Dimly, in the depths of a shrinking world, Kalen heard Myrin calling his name. He couldn’t get to her. He couldn’t even move.
Toytere heard it too and her voice seemed to shake him from his rage. “There be no escape for you, me good son,” he said. “You hark? That be your friends dying-except Myrin. That girl be bought and paid for. I be but the means.”
Kalen had failed her-failed them all.
“I be deciding which ear to be taking first,” Toytere said. “The left?” He stabbed one knife to the left of Kalen’s head. “Or the right?” He stabbed the other down, closing Kalen’s head between rusty steel.
“Mebbe the nose,” Toytere said, pulling out a third, even bigger knife. “Or mebbe we let fate do the deciding, no?” He grinned wickedly. “Then I’ll feed. Yes …
And he tossed the blade into the air over Kalen’s face, letting it spin end over end.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
26 KYTHORN (NIGHT)
Myrin was drunk. She couldn’t think clearly, Nor could she move with anything like coordination. When Toytere spoke, she almost laughed. When Sithe lunged across the chamber and sent Rhett flying, then turned to her, she saw it as a hazy dream. When Toytere leaped on Kalen, awareness shocked through her and she came to her senses.
Everything seemed to happen at once.
Myrin drew her wand-her hand seemed to move so slowly-but Sithe was there, her axe sweeping down. Somehow, she’d known the genasi was coming and snapped the words of her shielding spell. The black axe clanged off the shield.
“No point to fighting,” Sithe said. “Yield.”
“No,” Myrin replied. “I don’t think I will.” Her wand cracked and thunder surged forth.
The genasi sailed through the air, borne on a trail of darkness, to land on her feet five paces distant. She staggered, knocked partially off balance. She seemed genuinely surprised-and pleased. “You are not as weak as he thinks you are,” she said. “I will enjoy-”
Rhett slashed Vindicator at her from behind, but Sithe flowed out of the way and lunged at Myrin. The bolt of force Myrin had meant for Toytere turned on Sithe instead, but the dark warrior batted it aside with her axe. She pointed to Myrin and black chains sprung into being around the wizard, but they evaporated in the searing radiance of Vindicator.
Rhett stood on the other side of Sithe, his sword leveled in her direction. “Fight me, demon!” Silver light flowed from Vindicator and encircled the genasi like a halo.
“Demon?” Sithe touched the light and it flowed around her fingers, dissolving into her darkness. “I should have killed you before, boy, when first you proved the fool.”
Rhett lunged at Sithe, but he had to duck aside as a hurled dagger clanged off his breastplate. Myrin had forgotten all about the gathered Dead Rats, but now they stalked forward: an army of cruel faces and rusty blades. Rhett turned to face them, one man against twenty. They swarmed him, cutting and stabbing, and he vanished into the crowd. Without his attention, Vindicator’s halo around Sithe faded.
Wizard and genasi faced one another, alone and with no protectors.
“We only want you, Myrin Darkdance,” Sithe said. “You’re killing the others.”
Myrin spun her wand in a tight circle, conjuring a ball of fire in her open hand. This she hurled in Sithe’s direction, but the genasi dodged aside.
“You can end this at a word,” Sithe said. “Is your pride worth both their lives?”
Myrin spread her wand in an arc, stretching the fire after the fast-moving genasi. In a heartbeat, a wall of searing flame cut the battlefield in two. The Dead Rats stood on one side, quite removed from the fight. Sithe seemed a silhouette carved in sharp lines of darkness. Then she vanished in a burst of darkness.
Myrin felt a shocking warmth on her skin and glanced down at her left forearm. A new rune had appeared there-a new spell she had seen in Umbra’s visions. To her arcanist’s eye, it looked like a wall of fire.
Myrin looked up from this wonder and cast about for the genasi, but she might as well have ceased to exist. She cast about for-“Kalen!”
The halfling was perched over Kalen, striking him over and over again like an animal savaging its prey. Blood flew along with curses and roars of rage.
Had she been wrong, to think he could be better than he was? Could anyone?
Myrin summoned a bolt of force, picturing the halfling’s head as its target. She didn’t want to kill him-had never wanted to kill anyone-but to protect Kalen, she would.
The air at her back shivered, displacing around something that was suddenly there. Myrin threw herself forward and whirled, the way she had seen Kalen do a thousand times. Sithe’s axe passed within a hair’s breadth of her face. As she dodged, she swung her wand under her arm and cast blindly. Magic exploded into flesh. With a curse, the genasi staggered back. Sithe clutched at her stomach and a trickle of black blood came from her mouth.
Myrin couldn’t believe she had dodged or that she had actually struck Sithe. From her uncomprehending wince, the genasi couldn’t believe it either.
“Enough.” Sithe indicated her with a black finger and Myrin felt the full weight of her fury fall on her. “Lady of Sorrow,” she prayed, “guide my hand against your foe.”
The genasi charged.
Myrin slashed her wand at Sithe, spinning a scythe of fire, but the genasi ran right at the magic. It struck full force but vanished into the genasi as though she were made of nothing. So startled was Myrin by this that she barely remembered to dodge Sithe’s strike, and caught the butt of the axe dead center in her chest. She fell to the floor, gasping for breath.
Sithe stood over her, her eyes blazing. She was done with words now-she offered only death. She was no longer a woman, but wholly a demon.
Blearily, Myrin crawled backward. She coughed and blood spattered the ground.
“Kalen!” she screamed.
The knife reached its zenith and spun back down.
Startled by Myrin’s cry, Toytere shot out a hand and caught the blade within a thumb’s breadth of Kalen’s face. Kalen gazed up, panting and gasping.
“Gods,” the halfling said. He was looking back at the battle illumined by a ring of flame. Sithe stalked toward Myrin, her axe raised high. The darkness enveloped the genasi like a lover-it flowed from her like sweat. “Gods, I didn’t be think-”
“Look,” Kalen croaked. “Look what you’ve unleashed.”
When the halfling turned back to him, revulsion filled his face. “You,” he said. “You killed Cellica. You’ve ruined me-ruined everything!
“Let me up,” Kalen said. “Let me save her.”
Toytere laughed in his face, his shark’s teeth clacking madly. “You? You can barely stand! What can you do?”
“Save her,” Kalen said. “Let me-”
The halfling looked at him, horror filling his face. The murderous haze in his eyes lifted, replaced by an understanding of the nightmare he had brought on them all.
“I’m sorry,” the halfling whispered.
Without further words, he leaped from Kalen and dashed across the room toward Myrin and Sithe. His broad knife flashed and sank through Sithe’s darkness into her leg.
Any mortal woman would have fallen or at least cried out in pain. The dark one stared down at the interfering halfling in mild surprise.
“Kill me instead!” Toytere cried, his voice almost lost in the animal within. “Kill-!”
