“How nice,” Cyn said. “But you’re here now.”
“And so are you, apparently.” Ileni swung her legs over the side of her bed. “Why?”
Cyn stood, pushing the chair back. “I was thinking we could spar, before anyone else gets up.”
Danger bells went off all over Ileni’s mind. “Why?”
“Apparently you’re good enough to be placed in our advanced group.” Cyn’s tone made it clear just how likely she thought that was. “I like to check out my competition.”
“Competition for what?”
“For being the best,” Cyn said with a calm assurance that sent a pang through Ileni. Cyn sounded like Ileni would have, once. When she had been the most powerful of her people, with a future and a destiny and no reason or desire to question either of them.
But the thought that Ileni could be competition—even without her own power—sent a sharp, half-pleasant thrill through her.
“The best? Is that what you are?” Ileni said, and her tone made it clear just how likely she thought that was.
Cyn leaned back on the polished wood desk. “Oh, yes. Not that there’s much competition. Just Evin and Lis. And now, maybe, you. We’ll see.”
“So it’s really just the four of you?”
“Since the Battle of Rinzo.” Cyn lowered her voice, though she didn’t entirely lose her grin. “Before that, there were ten.”
So much for not displaying her ignorance. “Why?”
“Because the Rinzoans tricked us into an ambush and caused an avalanche.” Now the grin was gone. “It was five years ago. Evin, Lis, and I were too young to be there, and Karyn was on one of her missions to the mountains. All the sorcerers there died. We still haven’t recovered.” Her smile turned hard and brittle. “Of course, the Rinzoans will never recover.”
Questions beat against each other in Ileni’s mind. She went with, “I meant, why so few?”
“I just told you—”
“But even before—there were ten? Out of the whole Empire?”
Cyn’s snort was surprisingly loud and indelicate. “How many people do you think are talented at magic?”
Among the Renegai, it was generally ten percent of the population—though that was people with skill and power. Then again, the Renegai had started out as a community of exiled sorcerers.
“There are plenty of beginner and intermediate students,” Cyn said. “They help with minor skirmishes, and of course they have plenty to do aside from war—communication, mostly. Without magic, it would take several weeks for a message to get from one end of the Empire to another. Some of them will become advanced enough for combat, eventually. But for now, it’s just us.”
Just us.
And all at once, Ileni knew exactly what Absalm wanted her to do.
This was how assassins worked: targeted strikes aimed precisely where they would do the most damage. Without these four people, the Empire would be weakened enough for the assasssins to go in for the kill.
They would do what assassins did best, spread panic and terror, and the people of the Empire would no longer believe that magic could keep them safe. It would be chaos and destruction.
It would be the end of the Empire.
Cyn stepped forward in a swirl of red fabric, eyes sparkling, and Ileni’s stomach twisted. She didn’t have to do it. There could still be a better way, even if the lodestones were indestructible. If most of the sorcerers’ magic came from lodestones, they must go through thousands and need to replenish them constantly. And that was why her people had left: because of those hundreds of thousands of people who were imprisoned and enslaved and tortured until they agreed to give up their lives. Whose power, at the moment of their deaths, was sucked into lodestones and stored there for other people to use.
Maybe there was a way to stop that. Free the slaves, cut off the flow of power to the lodestones, without killing anyone.
From his place at the edge of her awareness, Sorin laughed at her.
“How many lodestones do you have?” Ileni asked.
Cyn’s smug expression slipped. Was that suspicion on her face, or was Ileni imagining it? Hastily, Ileni added, “It sounds like you must use up a lot of them.” A lot of lives.
“Not us,” Cyn said. “Lower-level magic users need a constant supply. But lodestones last a long time if you have the skill to craft spells with a minimum of power. Karyn’s bracelet lasted her seven years before she took it off to go infiltrate the assassins, and she was never exactly a light user of magic.”
“She only gets to use one lodestone at a time? Even though she’s the head teacher?”
“No one can handle power from more than one lodestone at once.”