"True!" he spit again, and rushed in.

Leesil slashed an upward arc with his left blade. The elf dodged, one foot rising to step lightly upon the coffin's end. Then he was gone from sight.

A flash of thin silver passed before Leesil's eyes.

Panic filled his chest as the wire tightened suddenly around his throat. He was jerked upward, and his back slammed against the coffin's end. Dannouth came at Leesil with both blades raised.

Leesil released his punching blades, reaching back for the elf's hands behind his head. And he kicked up between Darmouth's legs.

The warlord hunched over with a grunt. Leesil was stunned when he saw the elf's foot shoot out to strike Darmouth's face. The warlord flopped away out of sight as the wire pulled tighter.

The toolbox on Leesil's back grated across the coffin's edge. Before his feet were pulled off the floor, Leesil kicked off, throwing his legs over his head. He rolled back over his opponent atop the stone slab and came up on top of the elf.

His knees pinned the elf's shoulders, and the man's amber eyes glared up with pure hatred from between Leesil's folded legs. The elf hadn't lost his grips and twisted the wire tighter.

Leesil couldn't breathe anymore, and he couldn't break free.

He fumbled for the bone knife tucked in his belt.

"Groyt'ashia, stop it!" the same voice shouted. "Leshil… do not kill one of your own!"

The room dimmed before Leesil's eyes. He slapped down between his knees, grabbing for the elf's face.

Only the bright spots of the braziers remained clear as he ground the elf's head to one side. He finally slipped the curved short knife from his belt and thrust downward to just beyond his other hand.

The blade sank into resistance, and he ripped it sideways.

The wire around his throat slackened instantly.

Leesil choked, not yet able to take in air through his bruised throat. The elf's body bucked beneath him. He heard a sound like someone drowning in water as he gasped in air. His hands felt wet and hot as if covered in warm oil. The room brightened bit by bit.

He sagged and his gaze dropped down. His hands and thighs were splattered in blood still gushing from the elf's slashed throat.

Leesil fell back, heaving air in gulps, and rolled off the stone coffin.

His legs buckled and his vision spun from too quick a movement. He dropped to his knees on the crypt floor.

Magiere knelt across the room before an archway. Blood soaked through the left shoulder and sleeve of her wool shirt. Another dark stain spread down her right sleeve from the armhole of her hauberk. Her face was covered in sweat, and her irises were full black. She simply stared at him, unmoving.

Beyond her and barely within Leesil's sightline was the elder Anmaglahk. His tunic below his cowl's collar was stained with blood. He held his side as he looked at Leesil and at the body of his companion sprawled across the stone coffin.

Darmouth crawled to the back wall of dark cubbies. Still grunting and hunched, he clawed up to his feet, clutching one of his war daggers. Leesil pulled himself up and stumbled toward the warlord, but his eyes remained on the elder Anmaglahk.

The elf lurched to his feet. When he skirted the far side of the archway to get around Magiere, she hurried to get up as well.

"Magiere, stay where you are," Leesil said.

The words came out as a hoarse rasp that hurt his throat. He sidestepped more toward the elf as he neared Darmouth at the back wall.

"Leshil!" the elf said, winded but harsh, and he turned his eyes briefly toward the warlord. "You spill the blood of your own for that?"

"How do you know me?" Leesil rasped. "Where did you learn my other name?"

Darmouth turned around to face them. War dagger held out, he appeared confused. "Get out of my way… both of you!"

The Anmaglahk cast his gaze toward the back wall. He took a stumbling step forward and was silent for a moment. Then he turned to Leesil once more.

"Look to the wall," he whispered. "See if you find your own there as well."

Leesil didn't let down his guard. He turned his head enough to see the cubbies and still keep the elf well within his vision. He was close now, close enough to see what rested in the rows of cubbies lining the back wall.

Skulls.

These weren't the rotting heads of criminals or innocents stuck on spikes upon the city wall. These bones were boiled clean and polished, collected like trophies, and one double-wide edifice held a paired set.

The nearest was no different from the others, human in all ways, but the second nestled close to it was distinct. A touch oblong. Even with its flesh gone, his face was more triangular than its human comparion and ended in a narrow jaw and chin bone. Its eye sockets were disproportionate-larger, tear-shaped. It was slightly smaller than the first.

A human-male-and an elf-female. Paired together in death.

Leesil heard banging upon the crypt's door behind him. The room around him dimmed again, and all he saw clearly was the mated pair of skulls.

Two together… his parents… always together.

"I'll add your head, mongrel," Darmouth growled with effort. "Soon enough. Now step aside!"

"Was it worth the price?" the Anmaglahk asked Leesil, a vicious and spiteful edge in his voice. "Is one human, or a thousand, worth what you have lost?"

Leesil had protected Darmouth-but for what? He looked at the man.

The warlord glared back at him. There must have been something in Leesil's face. Darmouth's expression turned coldly pleased, as if watching another of his supposed betrayers suffering before death.

"Leesil… no," Magiere whispered.

He looked at her. Her eyes were locked on him, no longer black but filled with apprehension. He remembered a time when she was all that mattered. Just her. He would have his life be so simple again.

In his mind he saw his mother, Cuirin'nen'a… Nein'a… sitting in the bedroom window seat of his parents' room as she combed her brilliant hair. Beneath her stoic expression there had always been a sadness Leesil couldn't take from her.

If he could now just cut out the pain from his head and his heart.

Leesil lunged at Darmouth.

The warlord thrust the wide war blade dead center at Leesil's chest.

Leesil saw it, seeming so slow and weak with age. He turned his torso sideways without stopping, and the dagger slid along the steel rings woven into his hauberk.

Leesil slammed the hooked knife into Darmouth's throat. From somewhere behind, Magiere screamed at him to stop.

Magiere watched Darmouth fall.

Leesil stood silent over his victim like another cold stone column in the crypt.

Darmouth clutched at the blade as he hit the floor. It was in so deep that half the hilt was buried in his throat. It took so long for him to stop choking and become still. Leesil didn't move.

Magiere went numb. All feeling drained from her. Everything they'd done this night-the deaths of Faris and Ventina, injured or dying soldiers, abandoning the search for Wynn-had been to save this tyrant. All of it was lost.

Leesil had murdered Darmouth.

She wanted help. She wanted Chap. Her shoulder and side began to ache again.

And someone kept thudding against the crypt door.

Magiere made a stumbling run across the room. She jerked up the wooden bar and dropped it. The door swung sharply open.

Chap and Emel stood there, the baron's hand still holding the door latch. No soldiers were in sight beyond them. Perhaps without their lord or Omasta they were still in confusion.

"Oh, merciless saints," Emel whispered as he looked beyond Magiere to the room's far end; then he closed his eyes tightly. "We have failed."

Magiere turned back, leaning into one stone coffin as she passed between them and the dead body of the younger elf. She couldn't bring herself to go all the way to Leesil. He still faced the paired skulls in the one wide cubby in the wall.