Chapter 26 Kasira #2
Iylis circled them with his back curved defensively. “It’s a relic, much like Lord Allaster’s bow and quiver. An artifact of ancient power.”
Allaster reached for the tip of the wrapping, and Iylis let out another warning hiss. “I will not suffer more secrets about this place,” he told the leopard.
Iylis lifted his snout with an air of distaste. “Fine, do as you wish. You never do listen to me.” He stalked back toward the couch, tail twitching.
“He seems … grumpier than usual,” Kasira noted.
“Someone probably broke a cup.” Allaster began to unwrap the covering, revealing a smooth, metal blade the color of onyx. The curved edge had the sharpness of a beast’s claws, every inch of it as pristine as the day it had been forged. No nicks, no scratches, as though it had never seen battle.
As Allaster removed the last of the linen, the cloth began squirming in his hand. He released it in surprise, and it instantly rewrapped itself about the hilt, pulling taut, save for a scant foot that fluttered of its own accord.
Kasira’s eyes widened with delight. “Well, might as well see what it does.”
Allaster straightened with a frown. “This sword is a highly dangerous magical artifact and should not be—”
She teleported to the arena.
It was empty, the other mages already in the dining hall for dinner, which was probably for the best, considering Iylis had treated the sword like an Ayadese volcano about to erupt.
The relic made her uneasy too, but it also fascinated her, and she didn’t know what to make of no longer needing to hide her curiosity.
At the Library, she could be herself—and yet not at all.
Allaster arrived a second later, looking distinctly displeased, which was to say, like his normal self. He crouched to inspect the blade, his own interest clearly getting the better of him. “I’m starting to wonder if the linen is the actual artifact. It’s the only part acting strangely.”
“This entire thing is strange, even by Library standards.” Kasira settled her hand around the grip, stepping away from Allaster to take a few experimental swings.
The sword was far lighter than it should have been for a blade of its size, and yet she still felt a heft behind it when she struck.
She had the sudden impression that it would cut through anything.
“Do you hear that?” Allaster asked, causing her to nearly fumble the sword. “It makes a trilling noise when you swing.”
A noise that thankfully sounded nothing like “Kasira.” It was only his inability to hear her real name that made her comfortable even exploring the relic. She swung it again, and sure enough, a faint sound trailed it, as if the blade were singing.
“There’s something else about it,” she said. “It’s like what I feel when I use magic.”
“That’s because it is magic.” Allaster summoned his bow and quiver, setting the latter down as he nocked an arrow.
“I can assign a purpose to these arrows when I shoot them, like you saw with the Zeras. Simple commands work best, say, fire.” He released the arrow, and it zipped into the near wall.
Upon impact, the head burst into a flash of flame and burned out, leaving a familiar scorch mark in its wake.
She thrust a finger at it. “You burned the wall in my room!”
Scarlet tinted his olive skin, and he muttered, “Mora didn’t think I was ready to wield a relic yet and I disagreed, so I practiced in the back rooms.”
She eyed him, trying to discern the emotion that had entered his voice at Mora’s name. “You don’t talk about her much,” she noted. “Your Librarian.”
“She wasn’t my Librarian.” He said it almost defensively, the flush in his cheeks remaining, but it was the ring he spun around his finger that really piqued her interest. Allaster only did that when he wasn’t telling her everything, and whenever she mentioned Mora’s name, his reaction was always severe.
Kasira didn’t know what to make of the emotion that wedged beneath her ribs each time the previous Librarian came up, the way her questions died like salt dissolving on her tongue.
Asking them would open doors she wasn’t prepared to walk through.
Besides, Allaster might trust her now, but she still had much to learn about him as a person, and understanding that would only make him all the easier to manipulate.
But if there was one thing she did know without a doubt, it was that no amount of pressing would get him to do something he didn’t want to.
Allaster cleared his throat. “Anyway, try accessing the relic’s magic the same way you would the Library’s. It should intuitively tell you what it’s capable of.”
Kasira reached into the magic thrumming from the sword, finding it quicker and more frantic than Amorlin’s lazy-river feel. The same way Gievra’s name had materialized in her mind, so too did a distinct knowledge, an urge to simply lift the blade and swing.
So she did.
An arc of sizzling energy spun off the blade, slamming into the far wall in a crunch of crumbling stone. Neither of them moved. Kasira gaped at the blade, which was still emitting a low, whining keen like a struck bell. The edge glowed faintly, then faded back to normal, the song dying with it.
There was a drawn-out moment of silence before Allaster said, “No. No way. Absolutely not. Give that to me.”
Kasira danced away from him. “It’s mine!”
“It belongs to the Library and therefore to me.” He lunged, one arm circling her waist.
She spun in his grasp and leaned back, the sword pinned between them. “You couldn’t even see it for a hundred years!”
At that, he faltered. His arm fell back to his side, the heat of his body going with it.
She didn’t know whether it was the simple truth that the Library had chosen her over him for something, or merely that this was a puzzle he couldn’t solve that contorted his face into a grimace, but she felt a spike of pity for him.
