Death Marked Read online

  And she shouldn’t. This is the Empire. I am surrounded by my enemies, and I am a weapon.

  She reached out for the lodestones . . . so close, and brimming with power. Her skin tingled, and she realized that she had drawn some of the magic in without thinking.

  It was like being herself again, after she had been someone else—a stranger—for months.

  But who was really the stranger? The girl with no power? Or the girl who would use power she knew was evil, just so she could pretend magic was still a part of her?

  She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to think past the shame and the joy twined tightly within her. If she was going to pretend she was a student here, she had to use the magic.

  But she couldn’t let herself forget that it was evil.

  She pushed the blanket off her legs and got to her feet. The wardrobe contained a selection of clothes, none of which fit exactly right. She chose a large plain dress with a belt she could pull tight. There was no mirror in the room—because there didn’t have to be: a flicker of magic turned a section of the stone wall reflective, and Ileni gave herself a cursory glance. The dress was far from elegant, but it would do.

  She had forgotten how much easier magic made everything. The belt tied in back—no problem. The tangles in her hair unknotted at her command. Dirt disappeared from her skin, and the tinges of blood that had been clinging to her for days took only a moment to banish. How had she ever lived without this?

  How will I live without it again?

  She was in the middle of a spell to make her dress blue when someone knocked. She hesitated, then let the spell go and opened it.

  Evin’s eyes swept up and down her dress. “You didn’t have to stop on my account. What color were you going for?”

  She was startled enough to answer. “Blue.”

  “Dark or light?”

  “Uh—”

  “Never mind.” He murmured a spell. A surge of power tingled over her, and her dress was midnight blue, close to black. “Dark looks better when you’re threatening people with knives, I think.”

  Ileni gaped at him.

  “What?” He held up both hands, his sleeves falling to his elbows. “I can change it back, if you don’t like the color, or—”

  “I can change it back,” Ileni snapped.

  “Okay.” He hesitated. “I’m sorry. Breakfast?”

  Ileni blinked hard and forced herself to step back. “I’m sorry. I . . .” She had no idea how to finish that sentence.

  It had taken him a second to do that spell. She had been working on it for several minutes before he showed up and interrupted her. She had never met anyone that powerful. Even she, back when she had been the most advanced Renegai in her village, couldn’t have worked such a complex spell so fast.

  “It’s all right.” Evin gave her a confident, devastatingly beautiful smile. The smile didn’t transform his face so much as accentuate it, making her pay attention to his appearance for the first time.

  His smile widened indulgently, making it clear what he assumed her silence meant. Before she could think of a way to disillusion him, he started down the hall.

  Well, that was for the best. Let him think she was a silly girl struck dumb by his handsomeness. What better explanation did she have to offer?

  I used to be very powerful. And now all I can do is steal magic from stones and be close to people who are very powerful.

  Well, actually. Another thing I can do is kill you all.

  That made her feel slightly better.

  Even with magic to keep her safe, the walk along the precarious ledge made Ileni’s stomach turn over. The path curved around the mountainside and became a narrow staircase cut into the rock, descending to yet another path below. The sky was bisected by a second mountain spire, bare gray rock with a flat top, as if it had been sliced by a giant knife. Between the path they stood on and that other spire hung a narrow, graceful bridge, swaying slightly in the wind.

  Ileni tried not to gulp with relief when, instead of the staircase or the bridge, Evin slid into a crevice in the rock face, bringing them back inside the mountain. Her muscles unclenched as she strode into the dimness and quiet, the solidity of rock closing snugly around her.

  She had only the space of a short passageway to feel safe. Then the scent of cooked eggs hit her, a moment before Evin said: “Prepare your polite faces. Or in Lis’s case, your politest face. We have a newcomer.”

  You’ll be training with the most advanced students, Karyn had said. Ileni set her jaw and followed Evin into a chamber filled with mouthwatering smells.

