Authors: Leah Cypess
Death Marked
To Shoshana, Hadassah, and David
T
he mirror shattered into a hundred pieces, a sudden explosion followed by a cascade of jagged shards. Ileni whirled, throwing her hands up in front of her face, but nothing hit her: no sharp pieces of glass, no sting of cut flesh. After a moment, she lowered her arms and crossed them over her chest.
The broken fragments of glass hovered in the air, glimmering with rainbow colors. Then they faded back into the mirror, smoothing into a shiny, unbroken oval.
“Impressive,” Ileni said. She had no idea who she was talking to, but it wasn’t difficult to sound unafraid. After six
weeks in the Assassins’ Caves and three days as a prisoner of imperial sorcerers, false courage was second nature to her. “But since I’m the only one here, it seems a waste of effort.”
The colors flattened into a vaguely human-shaped form. Before she could make out the face, the form spoke. “Absalm said this was the only spell that could get through the Academy’s wards.”
Ileni froze. She dug her fingers into her upper arms.
The image in the mirror sharpened, revealing a blond young man with dark eyes. His grimly set mouth curved up slightly in the hint of a smile. “You were expecting someone else?”
Ileni tilted her head. “I wasn’t expecting anyone. Given that I am, as you pointed out, in a rather heavily warded room.”
She almost—almost—managed to keep her voice cool. But it shook just a little, and of course Sorin noticed. The slight curve turned into a real smile. “It’s good to see you, Ileni.”
She pressed her lips together before they could betray her with an answering smile. “How did you know where I was?”
His smile deepened.
Ileni’s jaw clenched. “You shouldn’t be trying to contact
me. You might have pushed this spell through the wards, but the imperial sorcerers will know it happened.”
His eyes narrowed. “Will that put you in danger?”
More danger than I’m in already?
“No. I can protect myself.”
“I hope you’re right.” He leaned forward a fraction. “I’m glad you’re alive.”
Ileni forced a laugh. “Why, thank you. I’m glad I’m alive, too.”
“I wasn’t sure you would be.” He seemed about to say more, and her breath froze in her throat. He must know, now, that she had killed his master. He knew, and yet he had said,
I’m glad you’re alive.
She hadn’t realized, until this moment, how afraid she had been of him finding out. Not because he would kill her—she should have been afraid of that, but she hadn’t been. She had only been afraid he would hate her.
Sorin shook his head slightly. “Things have been complicated here. I couldn’t force Absalm to track you down until now.”
“
Force
him?” Ileni stepped closer to the mirror. She was sure he could hear the sound of her heart hammering, but there was nothing she could do about that. She didn’t know herself if it was from excitement or fear. “I like the
sound of that. You have been busy, haven’t you?”
“So have you. How did you manage to infiltrate the Imperial Academy itself?” The admiration in his voice was genuine, and Ileni was dismayed at the thrill that ran through her. She had left him behind. She was supposed to be past this. Even if it had only been three days.
Irritation sharpened her voice. “I’m not
infiltrating
anything. I’m not on your side, Sorin. Don’t forget that.”
His expression didn’t change. “How did you get in, then? What did you tell them?”
Nothing. I’m a prisoner.
The truth twitched at the edge of her tongue. If she said it, he would save her. He would find a way.
Instead she said, “It’s not important.”
“Isn’t it?” His mouth tightened. “Do they know—”
“That I have no magic of my own anymore?” She got it out without a tremor. She was proud of that. “Yes. It’s not exactly something I could hide. Not here.”
A silence fell between them, and stretched too long. Ileni was acutely aware that she was finding it hard to breathe. Sorin’s eyes searched her face, looking for—what? She didn’t know, and she also didn’t know whether he was finding it.
He seemed different, somehow. Just a week ago, he had been teaching her to fight and making her laugh and kissing
her in hidden corridors. But the face in the mirror was inscrutable and dangerous. If even Absalm was following his commands, he must have swiftly secured his position as the new master of the assassins. He had always been a killer, but now he was a leader of killers.
“So,” she said finally, when she couldn’t bear it anymore. “You just wanted to check on me?”
He let out a breath. “Yes. And to see if you needed help.”
She almost laughed at that—or maybe it was a sob. She couldn’t ask him for help. They really
weren’t
on the same side. “I don’t. Thank you for the dagger, though.”
“You’re welcome,” he said, with a light bow.
Ileni had found the dagger in her backpack the first time she opened it on the mountain path. She had no idea how Sorin had put it there without her noticing, but she had immediately stuck it into her boot. It was still there, alien and heavy, yet comforting at the same time.
Their eyes met. His gleamed, like sunlight hitting black stone, and an answering spark lit in Ileni. She almost reached for him, as if she could touch him, as if he was right there in the room with her.
“Are you absolutely certain you don’t want help?” Sorin said. “If you need me, I will come. Once the imperial
sorcerers find out you lived here in our caves, your life won’t be worth much.”
