Death Marked (Death Sworn #2)(53)

But she controlled herself, and merely said, “Get out of my way.”

He started to say something, took another look at her face, and changed his mind. Grudgingly, he moved to the foot of the bed. Ileni strode past him up the stairs.

She had just reached the top step when a surge of magic eddied around her, almost knocking her off-balance. She forced herself forward, through the narrow doorway, into the upper room of Death’s Door.

Where Karyn was waiting for her.





CHAPTER

18

Ileni flung up a defensive spell, using the power she had taken from the blond girl. It was too late. Pain surged through her body, and violet light wrapped around her and squeezed. All at once she was fighting to breathe, much less utter the words of a spell.

“Mistress Karyn,” the bearded man said, “this student took a girl’s magic for herself.”

Ileni tried to whirl on him and discovered that she couldn’t move.

The man brushed past her and bowed briefly. “I had not heard from you, and it seemed irregular—”

“It certainly was.” Karyn’s fury was so palpable that only the violet light kept Ileni from flinching. “You were right to summon me.”

Ileni discovered that even though she couldn’t move, she could suck in enough air to speak. “You’re too late. I know now.”

“Know what?” Karyn’s voice was a savage hiss. “You don’t know anything you didn’t know before.”

“I didn’t know you were killing children!”

“We’re not killing anyone!” Karyn snapped. “They’re giving their lives freely.”

“Because you’ve left them no choice!” Ileni stopped and gasped for breath before she could continue. “You’re not even trying to save them. Because their deaths are worth more to you than their lives. They’re useless unless they fill your lodestones, aren’t they?”

“Enough,” Karyn snapped.

“No, it’s not enough! I—”

The violet light around Ileni flashed, blinding her. A sizzle of power went right through her bones and turned her stomach upside down. She tried to throw up a ward, then a counterspell—panicked attempts that drained all the power she had just stolen—but she might as well have been trying to punch a mountain. Her insides twisted painfully.

She had felt this once before—and it had been Karyn then, too, on the road to her village, with the black mountains rising behind her. Ileni recognized the translocation spell a moment before the ground disappeared from beneath her feet and she was flung into nothingness, Karyn’s taut face replaced by swirling darkness.

The violet light turned white, and then black, and then there was nothing at all.


When the world came back, Ileni was falling—a short, sharp drop that ended in an abrupt thud. She screamed once before her mind caught up with the fact that she was on solid ground. Or at least, her chest was. Her hands and feet were dangling over the edge of . . . something.

A wave of dizziness made her clutch the edge of the something. Her fingers pressed against sun-warmed rock and she knew, with sickening certainty, where she was. She forced her eyes open.

She was lying on a narrow, too-small base of solid rock, and all around her was a precipitous drop, leagues of empty space ending in blurred green far below.

From atop its peak, the Judgment Spire was even more terrifying than from afar. The rock was sloped and bumpy, just enough so that a moment of inattention would send her slipping sideways and down.

And down. And down. And down. She could already hear herself screaming as she plummeted.

She didn’t even have to check—though she did—to know that she had no power left. She could see the training plateau, flat and brown against a bruised lavender sky, but its lodestones were too far away to access.

Ileni would have shuddered if she had dared move that much. She curled up tighter on the slick bumpy stone, closing her eyes to shut out the sight of the space around her.

All she had to do was wait. If Karyn wanted to kill her, she could have done it at Death’s Door. Which meant Karyn still thought she could use Ileni. If neither persuasion nor bribery worked, an imperial sorceress would inevitably turn to fear and pain.

The sorceress was probably watching Ileni now, wrapped in invisibility, waiting for her to show signs of despair. Ileni opened her eyes. Across from her, the other Judgment Spire ended in an empty knobby point. She imagined she heard a snicker, and dug her fingers into the rock. A tiny whimper escaped her.

If she were Sorin, she would call Karyn’s bluff. She would jump.

Her stomach almost rose through her throat. She drew her knees tighter against her chest. She was not Sorin.

How long would Karyn leave her here?

Waiting for your enemy’s move is a sign of weakness, Sorin had told her once. She thought of his face, his knife-sharp cheekbones and coal-black eyes, as if he was watching her now, as if she could impress him with her actions. It helped her fight down the simmering panic.

She would not leave the decision up to Karyn. There had to be another way to call Karyn’s bluff.

And if it wasn’t a bluff . . . well, at least coming up with a plan would give her something to think about other than falling.

Ileni considered her options—which didn’t take long—then looked again at the green expanse beneath her. This time she managed to keep her eyes open, though her fingers pressed against the rock so hard they hurt. The sides of the spire were completely smooth, no handhold or foothold she could even think about grasping. The other spire was too far to imagine jumping for.