Page 136 of Demon Touched

“You understand the basics of the collateral,” Strickland says. “But there’s a lot more to it. You’ll see soon enough.” He gives me a look that seems a mix of eagerness and apprehension. “Even most of the Assembly has never seen what I’m going to show you.”

“Right,” I say. “Because you need my help with something?” It’s a guess, even if it’s hard to imagine the leader of Pax needing anything from me. I just hope that whatever it is doesn’t involve him pumping me for information about Syrus or Infernum, or even Aradis. Or why his questions require us to head toward what I’m increasingly sure is the collateral.

“Yes,” Strickland says simply as we move through a chamber that has several doors leading off it. He moves toward the one opposite, lifting a key of his own from a chain around his neck and fitting it into the lock.

What lies beyond is a grand hall, with an arched ceiling made out of the same stone that forms the foundations of the Assembly building. There aren’t any windows or lanterns, but it’s not entirely dark either. A white light is shining from a plinth at one end, dimly illuminating the space. Strickland pulls a box of matches down from a shelf right by the door anyway, striking one.

“That light over there is the Heart of Dawn—also called the Dawnheart,” he says, nodding toward the plinth. He begins to light the candles positioned around the edge of the chamber. “Go, look at it if you want.”

I cautiously approach the light. It’s coming from a smooth crystal orb about the size of a grapefruit. It brightens as I get closer, glimmering a little more fiercely. I glance toward Strickland. He’s watching me closely, but nods in encouragement when I catch his eye.

I stop beside the plinth, studying the gleaming light swirling in the center of the orb. Now I’m this close, I can hear that it’s also emitting a low hum.

“The Heart of Dawn is one of Aradis’s oldest artifacts,” Strickland says, crossing the room to light the candles on the other side. As he does, I notice a second plinth that was hidden in shadow before, supporting a box. “Not quite as old as the realm itself, but almost. It’s said that it holds the light of the first dawn that ever broke upon Aradis.”

I blink at him, the idea sounding absurd. “And how would someone go about capturing a dawn in an orb?”

He smiles. “Apparently, the ephilium’s ancestors joined their voices together to sing the memory of it, and the power of their song captured some of the light into stone. That hum you hear?”

I nod; the sound has gotten slightly louder since I’ve been standing here.

“That’s the echo of the ancestors’ voices,” Strickland says. “The stone’s power is purported to be able to light any darkness.”

He sets the box of matches back on the side table and comes to join me.

“According to ephilium predictions, if the orb is broken, it will bring a period of terrible darkness upon Aradis.”

“Hence why it makes effective collateral,” I say.

“Exactly.” He turns his gaze over toward the box on the second plinth. “I imagine you can guess what’s in there.”

“The Mantle,” I say. My curiosity is burning now, and I’m almost relieved when he leads me over to it.

Close up, I can see the box is very old, the sides warped and varnish chipped. The top is carved with a ring of Cyrax runes, the engravings faded by the accumulated dust of millennia that’s worked its way into their grooves.

Strickland flips the simple latch on the front and carefully opens the lid.

For a second, I think I can’t see the collateral for the shadows. Then I realize that it is the shadows, an unnaturally black mass swirling and spinning inside the box.

“It doesn’t look much like a mantle,” I murmur.

“That was my thought too. I suspect the supernaturals placed some protections on their collateral before they handed them over. Sensible, really. We’re meant to keep these objects, not use them.”

I stare at the swirling darkness, wondering if I’m imagining the way its movement has sped up as we watch it.

“Hekate was known as the Daughter of the Dark,” Strickland says. “The story goes that she fell in love with⁠—”

“The Son of the Light,” I say. “Yes, I’ve heard the story.”

Syrus told it to me when I was staying in Infernum. The tragic legend is supposedly the origin of the war between the wingers. The Son of the Light—Aphelion—asked Hekate to leave the darkness behind. When she refused, he killed her in a fit of jealous rage. That’s the demon version, anyway.

“Then you know that the Mantle was how Hekate slipped between the realms unseen to meet her ephilium lover, Aphelion,” Strickland says.

I shake my head. “I thought it was just a fable. I didn’t know anything about the Mantle.”

“Supposedly, it can carry its wearer between realms without requiring rifts,” Strickland says. “It makes someone ‘master of the aether.’”

He turns his back on the box, moving toward the glowing orb again.