She hesitated, wondering if he had seen through the casualness. He
could
help her. He had hundreds of assassins who were his to command. He had a sorcerer, who apparently obeyed him at least some of the time. All she had to do was say yes, and he would bring her back.
She made her voice firm. “They won’t find out. Someone will be coming to investigate any moment now. So you had better go.”
“I will. Ileni . . .”
Her voice emerged low and steady. “I’m glad you contacted me.”
Something hot flickered deep in his cold black eyes. His voice, though, was as steady as hers. “It was worth putting up with Absalm’s pouting, then.”
Ileni stepped back. “Don’t do it again.”
He didn’t say good-bye. His image vanished in a swirl of colors. The surface of the mirror turned black, darker than black: so dark it made the rest of the room seem dim, even though the glowstones shone bright. Then the blackness was sucked away into the mirror, and Ileni was left staring at her own reflection.
She had just a moment to note the stricken expression on her face. Then the door to the room slammed open, and a burst of magic threw her away from the mirror and across the room.
Pinned against the wall, she looked at the black-haired woman in the doorway and said, weakly, “Karyn. Nice to see you again.”
Sorin stepped back from the mirror, keeping his breathing relaxed and even. Gray fog moved steadily across the glass surface, as if driven by wind. Across the black stone room, Absalm cleared his throat.
“Well done,” he said.
Sorin whirled to face him. The old Renegai sorcerer nodded at him, an approving, fatherly gesture.
Sorin kept his voice cold. “If you want to reopen the portal, can you?”
“It’s still there, yes. I could reopen it easily.” Absalm’s voice was gentle, patronizingly so. Sorin didn’t
need
gentleness. Certainly not from this man. “But why would we want to? There’s a reason the master never made contact with an assassin until his mission was completed.”
But Ileni was no assassin. She wasn’t even a sorceress, not
anymore. She could die out there, alone in the Empire, and he wouldn’t know until it was too late to save her.
Sorin struggled to gain control. His feelings for Ileni were not just a weakness, but something worse: a
sign
of weakness. Among his fellow assassins—his disciples, now, at least in theory—many suspected, but few were sure. Absalm, of course, would be busy stirring their suspicions into certainty.
The best strategy would be to pass off his involvement with Ileni as a dalliance, a bit of sport. Or, better—as something he had undertaken upon the master’s command, an inducement for her to play her part. He had half-convinced himself that was how it had started.
But he had let her go. She was in the Empire now, with the master’s blood on her hands—and he had stood at the entrance of the caves and watched her walk away. He had no explanation for it. None that would satisfy Absalm, or the other assassins, or even himself.
He shouldn’t have to explain himself to anyone. He was the leader of the assassins now. But he was not the master, who had held absolute power in these caves for nearly a century. Absalm had been the master’s friend, worked with him, been privy to more of his plans than any of the assassins themselves. Absalm could undermine
Sorin’s authority easily, if he chose to.
Which meant Sorin had to find a way to make Ileni’s presence in the Academy work for him. To make them believe it had been part of his plan all along.
If he could do that, he might not have to kill her.
“Ileni,” he said, “is a well-honed blade. And now she needs to be aimed at her target.”
“Was that the purpose of this conversation?”
Sorin tried to smile mysteriously, the way the master would have; but the memory of the master made grief twist within him, and he could tell by Absalm’s flat stare that the sorcerer wasn’t convinced.
“It was a start,” Sorin said.
“And how do you intend to continue?”
“You don’t need to know that.”
Absalm pressed his lips together. Sorin waited just long enough to make sure the rebuff would sting, then softened the insult with a question. “Do you think she suspected how we knew she was there?”
“No,” Absalm said. His tone was surly, but there was respect in it, too—real respect, not the pretense he had been displaying for the past few days. “That was excellently done. I don’t think she suspected a thing.”
L
ies spun in Ileni’s mind as she looked across the stone room at the black-haired sorceress. Karyn was wearing a loose white gown, and her face was even more grim than usual, which Ileni hadn’t thought possible. Three days ago, right before transporting her to this room, Karyn had made a promise:
I will kill you if you don’t cooperate
.
Secret communications with the Assassins’ Caves likely did not count as
cooperating.
Ileni’s feet dangled a yard above the floor, and Karyn’s spell pressed her hard against the rough wall. She tried to think up an excuse—an explanation—anything to buy her
time, to convince Karyn she was too valuable to kill. But she, who had lied for weeks to the assassins around her, was suddenly afraid that she couldn’t pull it off, that Karyn would see right through anything but the truth. As if, exhausted by the strain of constant deception, she could no longer pull up another lie.
She had told her last lie in the caves without even intending to, right before she had walked away, the black mountains a shadow on her back. Only three days ago, she had promised Sorin:
I’m not going back to the Renegai village.
She had meant it. But half a day later, as she strode down the winding trail with her pack digging into her shoulders, she had realized it was impossible.