  She had been expecting a large dining chamber, but it was a small room, with a single wooden table in its center. The only other people at the table were two girls with sleek black hair and identical faces. Their features—and their hair—reminded her of Irun; these girls were from the imperial nobility. Unlike Irun, however, they both had startling blue eyes.

  “Lis and Cyn,” Evin said, gesturing toward them in turn. Their only distinguishing feature was the cut of their hair. Lis’s was long enough to brush her hips, while Cyn’s sliced across her cheek as she nodded. Neither smiled.

  “Ileni,” Evin declared, watching the twins expectantly, “is a new student. She’ll be training with us.”

  Ileni braced herself for their reactions. But Cyn merely rubbed a napkin across her lips, and Lis flicked a black strand of hair over her shoulder and said, “You’re late. Again.”

  “We were about to leave without you,” Cyn added.

  Evin glanced at Ileni. “We’ll catch up. As long as you’ve left us some food—”

  “I don’t need to eat,” Ileni said. Despite her hunger, she wasn’t even sure she could force anything down; her stomach was tight with anticipation, and it was hard to stand still. In just a few minutes, she would be using magic again.

  Cyn swung her legs over the bench and sprang to her feet. “Excellent,” she said, speaking directly to Ileni for the first time. “Let’s go.”

  “I need to eat,” Evin protested. “I’m disappointingly commonplace that way.”

  “In that case,” Cyn said, “may I suggest you wake up earlier?”

  “You may,” Evin replied graciously. “You may suggest it every morning, if it makes you feel better.”

  Cyn sighed. Evin sighed back, an exact echo. “I suppose I can skip breakfast for one day. But don’t expect me to be up to my usual dazzling standards.”

  Cyn’s lips parted. “I never—”

  But he was already heading back out of the room.

  This time, their path took them down to the bridge. The staircase barely deserved the name, with steep, slippery steps, but the two black-haired girls raced down as if there were yards of solid ground between them and the precipice. Evin, who was right in front of Ileni, maintained a relatively sane pace, so she didn’t have to try and keep up—or be humiliated by the fact that she was afraid to.

  At the bottom of the stairs, where the path veered around the rocky mountainside, Cyn looked back and rolled her eyes. Ileni flushed and tried to move faster.

  When she and Evin rounded the turn—the path sloping toward the abyss so steeply Ileni had to squeeze her eyes shut—they found Lis and Cyn waiting for them. Lis was leaning against the mountainside, and Cyn was standing next to the bridge, one elbow propped on its rail. Neither position looked particularly comfortable.

  Evin eyed them warily. “Sorry to keep you waiting.”

  “Again,” Lis pointed out.

  After a moment, Ileni realized that no one was moving. Lis and Cyn were standing back, allowing enough space for her to pass. Cyn put a hand on her hip, cocking her head at Ileni.

  All right, then.

  Ileni walked past them, tensing as she got closer to the bridge. It was made of broad wooden slats, with enough space between them for her to see the horrifying distance below. She didn’t quite have enough willpower to not look down.

  At least there were rails, even if they were little m
ore than thick ropes strung alongside the wooden slats. Ileni gripped them with both hands, which turned out to be a mistake. It made the entire bridge sway beneath her feet.

  She stepped onto the next slat, not allowing herself to hesitate, glad the imperial sorcerers couldn’t see her face. If she just kept moving, they wouldn’t know how terrified she was. The bridge stretched ahead of her, terribly long.

  She thought of Sorin, of his unflinching black eyes, of the courage she had seen in the depths of the caves. She could do this. She knew courage. She had spent over a month expecting to die every day.

  But not expecting to fall.

  A gust of wind made the bridge swing wildly. She sucked in a breath and took another step.

  And then she heard the snickers from above.

  Above?

  She looked up. All three of her fellow students were hovering in the air, arms spread to the sides. The girls’ white dresses fluttered around them.

