Death Sworn(52)

How long were they going to stay here? Ileni didn’t know how much time they had spent clambering through the caves, or when morning would come. Bazel, however, seemed in no hurry. He sat with his legs folded in front of him, taking luxurious sips of the chocolate drink and listening with a bemused smile as the traders argued over a deal they had once struck in Gadera. It was the first time Ileni had seen him completely relaxed.

“Of course,” Karyn said at one point, “if the emperor declares Siman his heir, we’ll have to stop going to Gadera.”

“I wouldn’t be so certain.” Bazel stretched his legs out and took another long sip. “Siman hates the Gaderans, but he doesn’t so much as choose a wine without consulting his advisers. They’ll never allow him to attack.”

How did he know all that? The blond man tilted his head at Ileni, inviting her to join the banter, but she kept her lips shut and raised her empty mug, pretending to sip.

“He’ll need a military victory,” Karyn argued. It felt like they were talking about something that wasn’t real, a story about a place that had never existed. The Empire was a mirage compared to the solid rock around them, the rigid routines and hard discipline that made up her days. Everything else sounded faintly unreal.

Everything else. Ileni’s fingers whitened around her mug. It wasn’t just the Rathian Empire. The Renegai, too—her own village, the life she’d had, her entire world until a mere four weeks ago—felt far away and irrelevant.

“Careful, or you’ll crush the cup,” Karyn observed. Ileni blinked, realizing that she had missed the last part of the conversation. Karyn was watching her speculatively.

Ileni loosened her grip, and pain flowed belatedly through her knuckles. “We should go,” she said. “This isn’t safe.”

“On the contrary,” the blond man said. “This is one of the only places in the known world where discussing the emperor’s choice of heir is safe.” He grinned at Bazel. “Before we go, will you take that wager? A free bag of chocolates if Siman is still alive when we return.”

“I wouldn’t want to take advantage of you,” Bazel said, with exaggerated deference.

The blond man let out a startled laugh, getting lazily to his feet. “Oho. Are you saying you have knowledge of his imminent death?”

Bazel widened his eyes. “I certainly didn’t say that.”

The man gestured for them to hand over their cups. “Was one of you sent to—”

“Enough,” Karyn said. “Leave him alone. He puts himself at sufficient risk by trading with us in the first place.”

The blond man stacked the cups deftly and balanced them in one hand. “I’m just talking. There’s no intent behind it.”

“My point exactly.”

He laughed again, and the two of them unloaded a large crate and a cask from the bottom of their canoe. Bazel hauled the crate over to a small rock overhang near the cliffside and pushed it underneath, then removed a single cloth bag. Shortly after that, the canoe was in the water and the traders sprang into it. Karyn stood in its center. “We’ll be back in a week’s time. It’s not too late to change your mind about that message.”

Once again, it took Ileni a moment to realize that Karyn was speaking to her. She lifted her chin. “It’s far too late.”

The current caught the canoe, and the man leaped to his paddles. The woman sat without haste, balancing easily as the river swept the boat away. Her eyes remained on Ileni’s face until the traders were out of sight.



On the way back up the narrow path, Ileni found herself feeling strangely desolate. Which was stupid, stupid, stupid; sending Tellis a message through a ragtag pair of traders was not a serious option. Tellis was still training to be a sorcerer, still among the elite of the Renegai. The traders had no way of getting in contact with him. And even if they could manage it, Tellis likely had no interest in receiving a message from her.

Anger flashed through her, the same unreasonable anger she had talked herself out of a hundred times. She had known what had to be done from the second the Elders told her the results, and so had he. She was the one who had said it out loud: they could no longer be together. He was going to be the one to lead the Renegai now, and she would only hold him back. His task, which had once been hers, was too important to allow their feelings to get in the way. Neither of them would have been the people they thought they were if they hadn’t acknowledged that. She knew all that—and yet, unreasonably, was furious at how easily he had agreed. With obvious regret, but without a word of protest.