Death Marked (Death Sworn #2)(76)

He did love her. But he wasn’t stupid.

A flicker of motion made her whirl back to the spire. Sorin lifted his hand, and a blurred black line flew across the blue sky. Not magic. Just a dagger. It flashed right past Ileni, passing inches from her shoulder.

This time, Evin’s gasp ended in a choked scream.

This time, Ileni leaped for him when she heard the thud.

She wasn’t in time to catch him. He fell backward, his body hitting the plateau hard. Ileni skidded across the few steps between them and dropped to her knees, right into the pool of blood spreading across the gray stone.

Evin’s eyes were wide and dark with panic. Ileni grabbed his hand and couldn’t help reaching for the magic, desperately and hopelessly. The lodestones were so close, and they might as well not have been there at all. She couldn’t heal him.

“Evin,” she whispered, and saw a drop of water hit his cheek before she realized she was crying. He blinked and tried to lift his hand toward her, but his arm fell back to the ground. He shifted his head slightly, so it rested against her leg.

“Ileni,” he gasped, and let his magic go. His eyes met hers. “It’s yours.”

At first, as the power flowed into her, Ileni didn’t understand what was happening. And then, as Evin made a gurgling, groaning noise, she did. She had felt this before, at Death’s Door—but not like this. Not the power of a full sorcerer.

It was real and alive, nothing like the power trapped in lodestones. It belonged to her. Her skin tingled, her hair brushed her face, and the world was a living, beautiful place. She was conscious of every breath of air, every prickle of her skin, every surge of her heart that pounded happiness through her.

Evin gasped in air, and she jerked and stared down at him. He was watching her, a faint smile on his face, as if even in dying he was happy for her joy.

While she, in her joy, had not even thought about him.

But she did now. She met his murky eyes, glazed with pain, and her heart stopped. The world was bright and beautiful, and in just a few seconds he would no longer be in it.

And she knew what she had to do with her power. With his power.

The magic connected them, letting her feel his death as well as his life, the faltering of his body. What was wrong inside him. She knew exactly what to do. She slapped one hand over the gaping hole in his shirt and the other on his forehead. The spell poured out of her as if she had last practiced it yesterday.

And the power flowed with it.

Evin screamed once, his back arching and his eyes squeezing shut. Then he thudded back to the ground and his eyes opened wide, black lashes glistening. He stared at her as if he had never seen her before.

With a great effort, he lifted his hand and closed it around hers. Their joined hands rested on his chest, still slick with blood. His heart pounded, hard and steady, against her palm.

Ileni looked away from him at the spire. Almost at once, her eyes met Sorin’s. He stood staring at the two of them, his expression frozen. She couldn’t read his face at all.

Not his face, but she saw the twitch in his shoulder, and knew he was reaching for another weapon.

She’d had a number of vague, desperate ideas—plead with him, go with him. Go with him. But Evin’s head was still on her lap, and her hands were sticky with his blood, and Sorin was reaching for another knife.

“Evin,” she gasped. “He won’t stop. You have to—”

Evin lifted his head and managed a short, curt spell.

Power lashed across the sky. Sorin flew backward, off the spire and into the empty air. His hand opened, and Ileni recognized the object that fell from it—a standard assassin’s dagger, turning over and over as it plummeted to the ground.

Evin muttered something, barely intelligible, and a ball of fire burst into the air above Sorin.

Raise a ward, she had been going to say. But Evin was nearly dead, and Sorin was the man who had almost killed him, and both of them were soldiers. There would be no wards in this fight.

A plea caught in her throat as Sorin fell. The ball of fire chased him down the sky, hissing and roiling, orange and white against the brilliant blue. All she could do was watch.

He didn’t scream as he plummeted. It was almost graceful, the way his body twisted and arced, aiming at the impact far below. The fire flickered at his heels, spitting out tendrils of flame.

“Evin,” she gasped. But before she could form the impossible plea, a surge of power exploded through the emptiness below Sorin. The air rippled and opened. Sorin fell into the opening and was gone.

Ileni recognized the shape of that spell, its intricate weavings, and knew at once a Renegai Elder had formed it.

Evin struggled to a sitting position. His breath hitched, and Ileni felt another surge of power burst from him—an imperial spell, blunt and vicious and vastly powerful.

“He’s already through,” she cried, and then realized that Evin wasn’t trying to close the portal. He was holding it open for a few seconds longer.

Long enough for the ball of fire to follow Sorin through.

The air rippled violently, again, and a wave of heat surged over Ileni. Then the sky was bright and clear and empty, and Evin’s head sagged back against her legs. He closed his eyes.

“Don’t die,” Ileni said, and for a dizzying moment she wasn’t sure who she was talking to. Evin’s eyes opened a slit, and his hand moved, weakly. She tightened her fingers around his.