Death Sworn(81)

“I do,” Ileni said. “I’ll tell you when you let him down.”

Karyn lifted an eyebrow. “I could still kill him, if I wanted to. So what does it matter?”

“It would make me feel better,” Ileni said, through gritted teeth. “If you want this to be a friendly conversation, let him down.”

Karyn considered, then nodded. Sorin floated toward the sorceress, landing roughly near the edge of the chasm, and promptly fell over on his side. He lay perfectly still, not allowing himself the indignity of a struggle.

Ileni couldn’t see his face. Her last glimpse of it had been that stricken look he gave her right before he failed to kill Karyn.

“All right,” Karyn said. “Let’s be friendly.”

“Let’s not,” Sorin growled.

The surge of power caught Ileni by surprise. She had never felt Sorin use his full strength before. He was more skilled than she had realized, and his magic had an edge to it, an untamed tremor pulsing beneath the perfect, clean precision of his spell.

The spell holding Sorin captive shattered, with an impact that made Ileni gasp. Karyn doubled over with a sharp cry. Sorin was on his feet and across the rock before the sorceress could recover. He slid behind her, yanked one arm around her neck in a chokehold, and clamped his other hand over her mouth.

“Nice spell, isn’t it?” Sorin’s smile was sharp and feral. “Absalm did do some teaching, you know, in between his . . . extracurricular activities. And now I think this is going to get a lot less friendly.”

Karyn twisted against his grasp, once, futilely. Sorin pressed his forearm against her throat, ignoring the fingers tearing desperately at his arm.

This time, he didn’t look at Ileni.

Karyn let out a broken, throttled cry that reminded Ileni of Irun’s hands pressing on her throat. She forced herself to stand and watch as Karyn’s face turned purple-red and her struggles grew weaker. There was nothing else she could do.

Then Karyn opened her hand and flung the lodestone wildly.

Sorin let go of her and leaped to grab it. He landed in a crouch, holding the glowing stone in one hand. Its swirling lights played across his face.

Then he grunted as Karyn’s magic hit and forced him to his knees. He managed to hold onto the stone, even as his face twisted in agony.

Karyn threw her head back and laughed.

“You can’t use it,” she said. “But I still can, from this distance. You should have killed me when you had the chance.”

She lifted a hand and began chanting. Ileni didn’t recognize the spell, but the cadence made her stomach twist. It was dark and ugly and vindictive, promising terrible pain. The colors in the stone twisted violently as Karyn drew on its power.

She knew what this was, even though she had never heard it before, except in whispered rumors: a deathspell.

“Sorin!” she shouted. “I can use the stone.”

He looked up at her, and she saw him understand what that meant. It can only be used by someone with no power of his own. His eyes widened in shock, even through his pain.

He threw her the stone.

Karyn let go of the spell in mid-chant and threw herself at Sorin, slamming into him as he released the stone. The shimmering orb arced across the chasm, and Ileni ran to intercept it. It was going into the abyss, it was going to fall—she threw herself after it, and her fingertips brushed its smooth surface.

Power tingled through her hand, just from that small contact. But the stone slipped away from her and down.

Her cry turned into a scream as she plummeted after it.

Something thudded behind her, and a hand clasped around her ankle. Sorin’s grip jerked her to a stop, almost yanking her leg right out of her hip. She dangled against the cliffside, fingers scrabbling against slick rocks. She could no longer see the stone. She had never even heard it hit the ground. It was gone, gone, gone.

Sorin pulled her out bit by bit, her body scraping against the rock, until she was on solid ground. Then his hands closed around her waist and he pulled her up. She had just enough time to see that Karyn had vanished before he pulled her roughly around.

They looked at each other. Ileni’s legs felt like jelly and her heart felt broken, and she was afraid of what she was going to see in his eyes. She let out a sob.

Sorin yanked her to him and held her tight, so tight it hurt. But it still felt better than anything else she was feeling. She closed her eyes and buried her face in his shirt, breathing in dust and sweat and the faint, metallic scent of blood.