“You’re far too good at all of this,” he said at last. “It’s like you were born for it.”
She could have laughed at that. The only thing she had been born for was survival. Her presence here was sheer happenstance, a sequence of events so far out of her control, she no longer knew what it was to hold her life in her own hands.
“A Kal born to wield magic?” She gave him a wry smile. “You might as well say I was born to be damned.”
A cloud of consternation crept across his face. “You still believe that?”
She let the blade drop to her side. “I don’t know what to believe,” she replied and tried to ignore the way her stomach squirmed when she said it. “Anyway, it seems far more likely that I just have a good teacher.”
But even the compliment wasn’t enough to deter Allaster, who appeared to be taking the sword’s revelation as some sign of a personal failing.
“I’m not the only one who thinks it,” he insisted.
“May’s said more than once that you were fated to come here.
I said it was just good old-fashioned politics. ”
May had implied the same to Kasira on occasion, suggesting it was her destiny to join the Library, but Kasira had no love for fate or what it insinuated.
Was it fate that she had been cast into a life on the streets?
Fate that she had watched Loraya die so brutally?
Fate that had seen her locked in a space nearly too small to stand in for what had felt like a lifetime?
No. She had no use for empty platitudes like fate.
“It took me weeks to teleport successfully for the first time,” Allaster said wistfully. “I was aiming for the main library and ended up in the Eyrie with a K class creature that would have killed me if Mora hadn’t found me so quickly.”
“I did teleport myself a hundred feet up in the air.”
“On your first try.” He shook his head ruefully. “I don’t know why the magic responds to you the way it does, but … Well, I owe you an apology, Eirlana.”
There it was again—that name. It had meant nothing to her at first; now she couldn’t bear the sound of it. Why did it make her feel so hollow?
“You’ve proven yourself time and time again, and the Library has made itself quite clear,” Allaster continued, his voice soft in a way she had never heard it before.
And though the only light came from the ring of windows far above them, it caught in his eyes with a strange radiance, like the silver glow of a balestone.
A distant thought pulled at her, a warning, but she ignored it as he said, “Fate or luck or simple chance, I’m sorry I doubted you.”
Had the space between them always been so narrow, or had he moved? Why did she care where he stood anyway? Her hand curled tighter around the hilt of the sword, and she offered him an effortless smile that took all the acting aptitude she had. “Finally realized how incredible I am, have you?”
His head tilted, one corner of his lips quirking up. “Let’s see what that blade can really do.”
Several hours later, the arena walls were scarred and gouged and partially crumbling, but Kasira could control the strength of the energy arcs the sword released and aim them with relative precision.
They soon discovered the relic didn’t have an endless supply of magic.
She could only discharge the arc of energy a few times before the edge refused to glow, and she had to wait for it to recharge.
“That blade is physically impossible.” Allaster grunted as he took the force of it on the limb of his bow. They had been using the time in between recharges to spar. “You shouldn’t be able to swing it that fast.”
“Getting slow in your old age?” she teased.
In a blur of movement, Allaster swung behind her and seized the wrist of her empty hand, pinning it behind her back. Just like that, he had her trapped against his chest, his other arm about her throat in a careful caress.
His breath was warm against her neck as he murmured, “You were saying?”
Dismissing the sword, she hooked her leg behind his knee and threw her weight back, plunging them to the ground in a heap of sweat and limbs.
He groaned, dropping his head to the floor. “That was unnecessary.”
Rolling to her feet, she dusted off her uniform. “I win.”
She offered Allaster a hand and he took it, pulling himself up until they were chest to chest, close enough that she could see the faint freckles across the bridge of his nose, feel the cool touch of his rings against her skin.
She had the sudden, inane desire to run her thumb along the curve of his parted lips.
Instead she turned his hand, pressing a finger to one ring.
She expected him to snatch his hand away.
When he didn’t, letting it rest in her palm, their nearness took on a new weight.
She looked up into his eyes, still heated from the fight, and lost the words gathering on her tongue.
She’d known she had garnered Allaster’s trust, known he no longer saw her as an interloper.
But the way he was looking at her now—it was more than that.
She ought to pull away or else turn it to her advantage. Ought to use every little piece of him he gave her. But in that moment, she didn’t trust herself to speak.
“You asked about the rings …” Allaster began, almost as if he were summoning the words from the very depths of him. “They’re more than decoration. They’re a part of something much larger. I—”
“Allaster?” May’s voice rang through the arena, and the two of them shot apart. The First Mage stood in the entrance, a half smile on her lips that faded when she said, “Ambassador Vera is here.”
The heat in Kasira’s veins cooled into dismay. She had just passed an update to Vera through the new book. What was she doing here in person?
Kasira teleported with Allaster into the portal room, where the Kalthos door was lit. All traces of their earlier moment had faded, and she watched his expression transform into steel before he opened the door.
Ambassador Vera entered with two palace guards at her back, but it was the black-clad figure trailing them that immobilized Kasira like a pinned beast.
A fiendish grin spread across Commander Dessen’s lips. “Hello, Kasira.”