Chapter 33 #2
Neil wanted to put his mouth there.
He tore his gaze from Constance’s breasts, searching for anywhere else that he could look—anywhere that wouldn’t end up with him reaching for the fasteners on her damnable trousers.
His eyes fell on the flaming sword in his hand—which had been driven several inches into the wall.
Neil’s brain struggled to absorb it. How could the sword be in the wall?
The thought solidified, becoming stark.
The sword is in the bloody wall.
Panic sparked through him, and Neil let go of the hilt.
The temple plunged into complete, utter darkness.
He could feel the puff of Constance’s surprised breath against the open collar of his shirt. In the darkness, her heat, her touch—the sound of her clothing sliding against her skin as she adjusted her position—were all amplified into an exquisite torture.
“Stuffy,” she said carefully. “Why did you put out the light?”
Neil swallowed thickly. “I’ll fix it.”
He made himself reach out through the blackness. His hand remembered well enough where it needed to go. His fingers brushed against the bone hilt, and he made himself clasp it once again.
The sword flared back to life.
Constance’s grip on his shoulder tightened. “Neil, why is your sword halfway through the wall?”
“It must have fallen into a… a seam in the rock.”
Constance’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. She disentangled herself from Neil’s body to give the elaborately carved stone surface a better look. “There’s no seam, Stuffy. There’s only a slice in the middle of these carvings—right where your sword went in.”
Neil’s horrified thoughts shot back to a severed branch on the ground the night before—and earlier, to the slice in the column of the garden pavilion in Nandapur.
The three incidents wove together into a conclusion that held all the reasonableness of pure logic… except that it was impossible and entirely horrifying.
Neil took a half step away—which was as far as he could get without letting go of the hilt and losing the light again. “Ha ha ha. But that would be… You can’t possibly be suggesting…”
“Pull it out,” Constance ordered.
Neil was suddenly very uncomfortable with where this was going to lead.
He forced himself to draw back the sword.
It slid from the stone without a breath of friction. Neil stared at the flaming metal with a rising sense of horror.
Constance faced him with an air of unmitigated challenge and pointed to the wall. “Stick it back in. Someplace new.”
Neil laughed nervously. “Connie, you can’t possibly be suggesting…”
“Put the sword in the stone, Stuffy.”
Neil didn’t want to do it. But what possible reason could he give for refusing?
He slowly drove Dyrnwyn’s flaming point forward. It slid into the surface as though the rock were made of butter.
Terror and dismay iced his veins.
“Well, that settles that,” Constance concluded cheerfully. “Your sword can cut through stone.”
“But that’s impossible.”
“You are doing it right now,” Constance reasonably countered.
Neil yanked the blade from the wall.
Once again, it came out without a whisper of resistance. Where it had been, a perfect slice marred the space below a bas-relief carving of a set of dancers.
Constance looked dangerously thoughtful. “Have you tried cutting through anything else?”
“No!” Neil burst out quickly. “I mean, possibly it cut through part of a tree. But that was… It might simply have been…”
Constance’s expression twisted with mingled horror and intrigue. “Could it cut through a person?”
Neil blanched. “I fervently hope that I never have any reason to find that out. But none of this makes any sense! Dyrnwyn is only supposed to flame! That’s the story—when anyone well-born or worthy holds it, it lights on fire!”
“Aren’t there other old stories about swords that can cut through anything they like?”
“Of course there are,” Neil retorted automatically. “There’s Durandal, the sword of Roland. And the Juuchi Yusamo of Muramasa. Tyrfing, the blade of Odin’s grandson Svafrlami, was said to be able to—”
“Well, there you are,” Constance concluded.
“But no one ever said anything like that about Dyrnwyn!”
Constance eyed him cannily. “Didn’t you tell me once that the king who owned it kept offering it to people, only none of them wanted to take it because of the sword’s great power?”
“Rhydderch the Generous,” Neil mumbled uncomfortably.
“A sword that just lights up isn’t really that intimidating—certainly not as scary as lopping off one of your own limbs with it by accident.”
Neil still held the flaming sword in his hand. He froze. “That isn’t helpful.”
“I’m sure you aren’t going to cut your own legs off,” Constance quickly assured him. “It’s not as though you’re swinging the thing around in battles.”
Neil fought for a way to refute Constance’s confident theory. “If it’s capable of slicing through anything it touches, why didn’t it cut through my sword when Julian was fighting me with it back in Egypt?”
Constance smirked. “You must be more worthy than he was.”
Neil’s palm was sweating. His skin felt slick against the bone of the hilt. He would very much like to put the sword down and walk away from it forever. “But I’m not some mighty mythical warrior! I’m just a… a weak-kneed academic!”
Constance glared at him imperiously. “You are quite a bit more than that, Neil Fairfax.”
Neil wanted to protest, but it wouldn’t be fair to Constance. Her opinions mattered to him—even if they were opinions about him.
A question tinged with desperation came out instead. “What on earth am I supposed to do with it, Connie?”
Her gaze softened. “I think you’ll know when you’re ready.” Her expression brightened with delighted inspiration. “But right now, you can use it to slice our way out of this room!”
“I can?”
Constance waved her hands at the pile of rubble that imprisoned them. “Stuffy—it cuts through stone.”
“Oh. Oh!” He stared at the flaming blade in his hand. For the first time, he saw it not just as an object of vague terror, but as something that might actually be useful.
Constance grasped his shoulders, turning him toward the slab of fallen gallery that blocked their way out. “Start from the top,” she instructed authoritatively. “So there’s less chance of the rest of the gallery coming down on top of us.”
“What?!” Neil protested, his voice rising with alarm.
“Quickly, Stuffy!” Constance urged impatiently. “We have an astra to save!”