Death Sworn(47)

Sorin said nothing. So he wasn’t denying it.

“I’m not one of you,” she hissed. “I never will be. And neither was Absalm.”

Except Absalm had betrayed the Renegai, at least once. He had told his strongest students the truth about their magic.

Ileni drew in a dry, painful breath. She had been here less than twenty days, and last night she had danced with killers and not cared why they were rejoicing. She hadn’t cared because no one else in that cavern had cared. Absalm had been here for a decade. Who was she to judge him?

“It wasn’t murder,” Sorin said suddenly.

She blinked at him, startled by the anger in his voice. “What?”

“You keep calling it murder.” He drew another knife from the rack and walked toward her, holding it out hilt first. “This is a war, Ileni. Between us and the Empire. In war people die. You have to accept that, if you’re going to fight.”

“But you don’t,” Ileni said through gritted teeth, “have to celebrate it.”

Sorin looked at the rows of shining knives. Then he said, slowly, “It makes it easier, though.”

Ileni didn’t doubt it. She thought of the pillar carved with names, stretching up almost to the ceiling. The way they had danced last night, the exhilaration filling the cavern, the weapons piled on the sides.

She thought of the fact that she had been calling him a murderer for weeks now, and he had never before seemed to care.

“Didn’t you ever wonder,” Sorin said, turning back suddenly to meet her eyes, “what your people could do if they were willing to fight? Instead of sacrificing one of your own to be our tutor, you could turn your magic against us. Or you could battle the imperial sorcerers themselves. Magic against magic.”

“The imperial sorcerers are far more powerful than we are,” Ileni snapped. “They gather power from other human beings. That’s dark magic that we would never touch.”

“Exactly.” Sorin was still holding the knife out, his hand rock steady. “What makes us stronger than you is not our training. It is our willingness to kill.”

“Then you’ll remain stronger than us,” Ileni said flatly.

“And so will the Empire.”

“If we do exactly what the Empire does, what right do we have to fight it?”

“If you don’t, you can’t fight it. And it will go on conquering and destroying and killing, while you sit in your mountain village and congratulate yourselves on how virtuous you are.”

Their eyes locked. His were fathomless as dark water, unyielding as marble. Ileni knew he was wrong, knew there must be a dozen things she should say in response, and couldn’t think of a single one.

“All right,” she said finally, and closed her fingers around the hilt of the knife. It felt as if a part of herself was falling away. “Show me.”



Two weeks later, as Ileni was drifting off to sleep, someone knocked on her door. She had been lying in bed for an hour, thinking—again—of Tellis. When she tried not to think about him, she found herself thinking about Sorin, and that was even worse. It didn’t hurt the same way, but it was far more dangerous.

So the knock was a welcome reprieve. She scrambled off her bed, pulled on a skirt, and hurried across the room to open the door.

Bazel stepped into the doorway. “Rather trusting, aren’t you? You might at least have asked who it was.”

“What difference does it make?” Ileni retorted, trying to keep her face blank. She crossed the room before he could advance farther—that way it wouldn’t seem like she was retreating—and took a seat on the edge of her bed. Disappointment formed a hard knot in her stomach; she had expected Sorin. Careful, Ileni. “Is there any one of you I should trust more than another?”

“A valid point.” Bazel leaned against the doorpost. In the darkness, alone, he looked far more dangerous than he did in her class. “I’m here to show you where those chocolates came from. Are you going to put on shoes?”



Bazel led her through a series of passageways, then turned through a square entrance into a tunnel that was unfamiliar to Ileni. The ground was uneven and littered with pebbles, and there were no glowstones. Stalactites dripped down the walls like lines of paint.

To her relief, Bazel called up a magelight on his own. It wasn’t very bright, but it was sufficient for her to see the ground in front of her. Even so, she twice sent rocks skittering along the tunnel floor. Bazel walked with his head up, arms swinging by his sides. He looked like a different person.