The stairs stretched steeply below her, their edges worn into round smoothness. Her light was small, and below her, all was dark and silent. Suddenly dizzy, she braced one hand on the wall. So this was where Cadrel had died.
If Sorin had told the truth.
She descended slowly and carefully, keeping her hand on the smooth, cool wall for support. When she got to the bottom, where the stone widened into a large cavern, she leaned against the wall. She was so tired. Maybe she should have given herself a night to sleep, and to adjust, before attempting this.
But even as she rubbed the back of her other hand against her gritty eyelids, she knew it was a foolish thought. She might not have time to adjust to anything before she became the next Renegai to die in these caves. Absalm had been here ten years, Cadrel only two months; who knew how long she had?
Ileni reached beneath her tunic and pulled out a square of silk, which she shook out into a gossamer-thin cloth that shimmered in the magelight. She draped the cloth over the stone floor, twined her fingers into its corner, and took a deep breath. Her fear of being discovered was so strong that even shouting silently felt wrong. She shoved the fear away and screamed the words of the spell into the void.
Like the protection-stones, the magic for this spell had been prepared by others, allowing her to call upon it with a minimum of her own strength. Even so, the effort drove Ileni to her knees and almost knocked her sideways. She pressed her knuckles to the stone and held herself up, forcing her eyes open and hoping some part of the cloth was touching a spot where Cadrel’s blood had been.
The cloth turned black-red, and the stench of rotting flesh assailed her. She gasped with relief. The cloth disintegrated, falling apart in a sprinkle of blood-black ashes, and in its place was a dead man, flat on his stomach with his head twisted to the side.
She had seen Cadrel several times before he left, and this was him. The deep-set eyes were bulging, the thin mouth open. He lay on his stomach, dressed in brown breeches and a tunic that was, in places, still white. But most of it was covered with a dark, jagged stain. A long knife hilt jutted from his back.
He fell. Ileni snorted under her breath and crawled to the side of the body. The knife hilt was simple and unadorned, carved with a spiral design. She reached for it, and her hand went right through it. She kept her hand there, her pale skin cutting through the straight line of steel. She could think of half a dozen spells that would tell her something about who had held it last, but not one that she had the strength for.
Shame rose in her throat. She pushed it away. She could try to call up the shadow reflections of Cadrel’s last moments—but that would take everything she had, and leave her drained for the next few days. She couldn’t risk it, not when she had dozens of killers to teach the next morning, not when her life was in danger every second.
She knew an easier spell, one that would help her find the real knife. Once she had that, she could use another spell to discover who had thrown it last. It was frustrating to have to work through such small, incremental spells, but she had no choice.
She opened her mouth to begin chanting, and something slammed into her from behind.
She cried out, trying to change the words into a defensive spell as she crashed face-first into the dead man’s image. It shattered around her, and she braced herself for the knife thrust into her own back. Pain shot up her wrists as she rolled over and looked up into two glowering brown eyes and a mouthful of sharp teeth.
She bit off a scream and lay very, very still. The dog let out a low, rumbling growl. It was large and black, with pointed ears laid flat against the sides of its head.
Not a knife thrust, then, but teeth tearing into her throat . . . Ileni half-sobbed. Animals were difficult to control with magic. Even if she hadn’t just drained most of her power, she wouldn’t have dared try. She brought one arm up to shield her throat. Still, the dog didn’t move.
Ileni sucked in a long, shaky breath and forced down her panic, trying to think. It was guarding her, waiting for . . . what?
For its master. Ileni flexed one hand—slowly, so as not to startle the dog—and said softly, “Azkarabilin—”
“Don’t!” Sorin said sharply. “Don’t hurt him. He’s not going to attack you.”
Ileni didn’t move, not even to glance toward the assassin’s voice. She knew how hunts worked. The dog brought down the prey, and the hunter finished the job. “If you don’t want him hurt,” she said, “call him off.”
Sorin was silent for so long that Ileni feared he would call her bluff. Then he said, “Down, Fang.”
The dog sat back on its haunches, mouth still open. Ileni curled her fingers into a fist and turned her head in Sorin’s direction. She could make out his shape in the shadows. “Is he yours?”
Sorin stepped into the glow of the magelight, his body a harsh outline against the dim light. His angular face was completely without expression. “That’s not the most important question right now.”
“It is to me.” Ileni did her best to sound unafraid—as unafraid as she could while flat on her back with terror coursing through her. He had caught her sneaking through the caves, here where death must be the punishment for any infraction. The only reason she was still alive, probably, was because he had questions. Once she answered them . . .
So perhaps she should avoid answering them.
She glanced again at the dog. “When do you have to kill him?”
Sorin stopped in mid-step. “Kill him?”
“Isn’t that how it works? You’re given the dog when it’s a puppy. You raise it and care for it.” Ileni glanced at the dog, who lolled his tongue at her. “Then, when your training is done, you have to kill it.”
Sorin leaned back slightly, his body poised, perfectly balanced. “Is that the story they tell of us?”
