“You,” he managed, blood staining his gums above yellowing teeth, his lips dry and cracking. “How does it feel to reap everything my family has sown, you traitorous whore.”
Garin immediately sank onto his haunches, a snarl ripping from his throat, but Lilac was quicker. She gave way to her reflexes, everything about that night barreling into her like stone meeting stone?—
The estate. The letters—the countless,relentlessletters sent after he’d thrown his tantrum about not besting Lilac at wooden swords. Encountering him again with his hand up an unwilling maid’s shirt near the chapel on the eve of her fifteenth birthday, and it being the very reason she’d gone downstairs to the kitchen and met Freya in the first place.
Watching him brand Garin across the face with his flame-steeped sword.
His hands clawing at her body thrashing in the dirt, violently forcing her legs open with his knees?—
She charged through, shoving Myrddin aside and readying her dagger—she didn’t care if it didn’t kill, stabbing him repeatedly would bring hermuchjoy—and sank it into him all the way to the hilt, until they were body to body.
They were close enough to kiss.
Sinclair’s expression stilled. Then, his mouth opened, his eyes rolled back to the whites—and dark smoke poured out of his throat. His body began to tremble and hiss.
Horrified, Lilac glanced down at her hands.
The dagger was gone. In its place an onyx hilt laid with rubies and glowing firestone. She put her foot against his chest and yanked it out.
Sinclair fell to the ground in a thud, his chest cavity still smoking with the smell of burnt flesh.
Out came a double-edged blade, its fuller laced with haphazard patternsof crimson and magma—pulsing ember that moved beneath its reflective surface like molten stone. The metal itself wasn’t nearly as bright as the alloy of its former shape, as if it were cloaked in starlight itself.
Her hand shook, but she didn’t want to drop it and risk setting the castle ablaze. Lilac slowly turned—Garin’s mouth hung open as he watched her. Piper cowered behind him, and Myrddin stood there with his arms crossed, looking pleased and only a little surprised. “Fascinating,” was all he remarked.
“What is this, Myrddin?” Garin demanded.
“It holds many names—Dawnshard to the Anglo-Saxons.Pòh Chyu Jéin its commissioned tongue of origin. Tanvalan, most commonly, in our own language of the Old Isles.”
“Tanvalan,” Lilac mouthed, turning to the warlock.
“A fire blade,” Myrddin said simply.
“Have you known this whole time? A weapon like that is dangerous in the wrong hands,” Garin hissed.
Mesmerized, Lilac watched the sword begin to crack; starting at the tip, the molten patterns grew, began to swallow it whole, until the glowing red crept toward the hilt.
She yelped and dropped it. Its dormant form, glistening and bright silver, landed upon the grass.
“The Dawnshard transforms in times of dire need for its wielder, otherwise merely vibrating in warning when those with deadly intent are nearby. Its victims will never perish of its own accord.” Myrddin motioned to her. “Do those look like the wrong hands to you?”
“So it’s always glamoured?” Lilac asked, the blade somehow heavier at her hip now.
“Not glamoured,” Myrddin answered with the ghost of a smile. “Simply changed. A magical metamorphosis, wrought by the catalyst of fate. Sometimes, it’s an ornate paperweight most will mistake as a thing of beauty. Sometimes, it is an arcane blade tempered with phoenix fire. Most of the time, it’s simply a guiding light—protection from the most fatal danger. Only its true, rightful owner can summon its power at will.”
Their attention was pulled by a louder sloshing, then. Lilac’s heart stilled as the bubbling at the center of the lake began to spread.
Garin gazed nervously at the water. “Get us back, Myrddin.Now.”
The lightitself remained stationary, but the movement expanded outward—waves and bubbles—until the entire lake came alive. She skittered forward and snatched the Dawnshard, sliding it back into her sheath just as water sloshed onto the bank.
“Whose blood has been spilled?” echoed a booming, wet voice, bouncing off the bailey walls, both within her skull—and without.
The four of them backed slowly away from the mouth of the pool.
Lilac shot a terrified look at Myrddin, who ushered her forward.
“Tell him,” Myrddin prompted through his teeth.
