Beyond the Shadows

“Thank you, Holy One.” Neph had only days to figure out the magic necessary, but with Iures in hand, he might depose more than Dorian.

“The latest ones approach,” Khali said. “Bring them in.”

Neph went outside and gestured to the Soulsworn. There were six young women chained together standing with them, and they all looked terrified. Khali’s potential hosts were all peasant girls. Neph’s men hadn’t had much to choose from in this wilderness. Neph led them inside. They were surprised that the goddess was a drooling young man. Perhaps they’d expected claws and fangs. Neph studied the girls as they studied Khali. Four were either ugly or plain. Khali hated ugliness. Two were pretty, but Neph could See that one had been raped—against Neph’s explicit orders. He would kill someone for that. Khali wanted any violation of Her host to come at Her own hands. The other girl was even prettier, with big brown eyes and radiant skin, but she was disfigured with scars.

“What’s your name, child?” Khali asked the scarred one.

“Elene Cromwyll . . .  uh, Mistress.”

“Would you like to live forever, Elene?”

The girl’s big eyes filled with such longing that even Neph couldn’t help but pity her. “More than anything,” Elene said.

80

Feir was standing at a table in Ezra’s secret workroom under Black Barrow with a polishing cloth in his hand. He wasn’t polishing the blade. He’d polished it a dozen times already, and it didn’t need polishing in the first place.

“It’s finished,” he said aloud. “Except for one thing.” Feir unveiled the sword. His fraud was nearly Ceur’caelestos’ twin. He had held Ceur’caelestos, had marveled at it, had studied every whorl in the patterns of the mistarille. The heads of twin dragons were etched in either side of his blade, facing the tip, dragons of sun and moon, in accordance with Ceuran mythology. The blade had a single edge, curving slightly to give it more cutting surface. The thicker spine of the blade was to give it strength, the flexible iron core compensating for the sharp, hard fragility of the steel edge. This blade’s form was pure show. It was mistarille, and it wouldn’t break even if a man stood on the side of the blade and the wielder lifted it. Despite its incredible strength, Ceur’caelestos was lighter than it should have been. The mistarille, folded and refolded like steel, had the same steel patterns Ceur’caelestos’ blade had borne. The difference between the original and Feir’s fraud was that the original held the “fires of heaven.” In response to danger or magic or its wielder’s mood, the dragons could breathe what looked like fire out to the tip of the blade.

Feir knew the weaves to duplicate that, now. What he didn’t have was a heartstone to hold the weaves. Certain stones resonated with different frequencies of magic. A ruby resonated with fire magics, specifically those having to do with red and orange light. If a stone was pure enough and exactly the right size, which varied by weave, a resonance could be built that sustained itself. This was nearly always imperfect, which was one reason magic imbued in items failed after a time. Feir needed as perfect a ruby as possible to be the dragon’s heart.

“This part was supposed to be simple,” Feir said. Even his own voice was depressing. “The prophecy was ‘The greatest red gives dragon’s heart and head.’” The greatest red had to be a big ruby, a heartstone, but placed at the dragon’s head on the sword.

Feir had done a dozen impossible things over the course of the winter. With the barest of clues he’d been given in his time in Ezra’s Wood, he’d come to Black Barrow and found the secret tunnel to this room. He’d found the magically hardened gold tools. He’d avoided the hundreds of Vürdmeisters who shared the shadowed city with him and found seven broken mistarille swords. He’d discovered Ezra’s notes—a treasure any Maker would give his right arm to read. By all the gods, Feir had learned to reforge mistarille! He’d made the most beautiful fraud in history.

But he couldn’t find a red rock.

“Could any other smith now living make this?” Antoninus Wervel asked, his voice low.

Feir shrugged. Antoninus waited. Feir gave in. “No.”

Antoninus picked up the blade reverently, and in spite of himself, Feir was warmed. Antoninus wasn’t a Maker himself, but he appreciated the mastery required for what Feir had done. He turned the blade over, examining it. “I thought you put your crossed war hammers on it.”

In a moment of vanity—well, two hours of vanity—Feir had etched his smithmark near the hilt. As a boy, he’d loved the stories about Oren Razin, one of Jorsin’s champions. Feir had been the only person he knew who could even think of wielding two war hammers as Oren had. Later, he’d mostly given it up. It was a lot easier to find someone to train you with swords. “It’s not much of a forgery if you put your name on it. It’s still there, but you have to know how to uncover it.”

“You should be proud, Feir. You’ve made a thing of beauty.”

“Without the dragon’s heart, I’ve made nothing.”

81

What troubles you, my king? You’ve been fondling that rock for two days,” Kaede said.

Solon pulled her into his lap and cupped her breast. “Only when you don’t let me fondle better things.”

“You beast!” she said, but she didn’t pull away. “I’m serious.”

The first days of their marriage had been bliss, except for the rock. Kaede’s repentance at ordering him to subdue the Takedas by himself had led her to make all the wedding preparations. The very night Solon had arrived they had been married. Kaede refused to wait until later in the spring when the outlying nobles could attend. She said if they were offended, she would threaten to send her Stormrider to “visit” their isles.

But there were only so many hours a day that could be absorbed with lovemaking—though Solon and Kaede were doing their best—and that left Solon with time to consider the rock.

“I told you a little about my friend Dorian,” Solon said. “And his prophecy over me.”

“Something about killing your brother and a kingdom falling, right?”

Solon pulled back his white and black hair. “There’s nothing quite as infuriating as having a man in a trance lay out your future in a sing-song: ‘Storm-riving, storm-riding, by your word—or silence—a brother king lies dead. Two fears deriding, hope and death colliding, of the sword’s man, regal third, true lies in your dragon’s heart—or head. The north broken and remade on your single word.’”

Kaede looked puzzled. “Well, you got the storm-riding part.”

“And before you ask, no, I didn’t name myself that. I used to have no idea about the rest of it, except the brother king part. If I came home, I would have rallied the nobles to stop my brother Sijuron, thus my words would have left him dead. As it was, I served a man named Regnus Gyre, a man who would have been king and was like a brother to me. I didn’t tell him I was a mage, and on learning it, he barred me from his company and was slain. The last part never made any sense to me, I only saw one king in the first part of the prophecy, my brother, so I thought Dorian was raving.”