“One of the stories,” Ileni said evenly. Cautiously, she levered herself up onto her elbows. “They also say that your first kill, once you’re through training, has to be your parents. That you believe your master is a god. And that from the time you enter these caves, you are given a drug that induces unimaginable ecstasy, but that will kill you slowly if you ever stop taking it.”
He cocked his head at her. His skin was near white in the magelight, his eyes even blacker by contrast. “And which of those stories do you believe?”
“I don’t know,” Ileni said. “Yet.”
He regarded her silently, then gestured at the dog. “He’s not mine. We have a kennel so we can be taught to deal with guard dogs. I was practicing when I heard you.”
“In the middle of the night?”
“We’re trained to go without sleep.”
Ileni risked pushing herself up to a sitting position. The dog growled softly but didn’t move.
“Why were you following me?” she said.
His eyebrows arched slightly. Had he actually expected her to believe his ridiculous story? “Because you left your room. Did you think I wouldn’t be able to tell?”
“So you were watching my room?”
Sorin moved closer, and her breath hitched, but he merely knelt beside the dog. He ran one hand over the animal’s head, scratching behind the ears, and the dog half-closed his eyes without removing his gaze from Ileni. Sorin’s gaze was every bit as steady, but colder. “This is not distracting me from the more pressing question. What are you doing here?”
Unfortunately, Ileni still hadn’t thought of a reasonable lie. Possibly because there wasn’t one. She hesitated, then said, “I’m trying to find out who killed Cadrel.”
Sorin frowned. “Cadrel’s death was an accident.”
“I’m sure it was. Merely a coincidence that he was surrounded by hundreds of trained killers at the time.”
Sorin dropped his hand from the dog’s head and shifted toward her—a slight motion, but suddenly Ileni couldn’t breathe. The unspent power in that movement, the focused strength in his body, made her feel soft and helpless. He could kill her. She reminded herself that her ward would protect her against a direct attack . . . but it would do nothing if he unleashed the dog on her. She could die like Cadrel had, deep in these caves, and they would call it another accident.
With her blood pounding through her, all she could think of was to tell him the truth. Or part of it. “I would rather not be the next Renegai murdered down here. I came to find out what Cadrel’s body looked like right after he died.”
Sorin pivoted with sinuous grace, coming to a crouch right beside her. He was so close she could feel the heat coming off his skin, and she drew away as subtly as she could. The dog was still watching her closely, sharp teeth very much in evidence.
“And what,” Sorin said, “did it look like?”
“He had a knife in his back.”
Sorin went so utterly still she could have sworn he stopped breathing. “Describe it.”
“A straight steel knife. The hilt had a spiral design.”
“That’s a standard assassin’s knife. It doesn’t tell us anything.”
“It could have, if you hadn’t interrupted me. But it did tell me Cadrel didn’t die in a fall.”
Silence. Apparently she had gotten so in the habit of defiance that even abject terror didn’t stop her. She told herself that was a good thing, even as her muscles clenched so hard they hurt. If she was as powerful as he believed she was, maybe she really wouldn’t be afraid of him.
Sorin’s eyes narrowed. Softly, he said, “Are you calling me a liar?”
His tone sent a new bolt of fear through her, and with it a sudden, fatalistic recklessness. She might be about to die, but she didn’t have to do it cowering. “You are a killer,” she reminded him. “You might not know it, but to most people, that’s worse than being a liar. Don’t expect me to trust you.”
He didn’t react. “If I hadn’t interrupted you, could you have discovered who last held the knife?”
If she said yes, and he was the one who had killed Cadrel, her life would end within the next few seconds. But she didn’t think his surprise had been faked. On the other hand, he was probably far better at faking reactions than she was at reading them.
“Yes,” she said. And then, when his mouth tightened: “But I can’t do it again. That spell only works once.”
To her relief, he seemed to accept that. He sat back on his heels. “What will you do when you find the murderer?”
She shrugged, relieved that he had said when. Her illusion of power was successful, then. That was probably all that was keeping her alive right now. “I expect that will depend on who he is.”
He looked at her more carefully. “You won’t kill him?”
“My people don’t kill.”
“How inconvenient,” he murmured. “Even if you’re probably his next target?”
“I . . .” She hadn’t actually thought that far ahead. Neither, apparently, had the Elders. Maybe because they didn’t expect her to succeed.
“I’ll tell you what.” Sorin got to his feet, smooth as a snake unwinding. “I’ll make it easier for you. I’ll help you find him, and when we do, I’ll kill him.”
“You . . .”
“I’ll start,” Sorin said, “by helping you back to your chambers.” He half-turned his head, his entire body shifting subtly with the movement. What would have been a simple motion on anyone else looked, on him, like a preparation to strike. “This time, Teacher, I suggest you remain there.”
Chapter 4
The next morning, Ileni stood in front of a roomful of killers and tried to look like she knew what she was doing.
Dark gray mats were arranged in four neat rows on the stone floor, too thin to offer much comfort. The twenty students sitting cross-legged on them did not, in fact, look comfortable. They looked . . . ready. They sat silent and straight, all wearing identical gray tunics and woven gray pants, watching her expectantly. She would teach three classes every morning, sixty students in all, picked from the older assassins who possessed magical skill.