Sorin stopped a few feet away from the column and braced his legs wide, as if balancing to attack. But it was just his natural stance; he glanced from the column to her with pride. “That’s the Roll of Honor. It lists those who successfully killed their targets.”
The painstakingly carved names took up the entire surface of the white rock, from its base through its narrow middle, and then circled around the column where it began thickening toward the ceiling. About a quarter of the names were not merely chiseled but inlaid with gold, glimmering by the dim light of the glowstones.
Each name represented a death, a man or woman whose life had ended suddenly and brutally. Ileni wrapped her arms around her body as a shiver ran through her. It had been a mistake to stop, to give herself time to think.
“The master suggested I show you this,” Sorin added. “Since it’s on the way.”
Ileni forced her arms to her sides. This was meant to scare her. Well, then, she refused to act scared.
Sorin was watching her, his forehead wrinkled, probably trying to judge her reaction so he could report it to his master. It was hard to believe he couldn’t see her terror. She said the first thing that came to mind. “Are you on it?”
“Yes.”
Said with quiet pride, but with a defensive curve to his shoulders. A part of her wanted to ask who he had killed, but she thought better of it. “Why are some of the names in gold?”
“They not only killed their targets, but stayed alive afterward.” Sorin tilted his chin, looking up at the column. “On their first missions, at least.”
So his name was one of the gold ones. “Is that considered especially impressive?”
“We are permitted to stay alive, if we can do so without compromising our mission. But the mission comes first.”
“I’m sure,” Ileni said.
“We are not afraid to die. And we know how to overcome our own petty desires and fears.” He met her eyes. “Something you might consider learning.”
“Really.”
“I don’t mean to be insulting,” Sorin said, managing to make it sound completely sincere and completely untrue at the same time. “I can help make your time here more successful, if you’ll listen to my advice.”
“How kind.” At least this was distracting her, and delaying the inevitable.
Sorin’s shoulders rose and fell with his sigh. “I want you to succeed.”
“You do?”
He looked faintly irritated. “If I didn’t, why would I be helping you find Cadrel’s killer? Magic helps us accomplish our missions. We all want you to be our tutor for as long as possible.”
“All?” Ileni said. “That wasn’t my impression.”
As soon as she said it, she wished she could take it back. She hadn’t meant to show how much Irun’s attack had shaken her. But Sorin’s voice softened. “Irun is . . . a problem. He’s an imperial noble.”
Ileni blinked. Back home, imperial noble was the filthiest insult possible. The thought that Irun had actually been one of them . . . well. It made sense. “If he’s a noble, how did he—”
“He was kidnapped at a young age. No one knew why at the time. It was years before the master revealed his reasons.”
Ileni chewed her lower lip. “Kidnapped? Does he know?”
“Of course.”
“Is that how all of you—”
“Not usually. About half of us are abandoned street children. The other half are sent by secret pockets of supporters throughout the Empire. They send us their sons, when they can.”
“Supporters of what?” Ileni said. “The right kind of knife thrust?”
Sorin’s lips tightened, but he went on without responding. “We’re also not . . . discouraged . . . from fathering children, while we’re on our missions. If we have time.”
And did you have time? Ileni’s cheeks flamed. She had heard that assassins had a reputation in the Empire, that women found them irresistible . . . and she didn’t particularly want to hear the details. But she was too curious to stop. “And then you go collect them afterward? How do their mothers feel about that?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Sorin said. “The children belong here.”
A shudder ran through her. “Do you remember your mother?”
Sorin’s face returned to complete blankness. “I don’t. My earliest memory is of living with a group of other children, digging food from garbage heaps, stealing it when I could. For all I know, she abandoned me at birth.”
Like other Renegai children with both talent and power, Ileni had been taken to the training compound at an early age, so she didn’t feel the connection to her mother that ordinary children did. But she had always known she had a mother, who loved her and was proud of her. She had refused to see her mother after her final Test, afraid all that love and pride would be gone.
“When I was five years old,” Sorin said, “I was caught stealing. The punishment was to cut my hand off.” His voice was as flat as his expression. “That’s the punishment for theft all through the Empire, no matter the age of the thief. I had taken two silvers from a nobleman’s belt-pouch. He wouldn’t even have missed them.”
“Sorin—” She shifted her feet, but stayed where she was. She knew, of course, how brutal life in the Rathian Empire was. She had heard dozens of stories, each more horrible than the last. But she had never before met anyone who had lived there, who had been forced to endure it.
“I got away from the nobleman. And I killed one of the soldiers who came after me with his own knife.” His shoulders hunched slightly. “But there were too many, and I was a child. They broke my arm, and I was sentenced to death.” He spoke in a calm, even monotone. “Fortunately for me there had been an assassin in the square, on a mission. He saw what I did, and he was impressed. After he completed his kill, he got me out of the prison and brought me here.”
The stone wall was cold through Ileni’s thin shirt. Her back pressed against it so hard she could feel the tiny ridges in the stone. “Which one is he?”
