Death Sworn (20 page)

“Right.” Sorin blew out a breath, and a new magelight flared to life above Ileni’s head. Then he turned and was gone, shimmying up the rope with a speed that made her heart catch in her throat.

For a few moments she was alone, the rock flat and white except for that dark bloodstain, the black river whispering past. She turned in a slow circle, staring warily at the shadows, imagining the sound of someone else’s breathing. Then the rope went still. Sorin had reached the top.

She fitted herself into the loop with some awkwardness, grasped tightly with both hands, and closed her eyes. That proved to be a mistake when the rope’s first upward jerk slammed her head against the rock wall. She opened her eyes hastily and used her feet to push herself away from the cliff as the ground and the river receded below. Sorin’s magelight traveled with her, and from this height the water looked like flat black marble, as still as the white rock that cut sharply against it.

When she finally scrambled onto the clifftop and untangled herself from the rope, Sorin gave her what seemed like an approving nod before re-coiling the rope and stuffing it into his pack. He tilted his head at the ground. “Looks like you were right.”

A pair of narrow footprints was barely visible in the dirt covering the rock.

“Those weren’t here last time,” Sorin said.

Ileni stared at him. “Last time, when you were chasing down Bazel? I think you might have missed them.”

“No,” Sorin said flatly.

She opened her mouth, then decided not to argue. “All right. Apparently Karyn
is
still here.” She drew in a long breath. “Let’s find out what she can tell us.”

Sorin reached over and touched her cheek. He rubbed a finger against her skin, then flicked off a sliver of dried blood.

Heat rushed to Ileni’s face. “Sorry.”

“About what?” Sorin grinned at her. “You should be proud. You bested Irun.”

A wave of nausea rolled through her. She could still faintly smell blood, as if it was caked into her nostrils. “Don’t
compliment
me. It was self-defense. I didn’t want to. . . .” Except she had. When she had driven the knife in, she had
wanted
to kill him. She had hated him and wanted him dead.

She turned away, and Sorin said roughly, “I didn’t—Ileni, don’t. It doesn’t matter. If you hadn’t killed Irun, I would have done it for you.”

And he wouldn’t have pretended it was anything but revenge. It wouldn’t have bothered him at all.

“It’s a good thing you didn’t,” she said, more harshly than she had intended. “Whatever this thing is between us, I’m certain it wouldn’t survive my watching you murder someone.”

Sorin went perfectly still, then turned his back on her. “Let’s hope you’re powerful enough to make Karyn cooperate, then.”

Ileni took a deep breath. It wasn’t fair, to lead him into this blind. “I can’t—I can’t fight her. You don’t know—”

“Don’t worry,” he said stiffly. “If Irun could best an imperial sorcerer, so can I.”

“Or she could kill you.”

He shrugged. “Of course.”

Ileni fought to control her breathing. He was being reckless, yes, but also brave; and he was, after all, doing it for her. She gestured at the stretch of rock ahead of them. “After you.”

The trail led steadily downward along the unevenly sloping rock. The footprints disappeared after a few minutes, but Sorin kept going, his eyes darting from the ground to the boulders piled around them to the stalactites hanging above. Whatever hints of passage he was following, Ileni couldn’t see them, but she walked behind him silently. Once the way was wide enough for them to walk side by side, she reached for his hand, and was relieved when his warm fingers closed around hers. Suddenly she found herself blinking back tears, and was glad he was concentrating too hard on the ground ahead of them to notice.

After another few minutes, the trail hit a wall, and Sorin let go of her hand so he could squeeze through a narrow crevice and climb onto a ledge. The ledge became a tunnel, so low Ileni was forced to pull herself forward by her forearms, her body scraping along the stones.

The tunnel seemed to go on forever. She had to keep her head down to avoid banging it on the craggy ceiling, so it was impossible to get a sense of how far she had to go or even of how far they had gone. Twice she thought about calling ahead to Sorin, asking him to slow down. Each time, she opened her mouth and then forced it shut, pulling herself onward.

Then the scraping of Sorin’s body ahead of her came to an abrupt halt, and she pulled forward so hard she scratched her arm on a sharp rock. A moment later, she was able to get to her knees, and then to her feet. Relief swept through her as she stood upright, before she saw the empty space in front of them.

The ground dropped away abruptly, as if it had been sliced off by magic. Below them was a vast darkness, a space so wide and deep she couldn’t see any hint of rock formations either across or below.

