Death Sworn by Cypess Leah

Author:Cypess, Leah
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Greenwillow Books

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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CHAPTER 11

The next morning, Ileni woke with a throbbing headache she suspected was a hangover. She’d heard some of the Renegai commonfolk talking about hangovers once. Until now, she had assumed they were exaggerating.

“It’s not a hangover,” Sorin said unsympathetically when he arrived to pick her up. “You’re just tired. You didn’t drink enough to have a hangover.”

But she had drunk enough, she suspected, to make a complete fool out of herself. Her face burned as she leaned weakly against the wall. Another good reason not to leave this room ever again.

Except, of course, that she had no choice. Small freedoms. No matter the illusion created last night, her life here was not her own, and she had better not forget it if she wanted to stay alive.

In the dining hall, Sorin sat across from her, leaving an empty seat at his table—no, not just one. Ravil’s seat was also still empty. “Was it Ravil who came back? From his . . . from his mission?”

“No. It was someone else.”

“Where is that person?”

Sorin jabbed his spoon into his porridge. “With the master, reporting on what he learned. And what he will not realize he learned, until the master points it out.”

His voice was terse. Ileni put her own spoon down. “You’re jealous.”

He stirred his porridge, then spooned some into his mouth.

She remembered how he had held her last night, controlled and wild. But most of all, joyous. She remembered her questions the first night, about how all these young men could be forced to kill. How incredibly stupid she had been. “You want to be sent.”

His voice was ragged with longing. “Of course I do.”

Ileni picked up her spoon, slowly. “To kill someone you don’t even know.”

“Easier than if I did know him.”

She swallowed a mouthful of porridge. It went down in a hard lump.

“That wasn’t a joke. The noble I killed was a quick job—into his room and out in less than an hour. If you have to befriend someone before you kill him . . . those are the most difficult missions, the one the master assigns only to his most trusted students.”

Ileni looked down at the rest of her porridge, mostly so she could look away from him, from the longing clear on his face. She had to stop forgetting what he was.

Even though she was hungry, the sweet, thick smell from her bowl made her stomach turn over. She forced in a few more spoonfuls, then put her spoon down and endured until the meal was over, closing her eyes periodically.

It didn’t improve her mood to find that her students—most of whom had been dancing all night, and had drunk far more than she had—were as attentive and disciplined as ever. Her attempt to get through class without expending any power seemed even more pathetically obvious than usual, and she braced herself for a challenge from Irun. But he said not a word. He just watched her grimly, his silence more menacing than an outright confrontation.

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