Karyn stopped short, swinging Ileni around to face her. “We don’t steal it. It’s given freely.” Her lips were white, her eyes dark with fury and something else. Guilt? Fear?
“Freely?” Ileni tried to laugh, but what emerged was a sob. “I saw you torture that man.”
“He was already there,” Karyn snapped. “We don’t force anyone to enter Death’s Door, but if they do, they are agreeing to give us their power when they die. He made a promise, and he was refusing to keep it.”
“Agreed? In exchange for what?”
“Any number of things that people are willing to die for. Gold, sometimes, for people they love. More often, protection for their families, or a place for their children at the Sisters of the Black God. It’s worth it to them, and it’s their own choice.”
It was time to start pretending to be convinced. Instead, Ileni said, “So that’s the basis of all your power. Helpless people whose lives you steal when they are too sick to resist and have nowhere else to turn. You could help them, but instead you offer them your choice.” Power stolen, power misused, power drawn from pain and death. “You think forcing them to kill themselves is somehow nobler than straight-out murdering them? Just because they’re old and sick and weak?”
Karyn snapped her mouth shut. She blinked, and Ileni had the now-familiar sense that she had missed something, revealed her ignorance once again.
“Most of them would die anyhow,” Karyn said finally. “While they live, they are weak and useless. We are giving them a way to be valuable, to serve the Empire.”
“By harvesting their lives to add to your power!”
“You can blame your assassin friends for that,” Karyn said. “We need more power for the coming war.”
For the coming . . . Ileni drew in her breath.
Wouldn’t you rather it was our soldiers? Think how many lodestones would be in the training arena now.
“You get power from war, too,” Ileni said. “Don’t you? From dying soldiers. They can be a source, too.”
Karyn pressed her lips together. “Yes. We don’t waste lives.”
“And because of that, their deaths don’t matter to you.” Lis had told her the truth, but she hadn’t understood: We win either way.
It didn’t matter, to the Empire, if they won or lost a battle. If they won, their enemies died. And if they lost, they died, and their power was gathered into the lodestones. Dead soldiers became power sources for sorcerer-soldiers. Even defeats added to the Empire’s strength. No wonder it was unstoppable.
“Why bother going through the motions of a fight?” Ileni snapped. “Why not just order them to kill themselves and give you their power?”
Karyn stared at her. “Who would obey that order?”
Ileni knew several hundred people who would obey. But this was, clearly, not the time to bring that up. She had to back down before it was too late.
Except she suspected it was already too late.
Karyn’s eyes narrowed. “I think your viewpoint has been a little skewed by your time in the caves. We don’t murder people for no reason. We don’t send soldiers into battle to die. We prefer to win. But if we lose, we see no reason to waste their deaths.”
Start acting convinced. But Ileni couldn’t think of how to do it—how to pretend she thought the murder of innocents could be justified. That the Empire could value life so little, and then hide behind speeches about necessity.
“I . . .” she began, choking before she even knew what to say. And then, just in time, realized that she was going about this all wrong.
Karyn didn’t expect Ileni to be convinced. She expected her to be tempted.
“I could heal some of those people,” she said. “If I . . . if I had a lodestone bracelet of my own.”
Karyn let out a tiny victorious snort. “Could you, indeed?”
“Yes.” Deep breath. “If what you’re saying is true, if you would prefer that people not die, then give me a bracelet and let me serve as their healer.”
“How noble of you.” Karyn let go of Ileni’s wrist, and Ileni forced herself not to rub the indentations left by the sorceress’s fingers. “I’ll consider it. Although you do realize that the lodestone on your bracelet will have cost a life. You’ll just be trading one life for another.”
So Karyn, too, didn’t know how to stop arguing just because she had what she wanted. Ileni shrugged. “Renegai healing spells have been honed for centuries to require as little power as possible. Unless someone is actually dying, it shouldn’t drain a lodestone to cure them. I could cure dozens of people with the power of a single stone.”
“I see,” Karyn said. “I’ll consider it.”
And now they both had what they wanted. Ileni’s mouth tasted sour.