Author: Leah Cypess

The master’s voice was soft and dry, and unexpectedly gentle. “He doesn’t need to be here.”

Why not? Her own heartbeat filled the dark chamber. She felt tiny and powerless, like a mouse in the shadow of a hawk. “Why do I have to be here?”

“I never got to meet Cadrel before he died.” The voice was almost a purr. “I don’t want to make that mistake again.”

“Of not meeting me before I die?” Her voice shook. She couldn’t help it, but she was starting not to care.

Instead of replying, the master rose.

That was all he did, yet she felt as if a dozen daggers were pointed at her chest. She had thought Sorin and the other assassins exuded menace, but they were pale imitations of this man. He can kill with a flick of his fingers, the Elders had said, and she believed it.

She wanted to back away—no, she wanted to run—but his eyes pinned her where she stood. Small and dark though they were, they took over his entire face, and their focus on her drove the breath out of her body. She wanted to look away, but she couldn’t. His eyes burned like flames, lit up from within by . . . wisdom? power? madness? Something else, something that was all those things and more.

He smiled sympathetically, as if he understood. Very slowly, he moved his head to the side and shifted his gaze away.

Ileni gasped, and air came pouring back into her lungs. Her legs felt as if they couldn’t support her body, but there was no other chair in the room. Besides, she was afraid to move.

“Sorin says you seem different from the other tutors,” the master of assassins said. “And he’s a perceptive boy. Have you found him helpful in easing your adjustment to your new life?”

“I . . .” She tried to think. “Not . . . not really.”

“That’s unfortunate.” He swung his head back toward her, but this time the effect of his gaze was muted—deliberately, she thought, and was grateful despite herself. She had no desire to be trapped again in that black stare. “Sorin is in many ways the best of my pupils. He has influence with the others. You are at a disadvantage to begin with, being so young. . . .” And female, he didn’t add. “How do you plan to deal with the fact that your students will not respect you?”

A flash of defiance made it through her fear. “I plan to not care.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure you have that option.”

Ileni managed a shrug. Her voice emerged slightly firmer. “Even if one of them is going to kill me, that doesn’t mean I have to care what he thinks.”

For the first time, she thought she got a reaction out of the man. Nothing obvious, no movement or actual change of expression, but his face went still for a second.

“You don’t want to be here,” he said, his voice gentle, “but you are. The sooner you accept that, the easier it will be for you.

Ileni set her jaw. “I volunteered to come.”

“Did you?”

“I was chosen, and I did not refuse.”

He studied her, and she felt pierced, as if he was seeing through her words and through her skin. “But you would have, if there was anyplace but here you could get away to.”

How could he possibly know that? She hadn’t told anyone. It wasn’t until the journey was nearly over that she had realized it herself.

“I want to be of service to my people,” she said. Her voice sounded shrill and childish in her ears.

“Even though you hate them?”

Her hands came halfway up, as if she was defending herself against a physical blow. That, she hadn’t even admitted to herself.

The master chuckled, low and dry. “I am not calling you a liar. You can want more than one thing at once. You can desire the respect of people you resent. You feel that way about Sorin already.”

Stop, she thought. When someone knocked on the wooden door, she almost gasped in relief.

The master didn’t take his eyes off her as he raised his voice. “Come in.”

Sorin pushed the door open and stepped into the dim room. A short, thin boy followed him.

Finally, the master turned away from her. He sat back down, placing both forearms on the arms of his chair. “Jastim, is it?”

The boy nodded stiffly, his face bleak as stone. Terror radiated from him so palpably that Ileni nearly backed away.

“You honor our cause.”

It wasn’t a question, but the pause that followed seemed to demand an answer. The boy jerked his head in another nod.

The master’s voice turned rhythmic—almost lyrical. “You honor it more subtly than others do. But you honor it nonetheless. Your courage will be remembered.”

The boy met his master’s eyes, and some of the terror went out of his face. He lifted his chin, and this time, his nod was smooth and firm.

“Please show the sorceress,” the master of assassins said, “how completely my commands are obeyed in these caves.”

Sorin stepped back, and Jastim moved across the room, straight toward Ileni. He was short, but ropy muscles twisted through his arms. His mouth was a thin, determined line, and his eyes were shining. With fear . . . no, pride. Or at least, mostly pride.

Panic gave Ileni strength to pull up a defensive spell. It wavered unevenly, a lack of finesse that would have been unthinkable for her a year ago, but it held.

He walked right past her, his face exultant, and vaulted onto the windowsill in a fluid movement. He poised there, crouched, his body taking up all the space in the square opening. He didn’t have enough room to look back in at them, had he wanted to.

“Jump,” the master said.

Jastim launched himself into the night.

Ileni screamed. She was at the window instantly, half-expecting to see a slim, dark shape soaring up toward the stars.

Far below, something hit the ground with a distant, sickening thump.

