unpredictable always on the verge of breaking through his perfect precision.

Except it never did break through. And he fought a lot better than he used magic.

She tried to copy him, but she lost her balance and fell flat on her face. Sorin looked at her over his forearm and managed to make it very obvious that he was not smiling.

Ileni gritted her teeth and struggled to her feet, hating her body for being so weak and unwieldy. The Renegai did not train their sorcerers in anything physical, because they had no reason to. A person who had magic had no need for any other skills. If she’d had her full powers, Ileni would never have agreed to this humiliation. How could Sorin possibly not realize that?

But then, it was probably hard for him to imagine she wouldn’t care that she could be physically bested by almost anyone. He moved through the stretches with such obvious physical enjoyment that, watching him from the corner of her eye as she struggled to follow, Ileni felt a rush of envy.

It was too easy, sometimes, to view what he did as a pure skill, and forget the purpose of it.

She tried to move faster so she could finish the series of stretches and be done with it, and her back twinged dangerously. Her body was a collection of throbbing bruises, none painful enough to warrant stopping, but enough to make her feel constantly battered. She felt herself reaching for a healing spell out of habit, and pulled back sharply. They were easy spells, but still required power. So she forced herself to endure the aching muscles and dull bruises—and, even worse, the unending itch of magic that wanted to be used.

Most depressing of all, that morning she had woken up and realized that she was looking forward to this; that these fighting lessons, for all their physical pain and embarrassment, were the only true bright spot in her day. She tried to tell herself it was because she was learning something new, because she had something other than magic to focus on, but she knew it was more than that. It was Sorin.

That was clearly not good. But at least she had a bright spot in her day; why should she give that up? She would just have to be careful that Sorin never guessed how she felt, or he would certainly find a way to use it against her.

She finished the stretches—perfunctorily and badly, but she finished—and sat up. “I finished testing the students today,” she said. “None of them have the skill to have killed Cadrel with magic.”