Death Sworn(72)



Ileni scrambled to her feet as Bazel stepped to the side and Irun came across the room toward her. Before she could move, or even think, he jerked her around and pressed her down with her face to the bed. He yanked her arm behind her back at an angle that sent pain screaming along her shoulder.

The thin blanket pressed into her face, suffocating her. She twisted her head to the side and opened her mouth to gasp in air. Something thick and rough slid between her teeth and tongue. She choked, heaved, and tried to reach for the gag. Irun did something to her arm that made the world go black with pain.

When she could hear again, Irun was saying—his voice light and conversational—“That’s the thing about sorcerers, see. If they can’t speak, they can’t work any serious spells.”

He spun her around and threw her on the bed. The back of Ileni’s head hit the stone wall. When she had blinked away the stinging tears, Irun was standing over her. She looked past him at Bazel, who stood with his back to the door. His pale blue eyes slid away from hers.

Irun followed her gaze. “See how easy it was? Just like I said. We’ve lived so long in fear of sorcerers, letting them prop up the Empire, holding us back from an all-out attack. And it’s so, so easy to make them helpless, once you’re not afraid. We can do whatever we want to her now.”

“Just kill her,” Bazel said.

Irun flexed his hand. “Are you sure? If I hurt her enough, I can control her even with the gag off. I can make her work the stones for you.”

“I don’t want to work them.” Bazel did meet Ileni’s eyes then, though he was talking to Irun. “I never want to see Karyn again.”

Irun stepped back from the bed. “You’re a pathetic excuse for an assassin,” he sneered. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep our bargain. You’ll be protected. But what happens to her is no longer up to you.”

“Just kill her,” Bazel said again. Ileni supposed she should be grateful. She reached for the gag, and Irun backhanded her across the face. She rolled to the side, her cry strangled in her throat.

“You lack imagination, Bazel,” Irun said. “There are so many more interesting things we could do first.” She didn’t have to turn to know exactly what his smile looked like. “Besides, I can use her to send a message to Sorin.”

She flinched. Irun laughed. “Sorin the untouchable. I bet your death would touch him. But you didn’t tell him about this meeting, did you, Teacher?”

She rolled onto her back and managed, defiantly, to nod.

“I don’t believe you.” He leaned over and, with a negligent motion, broke one of her fingers.

Ileni screamed through the gag, an ugly rattling sound. She shook her head frantically, blinking away the sudden flood of tears, just in time to see Irun straighten and tilt his head to the side. “Still, maybe we should make it quick. Just to be safe.”

Ileni didn’t see where the dagger came from, but suddenly it was there in his hand. She twisted and lashed out with her foot, a move Sorin had taught her. Irun avoided the kick easily, grabbed her ankle, and pulled up. She landed in a heap on the floor, with an impact that must have knocked bones out of place.

She tried to turn herself over, and Irun planted his foot on her back. “Would you like to do it?” he asked Bazel, politely mocking.

Everything hurt so much. Ileni reached under her bed with her uninjured hand, pulled out her bag, and flung it behind her. The movement twisted her shoulder and sent new agony arching down her back. The warding stones tumbled out of the bag and across the floor.

Irun jumped away, the crushing weight of his foot gone from her back. We’ve lived so long in fear of sorcerers. . . . But he did still fear sorcery, and he didn’t know what these stones would do. She grabbed the nearest one and sent it skidding . . . not toward Irun, but toward Bazel.

He leaped out of the way, and Ileni scrambled to her feet and ran for the door, kicking stones wildly as she went. She wasn’t even halfway there when Irun grabbed her by the hair, pulled her around as if she weighed nothing, and slid his blade neatly across her throat.

She jerked her head away, ripping hair out of her scalp, the knife slashing up along her jaw and cheek. Too late. The blade had cut through skin and breath and blood, ripping right through her airway.

It hurt like nothing had ever hurt before. She grabbed her throat, and blood spurted through her fingers in hot bursts of pain, searing through her mind and her sudden blind panic. Irun let go of her, and she fell to the floor, dying.

Cypess, Leah's Books