If something like this had happened among the assassins, she would have been killed at once—brutally, publicly, with no need to explain anything to anyone. Perhaps murder was worse when it needed to be hidden.
When she opened her eyes again, the pale girl knelt over her, clutching a baby to her chest. “You promised to save her,” she whispered, as her magic flowed out of her and vanished into the stone around them. Her blond hair floated around her head. “You promised.”
“I’m sorry,” Ileni tried to say, but the woman vanished and she had no one to say it to. No one but herself. She was going to die, and because of that, she was never going to keep that promise.
The realization roused her, a jab of frustration piercing her lassitude. She wanted to do something good—something simply, purely, unmistakably good. In all her time in the Empire, she had made only one promise she could keep without guilt or shame, and made it to a girl whose power she had stolen. Here in the darkness, that promise seemed more important than the fate of the Empire or the plots of the assassins.
A part of her was glad that soon she wouldn’t have to think about those things anymore, wouldn’t have to untangle the tightly woven threads of good and evil that shifted with every new step. But she wished desperately that she could have saved the blond girl’s baby before she died.
It hurt to think, like pushing her mind through a fog of needles. It was so hard to fight—and what, really, was she fighting for? What was worth all this pain? All she wanted was to slip back into the peaceful blackness.
So she did.
CHAPTER
19
When she woke again, she woke fighting. Ileni did not recognize the figure looming over her—she didn’t know if she was really awake, or really alive—but a sense of danger shot through her, real and sharp as pain. She surged upward, her back against the wall, hands up and curled into claws.
”Well,” Arxis said, “I think she’s feeling better.”
Ileni snarled at him, even as she noted that she was feeling better. Her body was slick with sweat and grime, her eyelashes coated with gunk, her limbs trembling—but they were working, and so was her mind.
She realized that Arxis wasn’t talking to her a moment before she registered the faint light of a glowstone, and the figure holding it stepped close enough for her to see him.
Evin.
The tension drained out of her, and the trembling weakness in her legs took over. She slid to the stone floor. “What—” Her voice didn’t work. It took her two attempts to manage more than a raspy whisper. “What are you doing here?”
“Rescuing you,” Arxis said. “You’re welcome.”
He reached for her, and she struck at him with all her strength—which wasn’t enough for him to bother noticing. He grabbed her wrist, pressed a finger to her pulse, and nodded. As soon as his grip loosened, Ileni jerked her hand away so hard her elbow thudded into the wall behind her.
“Someday,” Evin said, “one of you is going to have to tell me about your history. It must be an interesting story.”
Arxis laughed, but Ileni was too occupied with the pain ricocheting up her arm to respond. She gritted her teeth, waiting for it to pass. Evin moved forward to stand beside Arxis.
“I’m sure you won’t be happy to hear it,” Evin added, “but you sort of owe Arxis your life now.”
His voice carried its usual light tone, and he stood in his usual half-slouch, but there was something . . . off . . . about it. Like a hastily assumed disguise. Ileni frowned at him.
“Karyn told us she had banished you from the Academy, and you had gone back to your people,” Evin said. “But Arxis told me once that you would never go back. We’ve been searching for you for days.”
“You were half-dead when we found you,” Arxis added. His eyes were deep in shadow, the planes of his face blurred by darkness. “Evin’s been dribbling broth into your mouth for nearly an hour.”
“You did the rest,” Evin said.
That was when Ileni realized he was holding a lodestone in his other hand. She closed her eyes, just for a second, as magic flowed through her skin. Her mind was clear, and when she rolled her shoulders back, they moved without complaint. She had a vague memory, now, of working a healing spell, of Evin gently urging her on.
“Why?” she said to Arxis.
“Why what?”
“Why did you save my life?”
Arxis shrugged. “Evin insisted.”
Trying to think made her lightheaded. She scrubbed her eyes with one hand. “Where am I?”
“We’re in the Academy,” Evin said.
“But—where in the Academy?”
Evin and Arxis exchanged glances. Then Evin closed his eyes, clenched his fists, and opened his mouth.