Chapter 45 #2
Taladaius held up a hand, turned palm up, and pointed at the dawn.
He closed his eyes again, and the sunlight bathed the angular planes of his face.
“One thousand . . . and sixty-three years, five months . . . three days . . .” His voice tapered to a whisper.
“That’s how long it’s been since I felt the sun on my face, Saeris.
If I’d gotten here an hour earlier, I would have done it.
I would have jumped.” He blinked his eyelids open, a stillness falling over him as he looked out at the water.
“But now?” A crooked, heartbroken smile hovered at the corners of his mouth.
“How can I consign myself to another endless dark when I’ve been given back the light? ”
I didn’t speak. What was I supposed to say?
The only thing I could do was take my friend’s hand.
We sat in silence for a long time. Eventually, I picked up the sword that he’d found and carried here, turning it over in my hands.
It was a pretty thing, narrow-bladed and elegant as a rapier.
Its razor-sharp edge was lethal. Something about it reminded me of Tal.
I knew what I had to do—knew that it would be right. With steady hands, I drew Erromar from its scabbard and held the god sword over the narrow sword.
There was no need for silver now. No need for jokes, or games, or bargains.
The quicksilver rune on the back of my hand blazed brilliant blue-white for a second, and then a bead of shining metal formed on the end of my short sword.
It rolled until it welled and dripped down onto the other blade and immediately sank into the metal.
Tal watched, his expression a little stunned. “What are you doing?”
Out of nowhere, pain zipped up my arm, sinking its teeth into my shoulder. I dropped the sword between us, shaking out my hand.
“What was that?”
“That,” I said, a little disgruntled, “was a warning. I held it too long. And you know as well as I do that a god sword may only be held by the warrior it chooses to wield it.”
I tried not to laugh at the surprise that flashed over Tal’s face. He pointed at the sword. “You’re not . . . serious? That’s a god sword now? That’s all it took?”
I shrugged. “A bit of borrowed quicksilver from my blade. A little bit of magic. An abundance of good intentions.”
The former vampire looked lost for words. “And it’s for me?”
“Yes, it’s for you.”
“What am I supposed to do with it?”
“I’d recommend you start by picking it up.”
“But what . . . if it doesn’t choose me? What if it doesn’t think I’m worthy?”
“You are, Tal.”
“But—”
“You are.”
He stared at me long and hard, the muscles in his jaw twitching.
And then he picked up the sword. Breathing fast, he ran his finger along its edge, donating a token amount of his own blood so that the sword might judge him.
I saw the moment that the quicksilver began whispering to him: He started a little, his shoulders tensed, and his eyes darted to me as he listened.
Whatever it said to him, it wasn’t for me to hear.
Tal’s fingers closed around the sword’s hilt, holding it tight. A claiming, then. He and the god sword were one.
“What’s its name?” I asked. This was becoming something of a ritual—one I enjoyed more than I could explain.
Tal let out a long, shaky breath, considering the sword. “Tarsarinn,” he said. “It means . . . redemption.”
I grinned at that. Couldn’t help myself, despite everything. “Fitting. I like it.”
Tal then asked the same question Carrion had after he’d bonded with Simon. “And . . . will it have magic? Like Avisiéth and your short swords?”
I bumped him with my shoulder. “I can’t tell you that, I’m afraid.
That is between you and the gods. As for everything else, I’m not arrogant enough to declare that we’re fighting on the side of right.
I hope we are, but your precious fates are going to have to be the judges of that.
Either way, right or wrong, from now on, Tal, you’ll always be fighting with us. ”
The former Keeper of Secrets to the Blood Court of Sanasroth smiled.
“Tell me what you meant.” It wasn’t a request. I gouged my fingernails into my palms, knuckles blanching white behind my back as I fought to look relaxed.
We’d left Orellis’s home. She had other friends who needed the shelter far more than we did.
Neighbors who’d lost their homes. Caustic though she was, Danya was an excellent leader.
The warriors respected her. She had spearheaded the logistics required to set up camp on the outskirts of Inishtar and had already put everyone to work, finding supplies to help repair or rebuild the damaged township as best they could.
Everlayne was safe there, bundled up in a tent with Te Léna watching over her.