“She must have gone another way,” Ileni suggested hopefully. But Sorin already had the rope out, and was tying it firmly around her legs and waist.

“You’ll have to go first this time.” His fingers skimmed over her tunic as he tied the rope, and lingered briefly at her waist. “It will be easier for you if I’m controlling the rope from up here.”

Ileni looked down into the chasm, then at Sorin.

“All right,” she said.

His quick, surprised grin kept her from balking, until the rope was secured around her and she balanced at the edge of the cliff, her back to the gaping emptiness behind her. Then panic rose in her, so swiftly she couldn’t fight it. “Sorin—”

“Lean back. Once you can feel the rope holding you, you won’t be afraid.”

He actually seemed serious. She started to twist around, and Sorin said sharply, “Don’t look down. Look at me.”

She looked at him. His eyes were as black as the space behind her, his features sharp, shadowed lines. He looked fierce and dangerous, but he was waiting, patiently, for her. His strong hands were clenched firmly around the rope.

She kept her eyes trained on his and leaned back, even as her instincts screamed at her to stop before she fell.

Sorin was right. As soon as she had passed the point where she should have fallen screaming into the abyss, she felt the rope tighten around her, holding her aloft. She braced her feet against the cliffside, suspended horizontally above the emptiness.

Sorin’s eyes sparkled, and suddenly he didn’t look dangerous at all. “Push off with your feet.”

She bent her knees and pushed her feet away from the cliff. Sorin let the rope out, and she arced out into the darkness before landing back against the side of the cliff, several yards lower. She laughed aloud, and pushed off again even before she heard Sorin’s answering laugh.

It felt like flying. Exhilaration surged through her as she pushed herself harder and harder against the cliffside, flew out farther and faster, until she could barely see Sorin’s form above her.

And then the cliffside ended.

She realized it a moment before her next swing took her down and under the rock. Her head grazed the lower edge of the cliff, and then she was swinging uncontrollably through the darkness, waiting for the crash that would tear her loose and send her plunging to her death.

“Ileni!” Sorin shouted from above.

Her reply was a strangled gasp. The cliff had veered inward so sharply she could no longer reach it, so she had nothing to brace her feet against, no way to slow her motion. Panic seared through her.

Then, as she swung wildly away from the rocks again, the rope jerked upward, bringing her back up to where the cliffside was within reach. She put her feet out and they thudded against rock. She whimpered, bending her knees, swinging away again without wanting to—but not as far, this time, and not as fast. Another two swings and she was stable again, her feet braced against the rock, the rope trembling but still.

She would never have believed this could feel like safety. But it did. She didn’t look down at the cavernous emptiness below her.

“There’s no more cliff,” she called up. Her voice trembled.

“Then I’ll lower the rope slowly until you hit the bottom. Hold on tight.”

“Wait—” But the rope was already letting out, and her feet slid across the rock and dangled into emptiness. Her body jerked as she clung tighter to the rope, and it began to twist, swinging her sickeningly from side to side as she was lowered deeper into the cave.

Then, with a jerk, the downward motion stopped. The twisting didn’t, and Ileni’s stomach turned upside down. Luckily, since she hadn’t eaten for hours, there was nothing to spew up.

“Sorin?”

“We’re out of rope.” His voice was distant but clear. “Just a second.”

Something whizzed past her, and she heard a splash from below.

“Good,” Sorin said. “That distance should be safe to jump.”

Ileni thought wistfully back to the time when she hadn’t cared much whether she died. Then, trying not to think about what she was doing, she began extricating herself from the harness.

She needn’t have worried about giving herself time to think. In the struggle to untangle herself, she lost hold of the rope. A brief, terrifying plunge downward, a short scream, and then frigid liquid sprayed into her face as she pitched forward on her hands and knees into shockingly icy water.

Icy, but shallow; it only came halfway up her forearms. She knelt in it, gasping, then got to her feet. Another freezing splash hit her side as Sorin landed beside her.

His magelight illuminated an underground lake so still that it was almost invisible. She could see the white rock formations beneath the water as if there was no water covering them at all. Around the banks were more structures, like tiny castles and fortresses, formed of sparkling fernlike rocks. Tendrils of stone as thin as flower stems were scattered over the ground, also in that unearthly white. Ileni drew in her breath. She felt like an intruder, heavy and awkward in a place where no human beings were ever intended to go.

