Death Marked (Death Sworn #2)(54)

So she didn’t have to imagine it. Good.

She reached for her magic again and felt the familiar painful shock when she came up empty. Even if she survived this, there was no way Karyn would allow her to continue using the lodestones’ magic. Not that Ileni would use it, ever again, after what she had seen last night.

Something to worry about later. If there was a later.

Still, the old familiar despair made her reckless. She tilted her head back into the sunlight and said, “I found what we were looking for. Listen quickly. You were right. The sorcerers are—”

A blunt force propelled her sideways off the spire, and she fell.

The wind ripped the scream from her throat. Her flailing hands slammed futilely against the spire’s stone sides. She plummeted downward, tears ripping from her face.

Then she jerked to a stop, halfway down the spire, the mountains and treetops spread like a tiny painting below her.

She kept screaming for a full minute before she managed to stop. Her eyes stung, and drool hung from the corner of her lip. Slowly, she curled herself upward and turned in the air, not bothering to wipe away the wetness streaked across her face.

“Who were you talking to?” Karyn inquired.

She sat cross-legged in midair several feet from Ileni, leaning back on both hands, as if supported by a pane of glass.

It was a moment before Ileni could make her throat work. “Isn’t it obvious? And they can still hear us, in case you were wondering.”

Karyn narrowed her eyes. “I don’t sense any spell.”

“No,” Ileni said. “You wouldn’t. The spell is in the ear of the person I was speaking to.”

Karyn’s mouth went as narrow as her eyes, skepticism engraved in her face. But her hands clenched. By now, Karyn was well aware that she didn’t know everything the Renegai were capable of.

“Be careful,” Karyn said softly. “I don’t have much reason to keep you alive any more. Given your self-righteous horror at Death’s Door, I can’t imagine you’re still considering joining our side.”

She paused, clearly waiting for Ileni to contradict her. And though it would have been the smart thing to do, Ileni couldn’t find the words.

Karyn’s mouth twisted. “Right. It was worth a try, but you’ve been indoctrinated too thoroughly. So tell me why I shouldn’t kill you now.”

Ileni’s voice came out far less bold than she had intended. “Since you haven’t yet, you obviously have a reason. Why don’t you tell me what that is?”

The world dropped away again, just long enough to rip another scream from her, then jerked to a stop. Karyn floated lazily down after her.

“Guess,” she suggested.

Ileni blinked away tears and let out two short gasps. “Because you still want answers. About who I’m talking to, and why, and what they have planned.”

“That’s right,” Karyn said. The menace in her voice was soft, almost casual. “I do. And you’re going to tell me.”

“Why would I?” Ileni managed. “You’ll kill me anyhow.”

Karyn’s smile was almost as terrifying as the drop below. “And you think you won’t tell me just to gain another few seconds of life? Another minute before you fall?”

Ileni couldn’t speak. She had never known that fear could be as intense as pain. Karyn was right. She would say anything, anything at all, to stave off that fall for as long as she could.

Karyn’s smile widened as she leaned forward—and then it disappeared. She looked over Ileni’s shoulder, her posture rigid. After an agonizing moment, Ileni twisted her head to follow Karyn’s gaze.

The sun shone straight through the clouds in a curtain of faint white light, softening the mountain peaks behind it. Three figures hovered directly in the curtain of sunlight, one with waist-length black hair whipping about her body. They were too far for Ileni to make out their expressions, but they were unnaturally still, nothing moving but their hair and the hem of one girl’s flame-red dress.

Ileni’s heart lifted—then plummeted as she realized they weren’t moving toward her. They were just watching. She felt a rush of anger. And then another rush, this one of realization.

Maybe all they had to do was watch.

Karyn’s lips were pressed together tightly. Ileni said, “Are you going to kill me in front of them?”

If Karyn had been an assassin, she wouldn’t have hesitated. If she had been the master, she would have summoned Cyn and told her to kill Ileni, and Cyn would have done it.

But this was the Empire, and Karyn did hesitate, glancing from the watching students to Ileni.

Ileni’s heart froze in her chest. Beneath her, the ground yawned, terribly far away.

“No,” Karyn said finally. “But I won’t have to.” She stretched into a standing position.

Karyn’s flickering hand motion was by now familiar to Ileni, as was the sharp twist of the spell that accompanied it. So she was ready for the impact, the sickening lurch, and—this time, with relief—the blackness.


Once again, she knew where she was while her eyes were still shut. It was so familiar . . . the darkness, the smallness, the sense of oppressive weight pressing in above her. She was deep in the bowels of the earth again. She was back in the caves.

”Sorin?” Ileni cried, and the sound of her own voice—lost and hopeless—shocked her. She sat up. Blackness, blackness . . . she touched her eyelids with her fingertip to make sure she had really opened them. She had, but it made no difference. There was no light to see with.