Death Sworn(43)

Bazel didn’t reply.

“Are you?” Ileni asked Sorin, to get his attention away from Bazel. It worked. He looked down at her, then pulled her away from the corner. Ileni glanced over her shoulder just long enough to see another assassin approach Bazel, and Bazel’s gaze lift from the floor as his hand dipped into his pouch.

Obviously, the chocolate was a secret—even if an open one. Another of those small freedoms? Or maybe this was something the master actually didn’t know about. Though even as she thought it, she didn’t really believe it.

She turned back to Sorin. “Can’t you see he’s afraid of you? Why—”

Sorin swung her around in a dizzying swirl, and her harangue ended in a tiny shriek. When he pulled her back to him, his eyes still hard, she opened her mouth and then shut it. She didn’t want to fight. Besides, what would it change? Should it surprise her that he was capable of cruelty?

What she said instead was, “Where does Bazel get the chocolate?”

Sorin shrugged, his mouth twisting. “Others gather it on their missions, I assume, and he arranges trades for them. It’s one way to make himself useful.”

That was possible . . . but it didn’t entirely make sense. I’ll be getting more soon, Bazel had said. How could he possibly know if one of his fellow assassins was going to be coming back alive?

Through her dizziness, Ileni tried to remember if Sorin had been close enough to hear. It wasn’t like him to miss things. . . .

But of course, this was just a small freedom, and it was just Bazel. Not worth Sorin’s concern. If he didn’t pay attention, then he didn’t have to worry about how Bazel got the chocolates, and whether it involved more than a small freedom. Didn’t have to think about whether it was something that should be stopped.

How convenient for him.

When Sorin offered her another goblet of wine, Ileni took it and drained it with barely a sputter. She liked his surprised grin, and the way the wine sizzled through her blood, and the fuzziness of her mind. Her worries and regrets and fears seemed dulled and distant, and she laughed again, because it was so easy and it felt so good. She leaned back, laughing, trusting Sorin’s arms to support her. She wanted to feel like this forever.

“How often do you do this?” she asked Sorin when they stopped to rest. They sat side by side against the wall, him in a crouch that was simultaneously relaxed and ready, her with her skirt spread over her outstretched legs. Sorin wasn’t touching her, but she could feel him, inches from her skin.

“Like it, do you?” Sorin tilted his head down at her. His arms rested loosely on his knees. “There will be more, though not very often. We celebrate every time one of us returns alive from a successful mission.”

A successful mission.

All at once, everything came rushing back: where she was and who she was dancing with, her past and her present and her narrow bleak future. And what she was celebrating, what all this joy was about. The death of someone, far away in the Empire, a dagger stained with blood. The knowledge rose around her, threatening to overwhelm her, to engulf her again in a black fog of misery.

No. She focused on the present, on the music and laughter, on Sorin’s face as he watched her. She reached out recklessly and closed her hand around his.

“I want to dance again,” she said.

Sorin’s fingers pressed, very slightly, against hers. “Already? Are you sure?”

“Yes,” she said, and scrambled to her feet. He stood up too, looking bemused, and followed her back out onto the training floor.





Chapter 11

The next morning, Ileni woke with a throbbing headache she suspected was a hangover. She’d heard some of the Renegai commonfolk talking about hangovers once. Until now, she had assumed they were exaggerating.

“It’s not a hangover,” Sorin said unsympathetically when he arrived to pick her up. “You’re just tired. You didn’t drink enough to have a hangover.”

But she had drunk enough, she suspected, to make a complete fool of herself. Her face burned as she leaned weakly against the wall. Another good reason not to leave this room ever again.

Except, of course, that she had no choice. Small freedoms. No matter the illusion created last night, her life here was not her own, and she had better not forget it if she wanted to stay alive.

In the dining hall, Sorin sat across from her, leaving an empty seat at his table—no, not just one. Ravil’s seat was also still empty. “Was it Ravil who came back? From his . . . from his mission?”