Death Sworn(41)

Except her life. Which was not, in her darker moods, that important at all.

“What are we celebrating?” she whispered, but Sorin was already halfway down the corridor. Swearing, she hurried after him.

The route they took was familiar, after two weeks of following Sorin to the training cavern and back. Even so, she stumbled several times while trying to match his pace by the glowstones’ dim light. Too late, Ileni realized that if she’d had her power, she would probably have called up a light. She was still trying to think of an excuse for not doing that—in case Sorin asked—when they emerged into the training cavern, where all the glowstones were bright with white light.

The cavern still stank of sweat, but it mingled with the scent of wine. The combination was, if anything, even more disgusting than usual. But Ileni barely noticed. She stopped short and stared, openmouthed.

The cavern had been transformed. Not by any decoration—it was still sparse and bare—but by the young men who filled it. Gone were the deadly attacks and counterattacks, the focused aggression, the clashes of steel and rope. Instead, the weapons were shoved into piles along the sides of the room, and killers sprawled on the ground around collections of wine jugs and clay mugs, smiling and laughing. She recognized some of them from her classes and from the dining cavern, but not all of them.

Sorin led her down the stairway. Halfway down, a group of boys brushed past them, and one looked over his shoulder at her. She recognized him—he was one of her younger students, curly haired with a triangular face. His name was Esen. He grinned at her and said, “She came!” and the other boys whooped.

Ileni found herself grinning back. Someone else put a clay goblet in her hand, the liquid within sloshing. A dim warning sounded in the back of her mind—but really, if they wanted to kill her, it wouldn’t require this elaborate a ruse. Besides, Sorin had been given a similar goblet and was already draining it. She tilted her head back and drank.

It tasted utterly vile, and she choked. Sorin and Esen both laughed, but their laughter had no edge, and Ileni laughed with them. The wine she hadn’t spat up raced through her blood. She’d never had wine before. It would have interfered with the focus and concentration required to develop her skills, so she and her fellow students had always regarded it with scorn.

She wouldn’t think about that. She wouldn’t. She was so tired, so unutterably tired, of thinking about it. There was still some wine left in the goblet, so she braced herself and lifted it to her lips. It was over in a single grimace.

“It’s not exactly the best quality,” Sorin said. “I can get you something better.”

“That would help.” She giggled, stumbled on the stairs, and grabbed Sorin’s arm to steady herself. Beneath his long-sleeved shirt, his arm was like steel. Not surprising. She didn’t let go, even once she had regained her balance.

Sorin lifted an eyebrow, but didn’t shrug off her hand. “Have you ever had wine before?”

“No.” His expression struck her as funny, and she laughed again. Sorin lifted the other eyebrow and led her the rest of the way down the stairs.

Once they were on the cavern floor, she let go of him and looked around. When she didn’t see Irun, her last edge of fear receded.

Some of the teachers were here, too, but not all of them. Not the dour-looking man who taught poisons, or the short one with the red hair whose class Sorin always refused to discuss. Arkim was absent as well. The students must have selected which teachers they wanted there. And they had selected her.

How much of that choice had been Sorin’s?

A soaring melody pierced the cavern, soon joined by a fast, rhythmic beat. She turned and saw two boys in the corner, one with a flute, the other pounding at a pair of drums. She didn’t recognize them; they were too young to be her students—eleven or twelve years old, maybe? The flute player had fiery red hair and an angelic face.

Did all assassins learn an instrument? Or was he being prepared for a specific mission?

“It’s an Arcaian dance song,” Sorin said, and she turned back to him. He was watching her with the oddest expression on his face—as if it mattered what she thought of this strange party. As if he cared whether, right now, she was happy.

That was delusion. Delusion, and wine. Sorin was a killer.

But he didn’t look like one, right now, as he held his hand out to her.

She decided not to think about it—not thinking about things was feeling wonderful, and the wine and music made it easy. She took his hand.