Chapter 26 #2
“Gods, you’re siding with the council now, aren’t you? You’re going to betray us in the end. I can already see it.” She was like a plague that slowly ate away at everything good until it finally claimed life.
“I made my bet on who is going to win. I gambled my life on Valeen, otherwise, I’d have never tied myself to her.”
Hel grumbled and stood, shoving his shoulder into her as he passed.
“It’s not wise to remind me of that fact.
” He kept his eyes on the gravel path ahead, willing her to just disappear behind him.
A soldier leading a white horse came toward him.
The clop of the hooves only brought on fantasies of jumping on and running her down. Crunch . Crack .
“If you can be forgiven for all that you’ve done, I should get that chance too. I was young, jealous, and stupid. You can understand that at least.”
Hel whirled on her and shoved a finger into her chest. “I can understand that you lied to me. I can understand that you played us all against each other up until a few weeks ago when you were found out. You aren’t stupid or young, Varlett. Jealous, certainly, but you knew what you were doing.”
“There was no point I could have ever confessed without you immediately killing me. I wanted the truth to come out, but you haven’t exactly been stable or forgiving.”
Heat crawled up his spine. His hand trembled with the urge to wring her neck. “Get out of my sight.”
“You’re the one who told me to be here. I was fine in the woods alone.”
“There will come a time when the only consequence of killing you will be regret that I didn’t do it sooner.” It took restraint not to drag her down to the dungeons. The only reason he hadn’t was because he didn’t want to risk Synick and her scheming together. That was what nightmares were made of.
“I want Valeen to get her immortality as much as you do for my own selfish reasons. So let me help. What do we know?”
His left eye began to twitch. In the back of his mind, he knew he could use her to help move this along, but his pride wouldn’t let it happen. The soldier smiled, leading the horse until the steed looked at Varlett, and started retreating and reared up.
“Sorry, Lord,” the soldier began, trying to regain control. “She doesn’t usually spook like this.”
“Mares can sense backstabbing whores.” His eyes flicked to Varlett and then he was off again.
Varlett was quickly in step beside him. “Hel, please. Let me help.”
“Do you hear that buzzing? It’s a fly that just won’t go away.”
She halted and sneered at him. “When you come needing my help, be prepared to beg.”
Magic cooled along his fingertips and slowly crept out. An invisible cord slid around her throat, and she gasped, reaching up. “If I need your help, the only thing I will hear from you is ‘Yes, Hel, whatever you want, Hel’. Is that understood?”
The corner of her mouth twitched but she nodded. “Yes, Hel.”
VALEEN
The library was quiet, the flipping pages of a book the only sound.
Katana and Valeen found Presco at the top of the spiral stairs behind his new desk.
Compared to the week before, this room was nearly brand-new again.
Some of the shelves were still broken and there were stacks of books in the corners on the floor.
He had beakers of colorful liquids boiling on a table in the corner and at least three books open in front of him.
Valeen set a plate of food in front of him. “You need to eat.”
“Oh, I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not. You’ve been up here for days, and I know you haven’t been hunting. You can eat some eggs at least.”
Without further prompting, he took up the fork and shoveled in the eggs, clearing the entire plate in less than thirty seconds then pushed it aside.
Katana snickered. “Maybe we should have brought you more.”
“I am just eager to get back to work, is all.”
“Katana had an idea to use Zythara as the anchor.”
Leaning back in his chair, it creaked under his considerable weight, and he folded his hands on his belly. “That could work. It did cross my mind, but I didn’t think you would want to part with it.”
“I don’t want to, but I can’t think of anything else and we’re short on time. It’s been over a week since the last attack. They’ll make another move soon, and let’s just pray it isn’t an entire army.”
“Well, we should give it a try then. It will need to be in a secure place not easily found.”
“I was thinking on top of the waterfall. There is a stone platform.” The very same platform she pushed Hel from and sent him tumbling off the cliff. It wasn’t easily accessible, and the mountain’s stone would be secure enough and might even be a good conductor for the shield.
“Let’s go for a ride then. I could use a break to stretch my wings.”
River water spilled over the edge of the slate rock, spraying mist all around them, dampening Valeen’s hair and skin.
A pixie fluttered around Katana’s head then landed on her shoulder.
