Karyn let out a breath. “Well. Much as I would love to continue this discussion, I don’t have the time. The Oksain River is flooding again, and I need a dozen mid-level sorcerers to help me contain it.” She stepped back. “By keeping the river in its banks, we’ll save hundreds of lives and prevent a famine. But don’t let that interfere with your self-righteous horror.”
Killing people to save other people’s lives. Ileni had heard that before. She bit her lip, hard enough to hurt, and said nothing.
Karyn vanished. But right before she did, she gave Ileni a look of such triumph, such certainty, that Ileni’s entire body clenched.
She ran the rest of the way up the mountain, racing past clustered spikes of grass and thorny bushes clinging to the rock. She pulled in power as soon as she was in range of the lodestones, healing muscles recklessly so she could keep up a breakneck pace. She slammed the door to her room, yanked open two of her desk drawers, and grabbed what she needed: a piece of a chalk and a stone paperweight in the shape of a tiny mountain. She didn’t bother to close the drawers. She dropped to her hands and knees and began to draw, so hard and fast that chalk dust sputtered up from the rock.
It was a complicated pattern to work so quickly, and that helped; she had to focus on it entirely, her mind clear and cold, distractions like life and death and betrayal becoming misty and distant. When she was done, she sat cross-legged on the floor with a thump. Then, with slow deliberateness, she placed her fingers on the right places on the paperweight.
She knew how to do this spell. She had run it through her mind a dozen times. And this time, she had to see him. Had to tell him that he was right, that she was ready to come back. . . .
Her fingers froze.
Was she ready?
This wasn’t about running away. She was a weapon. If she opened the portal, he would think it meant she was ready to be used.
Was she?
Was she ready to set the assassins loose on the Empire, just because people were dying a few days earlier than they would have died anyhow?
The thought felt slick and ugly in her mind. No Renegai would ever think that way. All lives were worth saving. It was why healing was so central, the most important use of magic. Why they had left the Empire to begin with.
But Ileni hadn’t been thinking like a Renegai for a long time now. The Renegai were a tiny group of outcasts, clinging to centuries-old ideals while hiding away in the mountains, where those ideals were never confronted with reality. Nobody else in the entire world saw life as anything more than a bag of coins, to be counted and valued and, ultimately, traded in.
She wished she still thought like a Renegai, confident in what was pure and good. Now she knew that nothing—nothing—was pure and good.
Including her.
Once, she had believed that she was a good person, that she would always choose right. That she would know what right meant. Now she was so tainted, so muddled, that she couldn’t even make a choice at all.
She heard a sound, an ugly, gulping sob, and clamped her lips together before she could let out another one. Slowly, carefully, she began the finger patterns again, this time doing them backward. Unwinding the spell.
When she was done, she rubbed the floor with her hands until there wasn’t a visible trace of chalk left, then kept scrubbing until no more tears fell onto the gray stone.
Arxis was at breakfast the next morning, sitting next to Evin, the two of them laughing and jostling each other. Judging by Cyn’s irritated expression, Arxis’s presence was a breach of protocol; and judging by Evin’s insouciant grin, it was one he didn’t care about. But when Ileni walked into the room, his brow furrowed.
Arxis glanced at Ileni, too. Even the way he turned his head was taut and disciplined, and his eyes were opaque. She wondered how none of the others could see him for what he was. A hunter. A killer.
Of course, they were all killers, here.
That morning, Ileni had gotten ready without magic, so it had taken her twice as long as usual. She was only halfway through her breakfast when Cyn pushed away from the table and said, “Let’s go.”
Fortunately, Ileni hadn’t had much appetite anyhow.
When they stepped outside, the sky was so gray it melted into the mountain peaks, and mist drifted across Ileni’s skin. She trudged across the bridge while the others soared overhead, Evin towing Arxis along. Apparently they had cemented their friendship while she was watching a man be tortured.
What should I do? She had her answer now, the truth she had come to find: The Empire deserved to end, and she was the only one who could end it. It drew its magic from murder. Torturing the helpless until they surrendered their lives, and their power. . . .
Except the old man at Death’s Door hadn’t surrendered anything. He was still alive, and Lis had walked away.