Before the worry could fully form, three excited men burst through the door. Tolek, Malakai, and Cypherion stumbled to a halt across the table from us, eager grins on their faces.
“I don’t like those smiles,” I muttered.
Shutting her book, Erista disagreed, “I’m a bit curious.”
“We figured something out,” Tolek said, the three of them looking among one another. Spirits, why did this feel so similar to the time when we were fifteen and they’d schemed up a plan to sneak bottles from my parents’ liquor supply?
“What is it?” I asked.
And they launched into details, each interjecting over the other. About Tolek’s sword in Banix and Cypherion’s scythe. About Bant’s attack and injuring Thorn and the trove and murals Damien had painted in the Revered’s Palace?—
“He pointed those out to me,” I said, recalling the Angel’s words. “Many times. He’d always seemed a bit…sad over them.”
All three of them nodded, Cypherion saying, “What if he wasn’t sad, but eager for you to figure it out?”
“Eager?” Erista echoed, engrossed in their theory now.
“Trying to hint to you,” Malakai added.
“Because he didn’twantEchnid to be free,” Tolek suggested. “What if he was worried, and that was why he kept pointing you toward those murals?”
“What are you saying?” I asked warily. Damien’s betrayals still stung so fresh, a wound that not only struck me but dug itself into the Mystiques as a whole. I wouldn’t forgive it easily. Not with my people at risk.
Tolek read that unease and stepped around the table, sinking into the seat beside mine. “What if thereisa way for a mortal warrior to kill a god,apeagna? With a blade imbued by a sacred source of power from Gallantia?”
I looked to Erista. “Unable to fall to that which they created,” I repeated.
“Theoretically,” she answered, pursing her lips, “the combination of that much ether could be greater than anything made on this world.”
“When I was researching in Damenal,” Malakai said, “I found a book that spoke of a godly war on another world. Of how the people had killed the tyrant with a particular weapon that exposed its fatal flaw, one from the god’s own trove.”
My jaw popped open, and Erista gasped. “How did you even find that book?” She waved a hand over the table. “I’ve been having to piece together small tidbits about the gods from the books here.”
“Maybe someone put it there,” Malakai said pointedly.
“But imbuing weapons at that level is a rare practice,” Erista challenged. “The stories always say that it’s highly regulated and thetrueblades—not just ones dipped in your Spirit Volcano or forged with resins but those containing raw, powerful magic—are difficult to come by.”
“All the more reason this could be it,” Tolek said.
The words sank into my spirit, some wild, desperate tangle of hope and fear emerging. I didn’t want to allow myself to imagine it was true, but Angels, if it was? The chance this could provide.
In my mind, I plunged a blade into Echnid’s heart.
His godly blood spilled across my hands, and I relished the heat of it.
I watched existence fade from his eyes, his form wither to nothing but mist.
The poison he’d plied me with sang within my own veins at even the mere consideration. The revenge I sought for him using me, the safety I wanted to instill across the continent. This could be the way to all of it.
But—
“It still sounds too simple,” I admitted. “And Damien…”
Tolek smiled softly, as if understanding why that possibility frightened me so much. He cupped my cheeks, and a sharp vengeance bit through his words. “None of this has been simple,apeagna. Perhaps it’s time we finally started studying Echnid’s fears to turn this game on him.”
My spirit warmed at how he always saw the light when I was shrouded by the darkness around us. I longed to share that way of thinking, but I hesitated.
My eyes flashed to Malakai. “You think it’s true?”