The colorful little things didn’t usually fly this high and avoided people, but leave it to her sister to be the one to attract them.
It pawed at her blonde hair and chittered something in her ear. She laughed and held out her finger. It hopped over to the end and danced for her, spinning around in a circle before the tiny wings fluttered and it flew away.
“What was that about?” Valeen asked.
“Nothing,” she practically sang, “she just wanted to say ‘hello’.”
“Those things don’t say ‘hello’. They’re mean.”
“How could you say that? She was sweet.”
“Why is it that animals and creatures always like you?” She could settle even the wildest of beasts.
“It is my aura. They are drawn to it and sense I will not hurt them.”
“Well, I wouldn’t hurt it.”
“No, of course not, but you are a predator.”
One thing Katana was not, was a predator. “Got it.”
She took out her golden sword, longingly staring at the careful inscriptions along the blade. Zythara—Darkbringer . “I need your help,” she whispered in the primordial language. It warmed in her hands in response. “We must protect the people of this city.”
She turned it over, blade point down and drove it as hard as she could into a crack in the slate rock.
It hit with a spark and a repelling force, throwing her back.
She stumbled toward the water, waving her arms wildly to catch her balance.
Presco lurched and hooked her arm before she fell over.
With her mouth open in shock, she stared at it.
This sword had never fought against her before.
“Perhaps it needs a little more coaxing,” Presco mused.
Coaxing? It was her damn sword. It existed because she made it.
Taking in a calming breath, she wrapped both of her hands around the hilt, and stared at it.
It warmed again, sending a tingle through her.
It liked being held by her. Of course it did.
She was its creator. “I need you now for a shield.”
It whispered back, not a shield .
“I know you’re not a shield. You are a sword, and you belong to me.”
To command and wield in combat , it answered. To cut down our enemies.
“I need you for a different purpose.”
No .
Valeen balked. “Can you believe this?” she said to Presco.
“Is it speaking to you?”
“Yes. It won’t let me use it as a shield.”
“Well, it was forged by your hand and has likely inherited your stubbornness.” He was on the verge of laughing about it.
“Exactly, it was forged by me and should do what I say.” It was made of the rarest and strongest metal in the realms, found only in two places: the deep heart of the Black Mountain in House of Night, and in Mount Aeofi in the winter goddess’s territory.
It had taken her dwarven friends a decade to find enough to craft this blade, and she spent months forging it and getting it to bend to her will.
“You could try saying ‘please’,” Katana said with a wink.
She gritted her teeth and then huffed. “Please, Zythara allow me to use you as a shield.”
No no no no no, it hissed . Not my purpose.
She shoved it back into the scabbard at her hip and crossed her arms. “We don’t have anything else. Zythara was our only plan?”
Presco adjusted his glasses and tilted his head. “You could try reforging Lightbringer. It still lies broken in a tower, correct? Hel told me about it.”
“Lightbringer didn’t belong to the goddess of night. It was made by my elven father.”
“Yes, it did. You have always been the goddess of night even before you remembered. And part of you is still the elf, Layala Lightbringer.”
“And what if I take the time and effort to reforge it and it won’t act as a shield conductor either? I don’t remember Lightbringer having a mind of its own, but if I imbue it with my magic…”
Katana smiled brightly and her eyes widened.
“Maybe Zythara cannot be a shield because this is not House of Night, it was not born here. But what if you and I imbued our magic into Lightbringer to shield day and night? We can instruct it that it is made for this purpose. To protect the elves. It was originally made here and for that purpose.”
It might just work, and at this point, what other choice did they have?
She shuddered at the thought of going back to the Void, surrounded by the pale ones.
It made her uneasy to consider what memories and feelings it might bring up.
The last time she was there, hundreds died, she’d been dragged against her will into that tower, terrified, and yet it had brought her… him.
“I’ll get the sword, and we can start the reforging when you get back from the dragon court.
If we want it to have both our magic in it, you’ll need to help me.
Have you ever worked in a forge or with weapons?
” It had been an age or two since she had done it herself but hopefully the skill would come back to her. Presco was good at it if she was rusty.
Katana grinned. “I have never made a sword, but I have made rings and other pieces of jewelry.”
And that told anyone everything they would need to know about how different they were.