Read Online The Kingdoms of Dust by Amanda Downum - Free Book Online Page B

away that she realized the chill was greater than a simple death would cause. Her eyes narrowed, looking otherwise , and she saw the pale, smoke-tattered shape of a fresh ghost lingering beside the corpse.
    “ Kastanos! ”
    A Selafaïn word that meant only “dark-haired”—hardly a name to conjure with, but it was the best she could do in her haste. All the same, the ghost paused, swaying toward her. As she focused on him, she felt a shivering connection between them, frail as a spider’s web.
    Names were best for binding souls—knowledge took the place of consent—but other things formed a connection that a clever vinculator could exploit. This man had followed her for decads, chosen to risk his life to murder her. He had tied himself to her through his actions, and she’d be damned if she’d let him escape a second time. Her right hand rose, clenched in the ephemeral gossamer ice of his soul. Her ring blazed white and blinding.
    He fought. Even in the confusion of death his will was strong. But she had years of training and the strength of anger. Her grip held and the diamond opened, swallowing the brown man into its crystalline depths. Her arm ached to the shoulder with cold.
    When she could feel her fingers again, Isyllt searched the cooling corpse while Adam kept watch. She had already contaminated the scene, but she tugged her right glove on before touching him again. It helped hide her shaking, and the nails she’d broken in the dead man’s flesh.
    The dart was a wicked thing, barbed and weighted with lead—made to kill mages. Copper and silver and other metals could be used in spells; lead held no magic, and weakened any that came near it. If the assassin was a mage herself, she was either very careful or very foolish.
    Isyllt wished she could blame her own failure on the lead.
    She should have killed him. She’d wanted to, answers or no; her hands still tingled with nerves and rage. She could stop a man’s heart with a touch, or worse. The last mage who’d tried to kill her had crumbled to dust in her arms. But when she called for the magic, the nothing that lived inside her, all that answered was a choking helplessness.
    The feel of his soul stirring in the depths of her ring soothed her pride a little.
    With his spells faded the dead man’s face was clear, though still ordinary—rounded features and heavy-lidded hazel eyes. A small scar nicked his upper lip, and thoughtful lines creased his dusty skin. He might have been handsome with the right smile. His brown-on-brown coloring had the look of no particular nation, but he could have come from any of the mongrel port cities. He carried nothing but a purse half full of small coins and a partially eaten lunch tucked into one pocket—no incriminating letters or signets or foreign coins.
    His hands and forearms were clenched solid with death-spasm, fingers curled as if they still gripped a knife. A familiar bulge under his left glove caught her attention, and she cut the thin leather away. A topaz glittered on his smallest finger, sand-colored and square-cut in a plain gold band. A lesser mage stone, not as sought-after as rubies or sapphires or soul-binding diamonds, but a useful gem all the same.
    “Valuable?” Adam asked.
    “Worth a few lir.” She’d received a parting payment from the king and much of Kiril’s estate, but six months of travel had eaten into her resources. Still, stealing mage stones was never wise, and she’d have to break his finger to get the band off. Anything she might discover from the stone she could more easily learn by questioning his ghost. She emptied his purse and slipped the coins into her own pockets.
    “Are you all right?” she asked belatedly as Adam helped her to her feet.
    “Just my pride.” He winced with every step, giving lie to the words. “No worse than your face.”
    She hadn’t stopped to notice, but her lip and cheek stung and the taste of copper filled her mouth. She touched her upper lip and