So much for silence.
Fortunately, there was no one to hear. Arxis was long gone. And the spell showed Lis fast asleep in her room, hair lying in tangled black strands over her face.
This might mean nothing. It could be that Arxis was dallying with Lis just for fun. But if so . . . why Lis and not Cyn? Cyn was the prettier twin—which sounded ridiculous, but was true nonetheless. Ileni had no doubt, either, that Arxis could have found his way into Cyn’s room if he had wanted to.
Was Lis a way to Arxis’s target? The duke of Famis had been killed when his wife’s assassin lover coated her skin with poison. But Evin and Lis barely spoke, so that didn’t make sense . . . unless Evin wasn’t Arxis’s target after all. Ileni’s mind whirled, her suspicions tilting on their axis.
Why should it matter to me?
She scowled and continued to the bridge. She didn’t want to think about any of this, not now, not when her mind was already cluttered with shame and confusion. All she wanted was to use her magic, and do it alone, in silence.
So of course, when she got to the plateau, Evin was already there.
The sky was lighter by then, the hazy beginnings of sunrise pouring over the tops of the mountains, gathering strength to break through the dusky gray sky. Evin sat on the plateau with his back to the bridge. The air around him shimmered with color, as if he was in the center of a rainbow bubble. The spell he was using—multiple spells, she realized, all working simultaneously—were immensely powerful, and he played with them as lightly as if they were magelights or umbrella shields.
A hard, hot knot coalesced deep in Ileni’s gut. Evin glanced over his shoulder at her, and she snapped, “Can you take up a little less space with your pretty colors? I need to practice.”
Evin leaped to his feet in a graceful arc, using a hint of power to propel himself. He braced his legs apart and murmured swiftly and musically under his breath. The colors swirled and gathered in toward him, then exploded above his head, a burst of lights and colors shooting upward into the sky.
They lasted only a moment before fading into sparkles, and then into nothing. The plateau seemed empty and dull, the only colors the stark contrast of gray stone and paler gray sky.
“All yours,” Evin said, with a sweeping bow.
A shard of guilt pricked Ileni. “I didn’t say you had to get rid of it. You could have just made it smaller.”
Evin sat on the ground with a thud and leaned back on his elbows. “I could have, but it would have been greatly taxing.”
That was a lie—Evin had enough skill to contain a spell without even noticing. The knot in Ileni’s gut tightened. She strode to the other end of the plateau and focused on the latest thing Cyn had taught her—a complicated spell to call up and focus rain. Water, it turned out, could be an extremely effective weapon.
With her back to the bridge, Ileni found herself facing a range of mountains so high that the clouds floated beneath their snow-splattered peaks. They reared toward the horizon in a way that made the sky look low, rather than the mountains high. Above and between them, a formation of black figures circled against the gray sky; it took Ileni a moment to realize they weren’t birds, but people. Skyriders, presumably. She could feel, even from this far away, the massive amounts of magic surrounding them.
Behind her, Evin was silent—which was, for him, a small miracle—but she could feel him watching her, and it made her shoulders tighten. She waited until the skyriders had disappeared into the gray horizon, then tried to loosen her muscles as she waved her arms through the preparatory exercise and began the chant. His presence sliced through her concentration, like a strain of discordant music. She got an accent wrong and stumbled to a stop.
“You don’t have to, you know,” Evin said.
Ileni lowered her arms and spun around. He wasn’t watching her after all; he was lying flat on his back, hands laced together behind his head, studying the hazy sky. “Excuse me?”
“You’re not a citizen of the Empire. You don’t have to devote your life to combat, just because you have the skill. Not if you don’t want to.”
Her jaw tightened. “Why wouldn’t I want to?”
Evin laughed. There was something odd in it—almost bitter, and very unlike him. But his voice was lazy and relaxed. “Well, you might die. That bothers some people.”
“I’m sure it does.” The scorn in her own voice surprised Ileni. She sounded, just then, like Sorin. “Shouldn’t you be glad to die for the Empire?”
“Whatever gave you that idea?” Evin rolled onto his stomach and clambered to his feet. “Why would anyone be glad to die?”
Ileni opened her mouth, then closed it.