Death Sworn(71)
“Please?”
She straightened in shock. His eyes were unwavering on hers, deep black against his faintly flushed skin. Ileni suddenly wondered if he would dare close the door behind him. Her skin tingled. That would hardly be safe, though, so he probably wouldn’t.
Sorin’s voice was tight. “I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
She flushed too. “Nothing will.”
“How can you be so sure?” He stepped into her room. If she’d had power to spare, she might have swung the door shut behind him. “You’ve been here for weeks. Haven’t you realized, yet, how close death is to life? How fragile our bodies are? It takes just a second—” He broke off. “Do you still not care whether you live or die?”
“I—” She dug her fingers into her blanket. “What makes you think I ever didn’t care?”
“You told me. Several times, if I recall correctly.”
She hadn’t realized he believed her.
“And even before that, it was the first thing I noticed about you. You weren’t frightened of me—not as frightened as you should have been. I could have killed you so easily. And I wouldn’t have cared.”
He didn’t sound regretful; he sounded wistful. Like he wished he still didn’t care.
“I wasn’t quite that dumb,” Ileni said coldly. “I warded myself against you.”
He blinked, the certainty disappearing from his face. Ileni reached under her bed and pulled out her bag. The flat black stones spilled onto the floor.
“Warding stones,” she said. “Extremely powerful ones. I set the ward the day I arrived. So you couldn’t have touched me, no matter how much you didn’t care.”
Sorin’s eyes narrowed. “I thought you Renagai weren’t permitted to take your magical devices out of the village.”
“We weren’t. Aren’t.”
“Then how—you stole them?” He seemed genuinely shocked, but when she glared up at him, his tone turned mocking. “You, the paragon of Renegai virtue?”
“No,” Ileni snapped. “They were given to me.” She hesitated, then added, “By Tellis.”
Sorin’s grin didn’t fade, but suddenly it had a different slant. “I see. Not quite as righteous as you, is that it? Or did he abandon his principles out of love?”
“I don’t want to talk about Tellis.”
“Good. Neither do I.” He looked at the warding stones. Hurt thrummed in his voice, layered far below his outwardly level tone. “So that first day, when you plucked one of my hairs . . . .”
She blinked. “You remember?”
He gave her a sideways glance. “I remember every move you made since the moment you walked into these caves.”
Ileni felt suddenly breathless again. Don’t be stupid, she told herself, and said archly, “The advantage of an assassin’s training, I suppose.”
His shoulders hunched slightly. There was something vulnerable in his stance, and Ileni’s heart twisted unexpectedly. She hadn’t realized she had the power to hurt him. “If you’re warded against me, how was I able to teach you to fight? Or are the wards so sensitive they can distinguish between true and false threats?”
“They can tell whether I feel threatened or not. And anyhow . . .” She took a deep breath. “I’m not. Warded against you, I mean. Anymore.”
He straightened as if in response to an attack.
The wary hope in his eyes made her chest constrict. She forced her words out, awkward and halting. “I don’t have any defenses against you, Sorin. At all.”
When Sorin spoke, his voice lacked its usual smooth assurance. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
“I know,” Ileni said.
The moment stretched, clumsy and painful. Then, with an almost inhuman swiftness, he closed the distance between them.
Her power acted without her conscious intent, and the door slammed shut. She didn’t care, just then, how stupid it was. And neither, evidently, did he.
It wasn’t until late that night that Ileni heard the rap on her door, but she was wide awake and still fully dressed. She pulled the door open a crack and was back sitting cross-legged on the bed by the time Bazel stepped in, his reddish hair rumpled by sleep.
Ileni inclined her head. “You brought the stone?”
“He brought something else,” Irun said, and stepped through the door behind Bazel.
Cypess, Leah's Books
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- Hiddensee: A Tale of the Once and Future Nutcracker
- House of Darken (Secret Keepers #1)
- Our Kind of Cruelty
- Princess: A Private Novel
- Shattered Mirror (Eve Duncan #23)
- The Hellfire Club