Karyn clapped her hands.
Immediately, both girls’ lips began moving rapidly. A savage force ripped through the air between them, magic that made Ileni flinch even from yards away.
Cyn gasped in pain. Lis whimpered. Long lines of blood gushed from each of their right arms.
“Typical,” Evin said into Ileni’s ear. “They haven’t spared any spells for defense.”
Ileni twisted to stare at him. She couldn’t keep the horror off her face, even though she vaguely sensed that it was counteracting whatever credit she had gained with her earlier brashness.
Attack spells. Abhorrent, vicious, and completely forbidden by her people. Not that Renegai novices didn’t play with the idea, especially when they were young. Ileni herself had once devised a spell to hang a rival upside down in midair. The other girl had retaliated by slamming Ileni to the floor and rolling her over and over. The Elders had been aghast at such a display of violence.
But they couldn’t have been this brutal, even if they had wanted to. They hadn’t been taught spells designed solely to cause pain to other people.
A grunt pulled Ileni’s attention back to the twins. Their arms were covered in blood, so much blood Ileni couldn’t see where the new cuts were forming. She could tell they were forming by the pain that spasmed across the combatants’ faces.
And even through her revulsion, she couldn’t help admiring the grace and cleanness of their spells, the taut focus of the magic, barely a spark of energy wasted.
Finally, Lis cried out, and Karyn clapped her hands again.
“Enough,” she said. “You both made the same mistake. Can you tell me what it was?”
Cyn and Lis kept their eyes locked on each other. Blood dripped from their arms. And everyone else just stood there, watching them as if nothing was wrong.
“Well?” Karyn snapped. “It’s not exactly the first time you’ve made this mistake. What was it?”
“I’d say it was pitting them against each other in the first place,” Evin observed.
Karyn looked at him. “You have something to say?”
Her expression could have shriveled grass, but Evin just lifted one shoulder. “Nothing that would do any good, I’m sure.”
“Then please don’t bother.” Karyn looked again at the twins. “Well?”
Lis and Cyn glared at each other stubbornly. The silence was broken only by the sound of blood hitting the stone in a series of uneven splats, until Ileni couldn’t take it anymore. She pulled up the power that wasn’t hers, curled her fingers into a well-practiced pattern, and muttered a few words.
Lis gasped, but this time it wasn’t in pain. She lowered her bloodstained arm and blinked at it. Cyn snapped her head around.
Ileni couldn’t help smiling. Not at their shock—she hadn’t been at all sure how they would react—but at the ease with which she had wielded those long-ignored skills. It was like stretching a muscle that had been cramped for months.
Even though she knew how wrong and treacherous that magic was. Even though it had almost killed her less than an hour ago.
Karyn stepped toward her. “What did you do?”
“Healed their cuts,” Ileni said. “I’m sorry if bleeding to death was supposed to be part of the lesson.”
“We weren’t in danger of bleeding to death,” Lis snapped.
“You’re welcome,” Ileni said sweetly.
Karyn stalked forward. She passed a hand over Cyn’s arm, and a surge of power made the bloodstains vanish. Karyn grabbed Cyn’s wrist, yanked it upward, and stared at her smooth, unblemished skin as if she had never seen an arm before.
A chuckle next to her made Ileni glance sideways. Evin was grinning openly. “You are full of surprises, aren’t you?”
“I’m glad they provide you with so much amusement,” Ileni said tightly.
Evin cocked his head to the side. “So am I.”
Karyn dropped Cyn’s arm and strode over to Ileni. “How did you do that?”
“Um,” Ileni said. “There’s this thing called magic—”
“Do it again.”
“How—”
Twin surges of power from Karyn, and blood welled again from both twins’ arms.
“Hey,” Cyn snapped, but a glance from Karyn silenced her.
Ileni choked. “What is wrong with you?”
“Heal them,” Karyn said. “I want to pay closer attention to the spell this time.”
The healing spell to knit skin was a relatively simple one; the Renegai used it for everything from paper cuts to difficult childbirths. But it had taken Ileni a year to learn the basics of magical healing, before she had been allowed to start attempting spells. Karyn was an experienced sorceress, but even she wouldn’t grasp it from one demonstration. How many times would the twins let their skins be ripped open so Ileni could heal them?
She didn’t really wonder. Once she had seen a boy leap from a window to his death, at the command of his master and in service to a greater cause. Why shouldn’t the imperial sorcerers have the same dedication, the same blind obedience?