“No,” Ileni said.
Karyn’s face went very still. “You are not a guest here.”
“I thought I was a student,” Ileni said. “Not a teacher.”
“I didn’t realize—”
“That I had anything worth teaching?”
Silence. The loudest sound was the twins’ harsh breathing. Karyn’s fingers twitched.
“I’ll teach you,” Ileni said. “But not like this. Step by step, the way I learned.”
She felt power coil around Karyn, and knew Karyn could sense the power rising within her. She had no doubt that if it came to a fight, Karyn would win. Ileni didn’t know the first thing about combat magic.
The plateau was dead silent. Over Karyn’s shoulder, Lis’s face was chalk white, her jaw clenched. Cyn leaned back, eyes flickering speculatively between Karyn and Ileni.
“All right,” Karyn said finally, and the power within her drained slowly away. “In the mornings, then, before breakfast. Just you and me, to start.”
Ileni blinked, so startled she held onto the power for a moment longer—a moment that made Evin draw in his breath audibly—before letting it go.
“Is that acceptable?” Karyn asked acidly.
It was, but it didn’t make sense. Karyn had all the control here. She could banish Ileni from the Academy, or order her killed, with a word. Why was she agreeing so easily?
She must really want to learn healing magic.
Or she must really want Ileni at the Academy.
Karyn gestured at Evin without waiting for Ileni’s answer, and he walked to the center of the plateau, brow furrowed. Lis, for some reason, smirked as she strolled over to stand next to Ileni.
It was only when Evin and Cyn were halfway through their next sparring match that Ileni wondered: How would her people feel about her teaching Renegai magic to imperial sorcerers?
Well, if her people found out any number of the things she had done since leaving her village to serve as tutor to the assassins, they would exile her forever and speak her name in horrified whispers. Besides, if she decided to be the weapon she had been designed to be—if, in the end, she fulfilled Absalm’s plan and became the Renegai who toppled the Empire—it wouldn’t matter. Anything else would be not just forgiven, but forgotten.
Evin and Cyn took longer to get through their combat, because each was defending as well as attacking. Evin leaned back slightly, eyes half-lidded, while Cyn stood straight as a rod, face grim, her arm a patchwork of drying blood. After ten minutes, neither had harmed the other, though Ileni could feel the thrusts and parries of power between them, the feints and blocks. This, presumably, was how the exercise was supposed to go.
Lis stood to the side, pressing a cloth against the cut on her arm. Ileni hesitated, then whispered to her, “I can heal—”
“You can get away from me,” Lis snapped.
Ileni blinked. Lis lifted her hand and made a gesture that Ileni had never seen before, but that didn’t need interpretation.
It would be my pleasure. Too late to say it, though. Apparently, Ileni had gotten so used to being on the receiving end of implacable hatred that she had forgotten how to deal with petty spite.
That probably should have made Lis’s scorn sting less.
Cyn grunted, and Ileni returned her attention to the fight. A red line ran up Cyn’s arm—barely more than a scratch, a trickle of blood forming a thin dash against the back of her wrist.
“Very good,” Karyn said, “Did any of you see how he did that?”
“By being ten times more powerful than Cyn?” Lis suggested.
Cyn narrowed her eyes at her sister. Then she glanced at Karyn and shrugged. “That would be my guess, too.”
“But he held back for most of the fight, then brought the double-point spell to bear on a weak spot in Cyn’s defense.” Karyn put her hands on her hips. “It’s not how much power you have. It’s how you use it. Remember that.”
“Pay attention, Lis,” Cyn said. “She’s talking to you.”
Lis gave her sister a look that, had it been a spell, would have scorched a hole through her chest.
“Next,” Karyn said, “Ileni can spar with me.”
Danger prickled up Ileni’s spine, but the magic surging through her wiped it out. She was fairly sure she could show these sorcerers a trick or two. Rehearsing a spell in her mind, she stepped forward.
“That’s all right,” Evin said. “It’s my turn, according to the rules. I’ll spar with you.”
Karyn shook her head. “That was a long match. You must be tired.”
“And I’ll never be tired in battle?” Evin shrugged. “Besides, I hear it’s not how much power I have. It’s how I use it.”