Death Sworn(83)

Fury lanced through Ileni, making her spit out her next sentence with vicious pleasure. “Your plans are already ruined. The lodestone is gone.”

Absalm stared at her for a long moment, and she glared back.

“The lodestone?” Absalm said. And smiled.

A cold foreboding rushed through Ileni. She opened her mouth, and nothing came out. She felt Sorin’s hand slide across the small of her back, supporting her despite his anger and hurt, and gratitude rushed through her. She leaned back into him.

Absalm saw Sorin’s hand, too. A muscle in his cheek twitched. “Do you know how many lodestones the imperial sorcerers have? They are powerful objects, yes, but very limited. One person’s power. One person’s death. What can that accomplish against the might of the Empire?”

From the assassins behind him came a soft, approving murmur. They know, Ileni thought, and a chill ran through her. Why would they know what Absalm had planned? Why were they all here?

She wrapped her arms around herself as the cold in her bones deepened.

“No, Ileni,” Absalm said. “We are going to need much more than that. Enough power to strike the imperial sorcerers at their base, blast through all their defenses. To cripple them so badly they won’t have the strength to retaliate.”

He was asking Karyn about the method for transferring power.

“You must have realized,” Absalm said, “that if magic can be drawn from death, there is another source of great power in these caves.”

Behind him, the faces of the other assassins were young, hard, and inexorable. Her eyes fell on one, who stood out because of his bright red hair: the boy who had played the flute so exultantly during the assassins’ celebration.

No.

“They are here willingly. They will sacrifice themselves, and their power will be yours.” Absalm’s voice was so soft that if not for the utter silence in the caves, she would not have been able to make out the words. “Imagine the power of a hundred willing volunteers. Imagine what you, the most skilled sorceress alive, could do with it.”

She did imagine it, despite herself. Power rushing through her, as she had once thought it always would. Magic rising in her, coursing through her blood. Hers to command.

And then it would be gone. But the Empire would be gone with it.

She could do it. She could fulfill the dreams of her people, exceed all the hopes they’d had for her, free them from their exile, finally bring an end to the Empire. Change the world.

The cavern was small and dim, deep beneath the earth, crowded with the faces watching her. Waiting for her to say yes. Wanting her to say yes.

She didn’t turn, but she knew Sorin’s expression was the same. Everyone she knew would want her to do it, even those far away from this cavern, up where the sun shone and people hesitated to die. The Elders. Tellis. The deaths of these killers, who they believed were evil, wouldn’t give them pause.

And the deaths of the imperial sorcerers wouldn’t give anyone pause. Because everyone knew they, too, were evil.

“No,” Ileni said.

“They want to do it.” Sorin’s voice was low and urgent. Pleading. “I want to do it. We are all marked for death anyhow. Let our deaths accomplish something.” She felt the brush of his fingertips and didn’t move as he closed his hand around hers. “Help us put an end to the Empire.”

She couldn’t look at him. She wished she didn’t have to look at any of them. Once she would have leaped at the chance to kill them all, put an end to these caves. Back when they had been made of stories and dark legends. Before she had lived among them and learned how much more complicated the reality was.

“I won’t do it,” she said. Her insides twisted with shame—coward, traitor. “I won’t.”

She looked at Sorin at last. He stared back, his eyes cold. He looked lean and grim and feral.

A killer.

“You will do as the master commands,” he said.

The bottom dropped out of Ileni’s stomach. She told herself that he was lying—that he was trying to protect her, that this was to fool the others—but his unwavering, closed-off expression told her otherwise. He had never been that certain about anything concerning her.

His face was the same as the others’, as Absalm’s, united in their vast purpose. She was the only one who was different, the only piece of the master’s brilliant plan that didn’t quite fit.

She wasn’t going to be given a choice.