Elemental Assassin 02 - Web of Lies

with cold, silfalling, and climbing from one rocky dune of muddy very flames of Ice magic. Something they’d never done beearth to the other. In the distance, I heard the rush of fore. I wondered what the silverstone scars would do now water, like a bowl filling up. I didn’t know where the that the danger wasn’t so imminent. Time to find out. water from the creek had gone when I’d collapsed the I reached for my Ice magic. Cautiously, this time, ceiling, but it was close by. Another reason for me to get drawing on a small trickle of power. But again, it came out of here. I hadn’t defeated Tobias Dawson to succumb to me far easier than it ever had before. It only took a to something as simple as drowning.
    moment of concentration to make the scars on my palms I’d just surfed down one particularly large dune when a burn with cold silver fire. Better than a fucking flashlight. small sound caught my attention. A tiny, sharp wail in the
    “Well, that’s something new and different,” I murstone around me. I held out my glowing palms. A flash mured.
    of light caught my eye, and I peered at the ground. And I I held out my glowing palms. The silver light flickrealized I was standing on the diamonds. ered over what remained of the cavern, and I surveyed the They littered the ground under my muddy shoes like damage I’d wrought with my Stone and Ice magic. dull, frozen tears. Most of them had been pulverized to Beyond my hole, the stone and earth rose and fell in small bits, slivers, and glints that caught the silvery light jagged waves, and dust choked the air like storm clouds of emanating from my palms. Still beautiful, even in their particles. The cavern, which had once been so beautiful ruined state. Too bad they were of absolutely no use to and elegant, was now nothing more than a pile of misme. Definitely not a girl’s best friend, in this case. Estep_Web of Lies_1P EP.indd 350-351
    12/17/09 9:32 PM
    352 JENNIFER ESTEP
    Web of Lies 353
    I walked on until I came to the far side of the cavern, son had ripped out of the mountain. There was no light but the earth and stone had fully blocked the exit. Which up ahead, nothing to help me see the dangers that waited. meant I had to find another way to get out of here—now. And I hadn’t escaped the dwarf only to break my leg and So I surfed back in the direction I’d come from, stopend up starving to death down here. So I reached for my ping long enough to take off my stilettos and toss them Ice magic again. It came to me as easily as before, and into the darkness. The broken heels were doing more I upped the intensity of the flames burning on my spidamage to my feet than going barefoot would. I’d just der rune scars until I could see well enough to walk on. reached the recess where I’d originally hidden when a spot Around me, the stone muttered, sharp, angry, and hurt of white caught my eye against the gray stone. What was from all the upheaval it had seen today.
    that? Another diamond?
    “Sorry,” I murmured to the rock. “I didn’t have a I crept closer and realized it was a hand—Tobias Dawchoice.”
    son’s right hand, sticking out of a mound of earth, fingers My voice bounced against the stone and echoed back stretched wide. I crawled over the earth and stone to get a to me. The sound made me shiver, and I moved on, using closer look. But it was just a hand sticking out. Nothing else. my hands to light my way. The passageway grew narrower I checked for a pulse, but the dwarf didn’t have one. and narrower, until I had to turn sideways to shimmy The cold chill of death had already settled into his flesh. through it. But I kept going. It wasn’t like I had a lot of Still, I picked up a jagged piece of rock and slashed his other options. There was no going back. only moving wrist just to be sure. I sat there, resting and watching his forward.
    blood soak into the turned earth and shattered stone. The passageway opened up again slightly, allowing me When his wrist quit oozing, I moved on.
    to walk through the area square on, instead of twisting I walked deeper into the back of the cavern to the part from one side to the other. But twenty feet later, it narI hadn’t seen while Tobias Dawson had been challengrowed again. I gritted my teeth and slipped sideways. ing me to a duel. The cavern narrowed to a small corAnd so it went. Sometimes, I could walk through the ridor barely big enough for a person to squeeze through. corridors with ease.