But Karyn had already dismissed her and was focused on Evin. Ileni wasn’t sure whether she was trying to intimidate him, too, or whether that was just leftover menace. “And you?”
Evin bent his head humbly. “May I please have permission, too, Gracious One?”
Karyn folded her arms over her chest. “Will you see your brother?”
“Yes,” Evin said, keeping his head bowed.
“Why don’t you bring him back with you for a visit? It’s past time—”
“Of course,” Evin said, lifting his head.
Karyn narrowed her eyes. “Good. Bring him to me when you get back.”
Once they were back on the ledge outside the mountain, the sky vast and blue above them, Arxis asked, “Did you mean it? Girad will be coming back with us?”
“No,” Evin said flatly. “But whatever excuses I would have made now will be far more effective later, when it’s too late for her to argue.”
“She’s going to be furious,” Arxis said.
“My, you are a bearer of great wisdom. Tell me, which way is the city? Up or—”
Arxis shoved him—a little too forcefully, a little too close to the edge—and every muscle in Ileni’s body tensed. But Evin just laughed and shoved back.
You’re walking with two people who might kill you, Ileni thought at him.
He glanced back at her, as if feeling the force of her gaze, and she looked quickly away. She wasn’t sure what he might read on her face.
CHAPTER
13
The city started before the mountain ended, wooden huts and streets clinging to the slopes, harried-looking men carrying gigantic packs up narrow stairways. Within two minutes, Ileni had seen more people—and more different types of people—than in her entire seventeen years of life. She did her best not to gawk, aware that both Evin and Arxis were watching her.
But when they finally got to level land, she couldn’t help herself. The city stretched ahead of them, a warren of streets and alleyways, weathered stone and iron rails, and people. Most of them were walking calmly down the streets, turning into the narrow alleyways, hair streaming behind them in the breeze, or cropped short, or wrapped in colorful kerchiefs. All around her conversation hummed, and it took her a moment to realize, through the cacophony, that much of it was in a language—or languages—she didn’t understand.
A man ran in front of her pushing a large wheeled crate, shouting at the top of his lungs, as if the noise itself would blast any obstacles out of his way. Ileni stopped short.
The vastness of the city spilled over her, making her feel small. It made everything she had ever known feel small. How tiny and insignificant her people really were, and how peculiar her life would seem to these masses. Even if she had fulfilled her destiny and become the greatest leader the Renegai had ever known, she still would have been nothing and no one to any of the hundreds of people milling in the streets in front of her.
Evin cleared his throat. Ileni glanced at him sideways and saw that he was watching her. Arxis was watching her, too, and a shiver ran through her. The assassins were even fewer in number than the Renegai, yet probably every person in this city had heard of them.
“Impressive, isn’t it?” Evin said.
Ileni tried to compose her face, aware that she was failing miserably. But he didn’t look smug. He looked . . . proud. Like it meant something to him that she was impressed. Like the Empire was a work of art for him to show off.
“Yes,” she managed, and his cheeks creased sharply as he grinned at her.
“It’s not even the biggest city in the Empire,” Arxis added. He was definitely smug.
Ileni pulled her gaze from Evin’s, reminding herself that the Empire was held together by the Academy, and the Academy’s fate lay in her hands. It helped. She straightened and said, “How far is the Merchants’ Triangle?”
“Not far,” Evin said, which was a singularly unhelpful answer. “But let’s go to the Black Sisters first.”
They walked through the crowded streets, passing so many people that Ileni couldn’t focus on any of them. A few caught her attention briefly—a woman taller than she had realized people could be, a nearly naked man with elaborate blue tattoos wreathing over his body, a child with his ears stretched long by dangling coils of gold. Small, bright green birds whizzed occasionally through the street, veering around unconcerned people, leaking magic from every feather. Neither Evin nor Arxis seemed to find any of this unusual, and every time Ileni opened her mouth to ask a question, a combination of shame and despair made her shut it again.
They turned a corner, and Evin swerved to lead them around a group of ragged children. One, a boy no older than eight, watched them with surly fury. But his anger shone only out of one eye; beneath a dirty lock of ragged hair, his other eye was sealed shut, covered with red and brown pus.
“Keep walking,” Evin said, not lowering his voice. “Give them half a chance and they’ll rob you blind.”