  Lis swooped, grabbed the bridge rail, and gave it a shake. Ileni gripped the ropes tightly and used a nudge of magic to keep her feet on the slats.

  “The bridges,” Cyn said, “are for students who aren’t advanced enough to fly.”

  “Leave it, Cyn,” Evin said. “It’s her first day.”

  Cyn rolled her eyes. “So she needs a strong protector, then, does she?”

  Evin preened. “Are you calling me strong?”

  “Actually,” Ileni said in her sweetest voice, “I can take care of myself.”

  Back in the Renegai village, she had flown only a few times. It was powerful magic, draining and tiring, and her people saw it as wasteful. But those few times, it had been easy for her.

  Everything had been easy for her.

  She lifted into the air without changing position, magic surging through her like a draught of ice-cold water on a hot day. The wind struck at her body, and she used a tendril of magic to hold herself steady, arms close to her sides. She didn’t need to spread them—they weren’t wings, and she wasn’t a bird.

  She tilted sideways. A prickle of unease sizzled through her exhilaration. This is wrong. It shouldn’t feel so good. She ignored it. She had to pretend she was one of them. That it didn’t bother her at all.

  She met Cyn’s stare head-on.

  Cyn and Lis turned in sync and swooped away, arcing under and over the bridge as they made their way toward the plateau.

  “It’s a show for your benefit,” Evin said. He was perched in the air as if on a tree branch, his legs dangling. His voice was sympathetic, but his eyes were laughing. “They actually hate each other. You’ll see.”

  Ileni grinned at him. The vast distance below her was suddenly thrilling rather than terrifying, and she couldn’t have cared less about the other girls’ posturing. With a swell of magic, she sliced through the air. The distant treetops rushed beneath her, and she pushed harder, white fluttering past the corners of her eyes as she passed the twins.

  Then the magic vanished, and she fell.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  The bridge and the white-clad girls and the mountainside rushed past her. The wind seared her face, and her body flailed, graceless and helpless. She screamed, but the wind ripped it away.

  The treetops and the ground rushed at her.

  And stopped.

  Ileni hung suspended in midair, upside down, sobbing. All around her stretched empty air, and she could make out individual treetops far below. She reached for magic to right herself, to keep her safe, but knew what she would find.

  Nothing.

  Her power was gone, again. But this time it had happened abruptly and without warning. No slow draining of strength, just there one second and then gone.

  Because it wasn’t her magic at all. She had borrowed it—no, stolen it. And so of course, it had betrayed her.

  A swoop of green to her right, of white to her left, and her fellow students were all around her. Cyn took her wrist and, with a push of magic, righted her.

  There was no mockery on Cyn’s face. Only sympathy. Which was worse.

  “Are you insane?” There was nothing sympathetic in Lis’s voice. Her hair blew wildly across her face and around her shoulders. “You didn’t say you were powerless. You can’t fly without a lodestone! If Evin hadn’t moved so fast, you would be dead right now.”

  “All right, Lis,” Cyn snapped. “I think she noticed that.”

  Lis surged forward so that her face was only inches from Ileni’s. “There are only two collections of lodestones students can access. In the testing arena and on the training plateau. If you’re very skilled, you might be able to access the testing stones from your bedroom, and you might be able to store enough to keep you going for a while. But you can’t depend on it. Don’t you know anything?”

  “Right now,” Evin observed, “she knows exactly what your breath smells like. Back off, Lis.”

  Lis snarled at him, but when Evin swooped closer, she floated backward.

  Ileni swallowed hard, closed her eyes, and concentrated on not crying. The bickering washed around her, meaningless noise.

  Even worse than her almost-plunge—at least, now that it was over—was the emptiness within her, the gaping ache the magic had left. In the caves she had become accustomed to that emptiness, slowly—still always aware of what she was missing, but able to bear it. Now the wound had been gashed open again. Once, she had wanted to die rather than live without magic.

