“You would die.”
I barked a laugh. “I won’t.”
“You think to tell Lord Death that you will not die?” But the way he said it, pinning me down with a dark, expectant gaze, made me feel as if he were goading me. I believed—no,knew, somehow—that I could do it. Hadn’t I once already?
“You believe your stubbornness a good quality,” he said softly, as if reading my mind. “But even now it is blocking you and putting you into danger. You cannot pass this trial. You have power, but you do not have the vision.”
“Then teach me,” I pleaded. I felt lower than the ground to beg like I was, but I did not want to leave. He had stirred a longing in me for life, for hope, for the idea of wielding my own power. He’d hung before me the idea that I could find my sister again and now I could think of nothing else but my desperation.
“I cannot teach you this. It must be unlocked from within, for it reveals your capacity. Even ones greater than you have failed and died in the attempt.”
I found his gaze and met it, head high as I spoke what I knew above all else to be true. “I would rather die in the attempt than go back to the life I had. There is no place for me there.”
Silence fell between us. The only thing that seemed to breathe was the flicker of the candles along the walls and on his desk.
Finally, he stood and closed the book with a nod. “So be it.”
Satisfaction rippled through my chest like a wave of warmth.
He rose and plucked a great ring of keys out of his desk drawer.
“Now?” I asked, rather stupidly.
“Unless you have changed your mind.” His gaze betrayed nothing—no hope, but also no judgment.
“I’m ready,” I said firmly and followed him into the hall.
Darkness had fallen, and the torches were all lit, though they didn’t do much to break the impenetrable darkness. He moved like a long brushstroke of ink, but with each step the large ring of keys clinked at his side.
You see what you expect to see. I kept blinking and straining my eyes—but on every turn down the labyrinth of hallways, there were only more leaves and crumbling stones and broken glass. All I could see was an absolute ruin.
He led me to a small door, arched and cut into the stone. With one of his great keys half-turned in the lock, he turned over his shoulder, his voice as cold as a winter wind, but gentle, as if it couldn’t help itself that it was freezing. “This is your last chance to turn back. You will die if you fail.”
“All are born to die,” I said, my courage mostly bolstered by desperation.
I hoped, deep down, that he would offer me advice or give me some last-minute instruction, but he did not. He turned the key and opened the door.
I peered past him into the dark, my heart racing in anticipation. But it was only an empty room, barely large enough for a cot. “What is this?” I asked.
“Your trial.” He pulled something from his tunic and stepped inside the room.
I hesitated at the threshold. Then followed.
In the center of the empty floor, he placed an hourglass onto the stone. As soon as he removed his hand, the sand began to trickle. “If this runs out before you complete the trial, you will die.”
“What do I need to do?” I asked, eyeing the hourglass—even to me, a novice, it seemed clearly magical. It was made of a strange metal, and a soft green glow filled the room. My heart thumped so loudly in my throat I was afraid he would hear.
He leaned in close, the smell of rich decaying black walnuts enveloping me. Despite everything he’d said to the contrary, I felt as if he would kiss me—and then felt foolish when he did not.
“Ex nihilo,” he breathed. With no other instruction or encouragement, he pulled the door shut, and the key turned in the lock with a terrible click of finality. In the dark, the strange metal of the hourglass cast its eerie green light across my skin and the stones.
Ex nihilo.Something from nothing. My mind felt slow and clumsy, pushing past my thirst and hunger to make sense of the command. It took much too long to realize he expected me to create something out of this bare and empty room.
I had no idea how to do such a task. This was not reaching into the corner of a chicken coop for eggs for Dacia. The conversation with Death played over in my head, garbled and confusing. The room was so small and oppressive it felt akin to that terrible coffin. The urge to scream rose in my throat. But if I started screaming, all would truly be lost. To calm myself, I focused on the glow of the hourglass. Symbols, odd and arcane, were etched into it, converging in a circular pattern, and I studied them carefully, but they revealed nothing on how to pass this trial.
Taking a deep breath, I turned my gaze to the room. The stones and the mortar and the hourglass were already something. But otherwise, it was swept clean. There was nothing on the floor or walls.
But if I could put somethingontonothing …