For the first time, Sorin’s voice betrayed an emotion: surprise. “That was over ten years ago, Ileni. He’s dead.”
She could think of nothing to say to that. I’m sorry seemed ridiculous, when he didn’t sound sorry himself. And of course, the man would be dead. How long did any assassin live?
Sorin leaned back to gaze up at the column of names—his mentor’s name must be on it, somewhere; she wondered if he had the space memorized—then glanced sideways at Ileni. His expression seemed unreadable, but then she placed it; it just wasn’t one she had expected. Or wanted. Pity. He shook his head and said, “Are you ready to continue?”
Ileni pushed herself off the wall. “I’ve been ready all along.”
He gave her a longer version of the same look, then led her through several corridors until, in the middle of a downward-slanting passageway, he turned sideways and vanished. It took Ileni a few seconds to find the narrow slit in the rock he had disappeared into, half-hidden by a curve in the wall. Sorin was already yards ahead of her by the time she squeezed through and emerged into the long narrow passageway on the other side.
Something in her rebelled. The Elders’ voices whispered in her mind: The master sits at the center of a web, spinning intrigues and deceits across the Empire. Death is simply one of his tactics.
What if she didn’t follow Sorin at all, what if she turned and went the other way, and never faced what lay ahead?
Then she would die anyhow, alone in the dark, when her magic ran out and she starved to death. And she would die without helping her people, without finding any answers, without even buying time. A death as useless as her life.
She strode after Sorin, following him through a series of twists and turns that made it feel like they were walking in circles, until they reached a steep stone staircase that wound upward into darkness.
Sorin glanced at her sideways and said, “You should go first.”
“Why?”
“So I can catch you if you fall.”
“I don’t—” she began, and then suspicion made her go silent. His face was perfectly stolid and unsmiling. “Are you making fun of me?”
“Do you truly imagine I would ever do that?” he said, still not cracking a smile. “It wouldn’t be properly respectful.”
“Good thing I’m not in my nightclothes, then,” Ileni snorted, and started up the stairs. She was almost sure she saw his lips twitch as she went past.
It was a long, weary trek to the top of the stairs. By the time the end was in sight, Ileni was no longer sure that Sorin had been joking about catching her. She was dizzy, and wished she had thought to insist upon something to drink as well as clothes. Her calves ached, and her left shoe had rubbed her ankle raw.
She looked at the heavy wooden door that ended the stairway, then turned to Sorin. He was standing a few steps below her looking irritatingly unaffected by the long climb. Ileni pushed strands of hair off her sweat-slicked forehead. Her voice shook. She hoped he would think it was because of exertion. “What am I supposed to do—knock?”
“Is that how they do it where you come from?”
Ileni turned, placed both hands flat on the door, and pushed.
The door was heavy, but swung inward far more easily than she had expected. Ileni managed not to stumble, but she rushed into the room with a bit less dignity than she had planned. She let go of the door and heard it slam shut behind her. Sorin hadn’t followed her in.
That seemed like a bad sign. She dug her fingers into her skirt. The room was irregularly shaped, about six paces across, and there was no one in it. Two lamps, set in the black stone walls, lit the space murkily. There was a patterned rug in the center of the floor, a high-backed cushioned chair in the corner, and a window in the far wall.
Ileni headed for the window. It was deep and recessed, but placing her elbows on the sill, she could lean out far enough to see the dark velvet of the sky, carelessly embroidered with tiny pinpoints of stars. Ahead of her was nothing but blackness. She knew the darkness hid trees and mountains, but it was as if she was staring straight into a sky that folded back on itself to stretch over her head. A shiver ran through her. She hadn’t realized how badly she missed the sight of sky and open space, the feel of the wind, after only two days underground. What would she feel like in a week—a month—a year? The rest of her life?
Someone cleared his throat behind her, and she remembered that the rest of her life might not be that unbearably long. She pulled back in and turned.
She hadn’t heard the door open, and she hadn’t heard footsteps. But a man now sat in the high-backed chair, his face and form almost hidden by the dark.
Chapter 5
A prickle ran up Ileni’s spine as she pressed her back against the windowsill, looking at the tall dark figure in the chair. It wasn’t magic that had gotten him here so silently; she would have sensed a spell. The wooden door was still closed, and Sorin was nowhere in sight.
The man was so still he might have been dead. Ileni opened her mouth and couldn’t think of anything to say. Her mind whirled in panic as she stood frozen to the spot. What she came up with, finally, was, “Nice view.”
It wouldn’t have been so bad if she had managed to sound sardonic, or even cool. Instead her voice emerged shaky and frightened. The master leaned forward, bringing his face out of the darkness and into the shadows. She still couldn’t make out his features, but his eyes, fierce and bright, shone in the lamplight like those of a hunting animal. The silence settled as heavily as before.
Ileni drew in her breath. The pressure of his gaze made her feel as if she was forcing out words. “Where’s Sorin?”