  If not for the empty chasm beneath her, the still-fading terror, she might have thought she still wanted to die.

  A hand closed around her wrist. She opened her eyes. Evin hovered in front of her, his broad forehead creased. Behind him, the gray mountainside stretched upward, patches of white-green weeds growing from cracks in the rock.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  It was such a stupid question she didn’t bother to answer. After a moment of silence, Evin let go and flew upward, his magic pulling her along like useless cargo.

  Karyn was waiting for them on the plateau at the other end of the bridge, wearing a flowing white gown, her mouth pressed into a grim line. Her voice snapped across the windy surface of the plateau. “Where have you been?”

  The plateau was large and irregularly shaped, about fifteen paces across, with spiky mountains forming a jagged gray line against the sky behind it. Its top was unnaturally smooth and gleamed in the sunlight. As soon as Ileni’s feet touched the ground, she reached for the power, and it rushed back into her. Lodestones were embedded in the plateau’s stone floor, in regular intervals around its edges. This time she recognized them instantly.

  “Sorry,” Lis said. “Lost track of time.”

  “By which she means,” Evin said, “that she and Cyn had a little impromptu flying contest.”

  Karyn didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to.

  “I tried to stop them,” Evin added virtuously.

  Cyn rolled her eyes. “Not very hard.”

  Karyn tapped her foot on the ground, an angry staccato. “This isn’t a game. Cyn, I expect better from you.”

  Cyn flushed—though Lis, Ileni noticed, flushed darker.

  “All right.” Karyn’s voice was cold and clipped. “Let’s get back to the exercises we were practicing last class. Ileni you can observe, until you become familiar with—”“

  “No,” Ileni said. “I’m ready to start.”

  Her fellow students all gave her startled looks. Karyn shrugged. “As you wish. Did you learn the invisible knife technique, back where you’re from?”

  “No,” Ileni said. The power was rushing through her and the ground was solid beneath her, and she wanted to wipe that supercilious expression from Karyn’s face almost as much as she wanted to wipe the sense of hopelessness from her own chest. “But don’t hold back for my sake. I’m sure I’ll catch on.”

  “Are you? Very wel
l. Then we’ll move on to sparring.”

  More startled glances, this time directed at Karyn. Ignoring them, the dark-haired sorceress gestured at the twins. “Cyn and Lis, why don’t you begin?”

  “Oh, good,” Evin murmured. “That’s always entertaining.”

  Cyn swaggered to the center of the plateau. Lis stalked to a spot five yards from her sister, her hair hanging heavily down her back. The two faced each other.

  “Forearms,” Karyn said, and each girl held up one arm. Their flowing white sleeves fell around their elbows, leaving their forearms bare but for a thick metallic bracelet around Lis’s wrist.

  Karyn clapped her hands.

  Immediately, both girls’ lips began moving rapidly. A savage force ripped through the air between them, magic that made Ileni flinch even from yards away.

  Cyn gasped in pain. Lis whimpered. Long lines of blood gushed from each of their arms.

  “Typical,” Evin said into Ileni’s ear. “They haven’t spared any spells for defense.”

  Ileni twisted to stare at him. She couldn’t keep the horror off her face, even though she vaguely sensed that it was counteracting whatever credit she had gained with her earlier brashness.

  Attack spells. Abhorrent, vicious, and completely forbidden by her people. Not that Renegai novices didn’t play with the idea, especially when they were young. Ileni herself had once devised a spell to hang a rival upside down in midair. The other girl had retaliated by slamming Ileni to the floor and rolling her over and over. The Elders had been aghast at such a display of violence.

  But they couldn’t have been this brutal, even if they had wanted to. They hadn’t been taught spells designed solely to cause pain to other people.

  A grunt pulled Ileni’s attention back to the twins. Both their arms were covered in blood, so much blood Ileni couldn’t see where the new cuts were forming. She could tell they were forming by the pain that spasmed across the combatants’ faces.