Chapter 26 #2
Eventually they came to a set of carved steps that was very different from other areas of the underground labyrinth.
Everywhere else, the rock formations were natural and uneven.
Here, things were smooth and polished like marble.
Transparent crystals in the walls danced in the light of many candles, creating a flurry of reflections.
It was lovely, and Helaina found it hard to look away.
In the middle of the elegance was a stone pillar, a simple ivory dagger resting on top. No jewels or lavish embellishments, only a milk-white blade.
“What is that?”
The moment the question left her lips, she felt a presence behind her.
“The bone dagger.” She didn’t want to turn and face him, the owner of that low voice. “It can be your salvation, if you stop fighting us every damned step of the way.”
Helaina instinctively put a palm on the blade at her hip.
“Why is she armed?” Theodon growled.
Manos shrugged. “She wouldn’t come otherwise.”
“Did she eat at least, or did she argue that point as well?” Theodon asked him.
“Quit talking about me like I’m not here.” She didn’t want to acknowledge him, but his dominating behavior was beyond frustrating. She heard him move closer. With every step he took, the feeling down her spine intensified, like a group of caterpillars were crawling underneath her skin.
From the side she could see Manos nodding the confirmation that she in fact had eaten her meal. Why did he care? It wasn’t for her own well-being, she was certain. They wanted something from her and needed her able-bodied to get it, that was all.
“What does it do?” Helaina steered the conversation back to the strange dagger at the center of the room. There was something about it that was alive, a hum of a presence that wanted to make itself known.
Manos was eager to reply. “Every member of our army comes here as a mortal, and leaves a demigod because of that blade.” He gave a nod in Theodon’s direction, something like gratitude crossing his face. “Brahm entrusted it to Theo in the beginning.”
“So Brahm made it?” It was a reasonable guess—a primordial deity could make relics of great power.
“No, not Brahm. It is written that the first god to ever exist carved the blade from his own ribs. A god whose name was lost with time. How Brahm came to own it is a story before our time, long before Lynor was created. Taking your life with that dagger offers your soul a path, not to the ether, not to the six. When it penetrates mortal flesh, it becomes a beacon. Your ancestral god calls your soul to their own realm, to offer you a trial. If you pass, you are deemed worthy, and they send you back, no longer mortal but like us.”
Helaina swallowed. “What if you fail the trial?”
Manos’s eyes turned glassy. “You don’t come back.”
Helaina’s head shook back and forth in disbelief. “But if Brahm gave it to Theodon, that would mean he was there—”
“In the beginning, yes,” Theodon finished for her.
He wasn’t just old. Their leader was ancient.
Something in her memory connected—something he’d said while she was nearly bleeding to death.
After you become what I need, then you can die.
“You want me to use it?” she breathed out. “That’s why you took me.”
“When you’re ready, yes. Your curse has given you power in your mortal body. If you pass Ures’s trial, you could come back untouchable.”
Helaina made a mocking sound, like he’d told a bad joke. His face remained serious.
“You’re not kidding?”
“Not even a little.”
“Why would you make something like me—something meant to destroy—even stronger?”
Theodon’s tone was gruff as he answered. “Because the trial would give you complete control. We could use you to end the attacks coming from the east, instead of leaving you to the one who made you.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. My bloodline is traced back to Ures—he made me.”
Theo shook his head. “You share the War God’s blood, but it’s the Death God that cursed you.”
Helaina felt her whole body turn to ice. “What did you say?”
Manos looked to Theodon. “She doesn’t know.”
Manos turned back to her. It was like he was staring straight through her as he cleared his throat, then recited, “And with this curse I will bestow upon your world a soul eclipsed in moonlight. A forever shadow to block out the light. A forever sickness to plague the land.”
He was speaking of her prophecy. Although she had never heard it phrased quite like that before.
There was only one part her people feared: a soul eclipsed in moonlight.
The fae king had reminded them of that prophecy the day he came.
He had told her family her eyes were a symbol of the destruction ahead, that she was that soul.
Their solution was to hide her away the rest of her childhood, silently hoping none of it would come to pass.
“Those eyes of yours look strangely similar to the moon when it blocks out the sun, that one day when our realm is left in complete darkness. Whose day of praise lands on every solar eclipse, Helaina?”
Her eyes widened with realization. “The Death God.”
Valhoor.
Theo’s scowl deepened.
“It’s his prophecy. His curse lives inside you,” Manos explained.