“Sorin. Maybe we should—”

“Hsst!” he whispered sharply, and she clamped her mouth shut just as a new light flared ahead of them. It illuminated a chasm several feet from the edge of the lake, and beyond it a flat white rockface lined with deep cracks and framed by a vast archway of pearly stone.

Karyn stood beneath the archway, waiting for them.

Chapter 18

T
he sorceress stood with her legs braced apart, her face remote and calm. Her green tunic and black leggings were now dirt stained and torn, but somehow she looked almost majestic. The magelight floated several feet above her head, below a white ceiling pitted with holes and sparkling with tiny liquid droplets.

Sorin surged out of the water onto the white rock shore, moving with such grace that Ileni didn’t even hear a splash. Karyn raised one hand, and a line of thick white stalactites snapped away from the ceiling and fell directly in front of him in a series of echoing crashes. Sorin stopped short, and Ileni scrambled out of the lake to stand next to him. Water squelched in her shoes.

“Well,” Karyn said pleasantly. “Here we all are.”

Ileni shut her eyes briefly, trying to sense Karyn’s power. But the sorceress felt completely mundane, not a spark of magic in her.

Something was wrong.

Sorin stepped around the fallen rock in front of him, and Ileni followed, as if getting one step closer might make a difference. It didn’t. The chasm between them and Karyn was wide and deep, a wedge of blackness among all the ethereal white, and she still couldn’t sense any magic.

“We’re here to talk,” Sorin said.

“So am I.” Karyn smiled. “But not to you.”

She swiveled to face Ileni. Ileni’s stomach tightened, and she lifted her chin.

“Confused about me, aren’t you?” Karyn dipped her hand under her tunic. “Allow me to enlighten you.”

Sorin hissed and crouched on the balls of his feet. Ileni reached for the knife under her tunic. But all Karyn did was hold up a perfectly round stone, so small it fit neatly into the palm of her hand.

The breath went out of Ileni’s body in a
whoosh
. The stone was beautiful—glassy and clear, with dozens of shimmering colors swirling beneath its surface—and it lit up all her senses with the feel of magic, of power. Of everything she had lost.

“What is
that
?” Sorin demanded.

“I don’t know,” Ileni whispered, and didn’t care what he thought of her ignorance. She couldn’t take her eyes off the rock. The power within it, too vast to be crammed into something so small, called to her with hypnotic urgency.

Karyn held the rock out, as if to give her a closer look. “We call them lodestones. They store magical energy.”

Black magic!
Ileni tried to look away, and managed it just long enough to see the eagerness in Sorin’s eyes, the predator’s focus as he slid one foot forward.

Karyn saw it, too, and laughed. “It can only be used by someone with no power of his own. So don’t bother.”

Ileni’s heart pounded so hard it hurt, and her breath caught every time she drew it in. All that power, trapped and waiting . . . she could imagine drawing that strength into herself. Being full of magic again, able to do anything.

It wouldn’t last forever. She would use it up, and it would be gone, and then she would go through that loss all over again. She didn’t care. She had never wanted anything so badly in her life.

Karyn lifted her eyebrows. “More interested in talking to me now?”

Ileni’s mouth was too dry for speech.

“I think we’ll be taking that,” Sorin said, and pulled two knives from beneath his tunic.

The knives flashed in whirling silver streaks over the chasm. Magic flashed from Karyn, blindingly powerful, and the knives flew back, straight at Sorin.

Sorin dodged them as if they were in slow motion and took off at a dead run, straight for the chasm between him and Karyn. At the very edge, he launched himself over the black space.

Ileni couldn’t help a brief, strangled scream. It was an impossible leap. But Sorin’s hands thudded onto the rock on the other side, and he tucked himself into a ball and rolled. When he unfurled himself, sleek and swift, he was on his feet, another dagger in his hand, its point inches from Karyn’s throat.

Karyn lowered her hands and sighed. Smoothly, she tucked the lodestone away under her tunic. Ileni felt a ward flare up, and then the stone went silent to her senses. Its sudden absence made the cavern duller. “You bore me, assassin.”

“Ileni,” Sorin said, very calm, “break through her wards.”

Ileni opened her mouth, then closed it. The silence stretched for a long, terrible moment. Sorin glanced at her, a swift look stark with betrayal.

He didn’t know she couldn’t do it. He thought she was choosing not to.

Sorin. No.
But Ileni couldn’t speak. She could barely breathe.