Bile rose in Ileni’s throat, and she forced herself to swallow it. Her fingers dug into the stone windowsill so hard they hurt, but she didn’t turn around, and she didn’t—she didn’t—look down. She stared straight out at the black mountains and blacker sky, at the view that no longer looked like freedom.

The Elders’ voices were dim and distant in her mind: He will kill for reasons that make sense to no one but him.

But he always has a reason.

“Thank you,” the master said behind her. Who was he saying it to? “You may go.”

She whirled, tears tracking down her cheeks. The master’s eyes were still gentle—terribly, horribly gentle. He smiled at her, utterly calm, as if Jastim was a chess piece he had flicked off the board, not a human boy with scared blue eyes whose blood and bones were now splattered on the rocks below.

Ileni walked across the small room, feeling the master’s gaze on her back, between her shoulder blades. Sorin waited until she was only a step away, then turned and led the way out.

The master’s voice stopped her when she was already in the doorway. “Sorceress?”

She stopped with one hand on the doorpost, not quite able to look back at him.

“If you assume everyone here is about to attack you, you’ll go through a lot of defense spells.” He chuckled, low and dry. “And you’ll need to preserve your power, won’t you? For as long as you can.”

He knew. How could he possibly know?

She gave up on the pretense of dignity and fled, almost falling down the stairs in her haste to get away.

She and Sorin were halfway down the steps before she could speak. “You knew what you were bringing that boy up there to do.”

Sorin said nothing. He was a step ahead of her, so she couldn’t see his face.

She stumbled, and reached out to steady herself on the wall. “How could you do it?”

“Would you have me arrange for him to live forever?” Sorin asked softly. “We all die, eventually. Jastim’s death had a purpose. Death, to us, is not something to fear. It is simply a tool. Any one of us would die if so commanded by our master. Any of us would be glad to.” His tone twisted slightly. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”

“So you would waste your life—”

“Not wasted.” Sorin’s voice was firm. “The master does not waste lives. If he spent Jastim’s death to impress you, there’s a reason that was important.”

She couldn’t imagine the master caring whether she was impressed with him. Even if she was the most powerful Renegai sorceress born in centuries. Or had been thought to be so, once.

But the master knew she wasn’t. He had gained that information, somehow, just by looking at her, just by talking to her for a few seconds. She wrapped her arms around herself, then forced them back to her sides before Sorin saw.

When would the master tell him—tell everyone? He could jerk away her pretense of power, and leave her at his students’ mercy, any time he wanted.

They reached the bottom of the stairs, and she quickened her pace. But Sorin sped up, too, so she was still staring at the back of his head. “So you’re just his tools? No thoughts or will of your own? You don’t care?”

“Not quite.” Sorin still hadn’t glanced back at her. “I assure you, every person in these caves is doing his best to ensure he is too valuable to be given that command.”

He did slow down then, and Ileni found herself striding beside him. He didn’t look at her—his profile was carved in stone—but it was as good as an invitation to keep talking. “Your master said you could ease my transition. Is that your task—to make sure I obey, and kill me if I don’t?”

Sorin turned sideways, cutting in front of her. She half-pulled up a defense spell before she realized that they had reached the narrow entrance back into the main caverns, and she had almost walked past it. She sighed and let the spell go. The master of assassins was right. If she didn’t become less jumpy, her power would be completely drained in a week.

Tonight’s events were certainly not going to help her be any less jumpy.

“My task is to protect you,” Sorin said.

“And you don’t think there might be more to it than that?”

Sorin made an irritated gesture. “I don’t presume to guess the master’s motives. I can’t fathom his reasons for wanting me to help you, just as I wouldn’t try and figure out his purpose in tonight’s summons.”

“Then you’re stupid,” Ileni said, more sharply than she had intended. “I know what his purpose was. To make sure I’m as afraid of him as everyone else in these caves.”

“Did it work?” Sorin asked.

His dark eyes were grave and serious, and he watched her with an odd intentness, as if her answer was important.

Ileni couldn’t bring herself to shoot back a flippant reply. So she told the truth, grudgingly. “Yes.”

Sorin sighed, a sound so small it could have been merely an uncontrolled breath. Then he walked on, and they made their way through the long passageways and empty caverns in silence.

After the sorceress and Sorin left, the master sat silently for several heartbeats, contemplating the empty window where the boy had crouched. A few brief minutes ago Jastim had been alive, his mind bright with fear; now he was a crushed pile of bone and blood. At times, even after all these years and all these deaths, the contrast still struck the master. Once, it had seemed important.

He tilted his head and said, “What do you make of that?”

A man stepped out of the shadows on the far side of the room. He was thin to the point of gauntness, the bones of his face jutting out around his narrow features. He watched the master, his hands clasped behind his back. “I think it was effective.”

“She wasn’t completely cowed. I like that.” The master stroked the side of his chin. “And so, I think, did Sorin.”

The thin man pressed his lips together. “We’ll have to put a stop to that.”