Chapter 60
RYKER
T he leaf drifted down arrogantly, swaying in the air as if the entire world could wait on it forever. It turned, revealing the glimmering rune etched on its back, rudimentary and jagged.
“What if it doesn’t work?” I asked.
“It will,” Calyx said from beside me, holding onto his crutch like he wanted to throw it into the garden.
“And if it doesn’t?”
“Just because I can’t walk properly anymore doesn’t mean I’ve lost my other abilities.”
My gaze jumped to him. “I didn’t mean–”
“I’m just messing with you.” A grin broke the eerie seriousness which had taken over Calyx’s face ever since Sanctua Sirena.
He looked like his old self, but didn’t feel the same.
Something had cracked deep within him and no matter what any of us tried to say, he ignored it.
“Now pay attention, it was a pain to scratch the rune into a bloody leaf.”
Said leaf had almost touched the rock we’d planted there minutes ago–a rock that hid a violent secret.
The rune burned bright gold as the leaf barely grazed the stone.
A moment later, it exploded, digging into the earth a full three feet down and sending clumps of dirt flying through Calyx’s garden.
“Goddammit, my tomatoes.” He sighed. “That hit harder than I planned.”
But it had worked. “Powerful is what we need. How can I be sure the trap won’t activate when it senses any kind of magic?”
“It’s been calibrated to only activate when it senses dark magic. At least the kinds we know about.” He grimaced at his leg and thumped back into his workshop, leaving me alone on the balcony and the searing sun, so much more pressing than the trickle of rays we got in Solkar’s Reach.
I watched the last grains of dust and dirt fall back onto the ground.
It felt like sacrilege to dig these contraptions into my realm, especially so close to the passage entry, after so many of my ancestors had simply let it be. Like I didn’t believe enough in the magic of the crater to be sure it could protect us.
It felt like hammering rusty nails into an ancient tree. My mother had raised me to revere the land, not desecrate it.
But I had to do it.
Yesterday had proven our barrier could be breached.
I wasn’t taking any chances.
“I’ve already crafted twenty,” Calyx called out from inside. “I can give you ten.”
“Why not all?” I turned, following him. The metal dust inside crawled down my throat and the smell of spilled oil burned through my nose.
Calyx’s workshop was, to put it mildly, peculiar. Between the cogs, scrolls, and makeshift instruments he’d also created himself, small pots of plants were littered everywhere like the room couldn’t decide if it was a menacing arms laboratory or a greenhouse.
Calyx said the plants calmed him down amid the explosion.
I chose to believe him, even as my senses screamed out the place needed to be tidied up, the unfurled scrolls wrapped up and placed in the bookcase, the plants placed by the windows, and the cogs gathered from the floor and organized by size.
Solkar’s Reach was a very different place than this.
“Because war is coming.” Calyx stopped in front of his workbench, tinkering with a spiked ball.
“The king and queen might be oblivious, but everyone else knows it. I can’t get a bloody copper shipment from the Fair Isles to save my life.
They’re closing all trade and, soon, they’ll close the ports, sheltering themselves from reality as they always do. ”
I fisted my hands. The Fair Isles loved nothing more than profit. To stall it, even temporarily, was a grave omen.
War was indeed coming–and we would be dragged into it, whether we wanted to or not.
I approached his workbench, not bothering to hide my bewilderment at the state of it. He had an oil can right next to a candle. That was a hazard waiting to–
My nose rose in the air as I caught a whiff of a familiar scent. Herbs. Sweet perfume. Cat hair.
“Why was Elysia here?” I asked.
“Damn those senses of yours.” Calyx huffed a laugh. “She checked up on me. Brought me tea. We commiserated. She could have left that cat of hers at home, the beast tried to eat my begonias. It’s too curious for its own good.”
Guilt ate at me. I’d only visited Calyx twice since the wedding massacre, too caught up in my own life, while he’d been left alone to stitch himself back together. He’d refused to stay with any of us, though we’d all opened our homes to him.
“I’m sorry I haven’t been here more often,” I said.
He shrugged. “You have the crater and your Huntress to worry about. I just have my tinkering and plants to focus on. And these damn runes that won’t cooperate.”
I licked the inside of my cheek. “You know, there was one person rumored to be very good at runes. A person you’ll have to meet one day, whether you like it or not.”
That cousin of Allie’s was said to be a menace. Only rumors, of course. As much as her twin brother liked to give himself to the world, she liked to stay as far away from it as possible.
“No rush to have a Vegheara brat walking on my last nerve. And I can manage very well without help. I have other things I can give you.” Calyx waved around the crowded room as if anyone else could make sense of it. “Spikes, chains, a golden sword that can whisper pretend curses.”
“What can I do with a sword that pretends to curse?”
He grinned again. “Make your enemies soil themselves before you kill them.”
“I already do that.” I narrowed my eyes, cocking my head to the side. Calyx had always had a joke waiting on the tip of his tongue, but this felt off. There was a tension in his brow, a jitteriness to his fingers. “What’s wrong?”
He averted his gaze. “Apart from our entire Clan risking obliteration and an unknown force attacking us from the shadows?”
“Calyx,” I said, a warning bite on my lips.
“Fine, but you won’t like this.” He sighed, his shoulders caving.
He grabbed his crutch and thumped to the back of the workshop, where a grey metal box waited on top of a cabinet. As he opened it, icy smoke poured down the sides, an acrid stench following it.
Calyx cursed and delved his hand inside. “I’ve done every single detection test I can think of. Even chucked curses at it, buried it in the ground at the full moon, spent hours slashing through rock. They all say the same thing.”
He took out the cursed dagger I’d pulled out of Alaric’s back. It looked as untainted as on that day, despite the waves of magic which had washed over it at Calyx’s hand.
The star jewel resting in its pommel caught the light. Not a glimmer, but a deliberate glint, as if it recognized me.
“This belongs to you, there is no doubt,” Calyx said, crumbling my world. “And now you have to find a way to tell The Huntress one of your daggers killed her father.”
THE END