Karyn laughed again. She turned on her heel as if Sorin wasn’t there, and he lunged and struck. His dagger slid across the side of Karyn’s neck as if along marble rather than flesh, leaving her unharmed. As he finished the lunge, he twisted and tangled his legs with Karyn’s, throwing both of them hard on the flat rock.

They rolled once, and then Sorin was on top, kneeling over the sorceress, fingers wrapped around her neck. The dagger was gone, but he didn’t need it. His fingers dug hard into Karyn’s throat. Her eyes fluttered dazedly—she had knocked her head hard on the rock—and she opened her mouth, but all that emerged was a croak. His fingers tightened, and her heels kicked frantically at the rock, her mouth open in a soundless plea. Sorin leaned down, arms taut, a hunting animal lunging in for the kill.

And then he hesitated. He turned his head and looked across the chasm at Ileni. Their eyes met, and his weren’t deadly and focused at all. They were . . . afraid.

This thing between us wouldn’t survive my watching you murder someone.

Sorin’s face hardened. He turned back to Karyn and pressed down.

But that momentary hesitation had been enough. Karyn twisted her head to the side and gasped out a word. A burst of power erupted from her, flinging Sorin through the air, his body twisting as he arced down into the chasm.

Ileni screamed as he fell into the darkness, and reached for her magic. It was like scraping the insides of her soul.

Sorin jerked to a stop and hung suspended between the white rocks and the empty blackness. A sob broke from Ileni’s throat. For an insane moment, she believed that somehow, she had done it; she had saved him. Then Karyn surged to her feet and beckoned with one hand, and Sorin turned helplessly in midair to face her.

“Now,” Karyn said pleasantly, “perhaps we can reopen our discussion.”

“Don’t waste your time, Sorceress,” Sorin snarled. “I’m no traitor, and I’m not afraid to die. You might as well drop me now.”

Don’t.
Ileni had never felt so helpless. She had betrayed everyone, ruined everything, and now Sorin was going to die. Dropped into a dark canyon, gone forever, his death
wasted
. Because of her.

“How noble.” Karyn’s neck was mottled red with bruises. “But I’m still not speaking to
you
.”

Ileni tore her eyes away from Sorin.

“Ileni,” he said. “Don’t. She’ll kill me anyhow.”

“Why would I do that?” Karyn murmured. “Some of us prefer not to kill, if it’s unnecessary.” She gave Ileni a small smile, including her in that
some of us
. “I wouldn’t expect an assassin to understand.”

Ileni forced herself to straighten, to meet the sorceress’s eyes. Sorin was defying Karyn despite the abyss beneath him. How could she do less? “What do you want to know?”

“Many things. But mostly, I would like to know how to get through the Renegai wards around these caves.”

Ileni froze. She could feel Sorin struggling to use magic against Karyn, like a fitful breeze against the strength of her spell.

She hadn’t betrayed
everything
after all. She hadn’t betrayed her own people yet. But in exchange for Sorin’s life, she would.

“You think I can tell you that?” Ileni said finally. “Right now?”

“Can’t you?” Karyn rolled her shoulders back. “Then let’s start with an easier question. Why have your assassin friends been killing off sorcerers? Do you know the answer to that?”

“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.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you—”

His hand touched her cheek, a faint nudge. That was all the encouragement she needed to lift her face so his mouth could land on hers. She clung to him desperately, trying to find what she had found in his kisses before: forgetfulness.

But it didn’t work. She couldn’t stop thinking about the lodestone, tumbling away into the darkness. About how it had brushed her fingers, sending tingles of power through her, making her feel, for a second, like herself.

The dark power she had abhorred her entire life. The source of the Empire’s evil.

It can only be used by someone with no power.

But someone who knew how to use magical power. Someone who had the skill to use spells, but no power to fuel them.

Someone like her.

That’s why this deception was necessary. So you could be trained in earnest.

Absalm had gone through all this to create a Renegai who could use a lodestone. But why?

She pulled away, and it was a moment before Sorin let her go. She could feel the force of his gaze even though the shadows hid his eyes.

“We should go after Karyn,” she whispered.

Sorin shook his head shortly. “I don’t see the point. We know what she wants—a way through the wards. And the master has to know about that, Ileni. This has gone too far.”

She didn’t have the energy to argue. His voice was curt and remote. Already the memory of their frantic kiss was fading away.

“So what do we do now?” she asked. She immediately wished she had waited longer, until the tremor in her voice was gone.