“The real reason,” Lis said, “is because we win either way. Tell her, Cyn.”
“We fight because we have to,” Cyn snapped. “I’m not happy about the rebels’ deaths. I just prefer them to our deaths. Terribly selfish of me, I know. Lis, if you’re not going to be useful, why don’t you go sleep your mood off?”
“I’m sure it would be that easy,” Lis said, “for you. You’re so good at not thinking about things that might make you uncomfortable.”
“One of the advantages,” Cyn said, “of having things that are actually important to think about.”
Lis slapped her sister across the face.
Cyn stepped back, her cheek mottled red. She spat out a series of vicious spell words, then raised her hand, fist clenched, and spread her fingers. A black fog rolled from her hand, slowly, almost lazily—until it reached Lis. Then, swift as a striking snake, it shot into Lis’s nose and throat.
Lis opened her mouth to scream. Black smoke came out, but no sound.
Tiny tendrils of smoke began leaking out of her skin—slowly, slowly, through her pores, then wreathing gracefully around her body. Lis’s eyes widened, and smoke poured out of them, too. Translucent black vines wrapped around her head, twining through her hair.
“Stop it,” Ileni said. Cyn was smiling, a tight, vengeful smile. Ileni darted forward and grabbed Cyn’s hand. “Stop it!”
Cyn tried to slap her away, but Ileni had learned enough in the Assassins’ Caves to outfight one distracted sorceress. She blocked the blow and yanked Cyn sideways. Cyn swore, then turned the curse into a snarled phrase that ended the spell.
Lis collapsed on the plateau. She lay huddled for a moment on the ground, a series of tremors rippling up and down her body. Then she pressed her forehead to the ground and vanished, leaving a small damp patch of tears on the gray stone.
Ileni let go of Cyn’s arm, shaking all over. Disappointment clogged her throat—but why? Because Cyn had been friendly? Because they’d been having fun? Cyn was an imperial sorceress, with everything that implied. Trained in pain, thriving on conflict.
What was wrong with her, that she could so easily forget what people truly were? First Sorin, now Cyn.
Cyn rolled her eyes. “Calm down. I didn’t really hurt her.” She sauntered to the center of the plateau, avoiding Ileni’s eyes, and summoned up a piece of chalk with a snap of her fingers. “I just scared her.”
Ileni swallowed, and what went down tasted thick and bitter.
Cyn dropped to her knees and began drawing a pattern, the scratching of chalk almost frenzied against the stone ground. The pattern was like nothing Ileni had ever seen before, everything about it off-center and unbalanced. When Cyn stood, the chalk snapped in two in her hand.
“My sister likes self-righteousness almost as much as she likes self-pity,” she said. “But she’s wrong. I do terrible things, but only because I have to.”
I’ve heard that before. Ileni didn’t dare say it.
“This is what I did,” Cyn said. “This is how I won the battle without a single imperial soldier lost. I fashioned the spell myself.”
Ileni tried to make sense of the elements of the pattern. “It’s for . . . breaking something?”
“Not something.”
A chill crept under Ileni’s skin. “You used this against people?”
“Froze their bodies and shattered them into a million tiny pieces,” Cyn said. “It tends to have a devastating effect on their fellow rebels, too, especially those who get hit by pieces of their dead friends.”
“That’s how you won the battle?” Ileni’s voice cracked.
“Evin and I are the only ones who can do it,” Cyn said. There was pride—pride—in her voice.
The pause seemed to demand a response. Ileni came up with, “Oh.”
Cyn flung both pieces of chalk behind her. “Do you think you could?”
“No,” Ileni said, and realized it wasn’t true as she said it. The spell was intricate and tricky, but well within her skill. And Cyn knew it.
“I’ll teach you,” Cyn said, her voice suddenly silken. “We can practice on rocks.”
Ileni resisted the urge to back away. Using a spell like this, letting her mind coil around such destructive magic, would be a betrayal of everything she was.
Then again, so was everything she had done lately. This would be no different from learning to fight with Sorin, throwing knives into people-shaped targets, over and over until her muscles ached.
“I don’t want to do it,” she said. “Let’s work on something else.”
“No.” Cyn’s eyes narrowed until they were slits in her face. “Let’s work on this.”
She should have been more careful. Should have remembered that these were imperial sorcerers. Why should anything they did horrify her?