The rest of us had been about various tasks throughout the town, helping where we could.
The explosions that had rocked the hillside during the battle had caused untold damage.
Inishtar’s healing center and its town hall had been targeted.
The cause of the explosions was still a mystery, but the locations where they took place?
Well, the reasoning behind why those buildings had been chosen was obvious.
Without a town hall, it was harder for Inishtar’s people to gather and regroup.
Without its healing center, the injured populace had nowhere to go to receive help that might save their lives.
Along with the town’s officials, Foley and Maynir were sifting through the debris at the town hall, helping to recover whatever important documentation they could lay their hands on.
Lorreth, Carrion, Iseabail, Hayden, and I had been doing the same at the healing center, hoping to salvage supplies, but the structure of the building had been drastically compromised.
We’d fled the center in the nick of time, only seconds before the roof had come crashing down.
Since then, Carrion, Hayden, and Iseabail had been playing some sort of game with a crew of adolescent fauns in the town square, kicking a ball around and trying to score points against each other.
By the sounds of things, the fauns were roundly beating them.
Lorreth and I stood together on the sagging stone steps that had once led up to the town hall, watching the game, though neither of us were actually seeing it.
Lorreth threw the piece of stone he’d been fiddling with, deep lines of concern carved between his brows.
“I spoke out of turn, Saeris. I shouldn’t have.
Fisher was right. The suggestion I was going to make back in the drawing room was mad.
It wouldn’t have worked. You should pretend I never said anything. ”
I was going to fucking scream. Any second now, my fury and frustration would explode out of me, and I wouldn’t be able to stop it.
A cyclone of panic, fear, and desperation whipped around me, invisible to everyone else.
I stood at the eye of a storm, fighting to stay calm, but I was losing my grip.
Maybe I could hold on for another hour. I was damn well going to try, but the way things were going, I only had minutes before my panic knocked my feet out from underneath me and I became unreasonable.
“Fisher was going to explain it to me. He promised he would. You heard him make that promise. So now I need you to keep that promise for him, Lorreth.”
“He’s not gone off on some harebrained suicide mission without you, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“That’s exactly what I’m thinking. That’s what he did at Gillethrye. He left me in Ballard and went off alone to save Everlayne by himself. Remember that?”
Lorreth’s frown deepened. “You’re making this very difficult, y’know?”
“Good. That’s what I’m aiming for.”
The warrior sat down heavily on the steps, collecting another handful of rubble. He began tossing them one at a time down the steps. “He can’t have gone off to enact that plan, Saeris. He would have needed you. There’s no way he could have done it without you.”
“Perfect. Then, if he definitely hasn’t gone off to carry out this impossible plan, you should have no problem telling me what it was.”
Down in the square, Carrion let out a shout, performing a victory lap with his hands in the air after scoring a point against the fauns.
I could hear Lorreth’s teeth grinding from ten feet away. “The problem, Saeris, is that you could carry out the impossible plan without him, and I’m very concerned that you might get it into your head that it’s a good idea—”
“I promise you I won’t.”
The warrior shot me a complicated look. “You’ll forgive me, sister, but you aren’t exactly Oath Bound.”
Selanir was in my hand before he’d finished the sentence—the sword named Honor.
I went to the warrior and held it out for him to see as I dropped down and closed my hand around the blade.
My blood ran down Selanir’s edges and dripped the sword’s point onto the stone next to Lorreth.
“I promise,” I said. “I swear I will not act upon whatever you tell me now, unless it’s with Fisher’s explicit knowledge and help. ”
Lorreth stared down at the blood I had shed.
“Are you satisfied?” I asked.
He took a deep breath and began to speak.
When he was done, I understood. It was an impossible plan.
A terrifying one. I’d needed to hear it, though.
Without knowing what I knew now, I would never have been able to put it out of my mind.
I would have assumed that my mate had gone off without me again with the intention of saving me and the rest of the realm by himself.
The thought would have eaten me alive. Now that I knew that wasn’t the case .
. . I didn’t feel any better. If Fisher had gone off on some ridiculous mission, I could have gone after him.
Now I had no idea where he was or what he was doing, which made my insides fucking boil.