Page 133
“About the amulet?”
She nodded.
Rylan lowered himself on the cushion, still clinging to his books. “Why are you asking me about this? I’m no Dark Magic expert.”
“Obryn is preoccupied, and I want to help in any way I can.”
“And…why do you suddenly care about the amulet?”
“We think it might have been found.”
Rylan almost dropped his books. “By whom?”
“Not sure.” She thought of Corvin’s face when he activated the amulet. How his eyes shone with malice. “Obryn says it’s indestructible. I couldn’t find anything to refute him on that.”
“He is correct.” Rylan searched for a specific text in one of the books he had brought. “The creators of the amulet infused it with White and Dark Magic.”
“How does that make it indestructible?”
“Only the master of the amulet can destroy it, and one person can’t be both…” He froze, staring at Mira, remembering that she was both Caster and Wielder.
“You mean the only person who can destroy it is one who possesses White and Dark Magic?”
“That’s correct.”
Obryn had lied to her.
“Let’s say—hypothetically—that someone wanted to destroy the amulet…have you read about any specific spells connected to it?”
Rylan blinked slowly. “Obviously, we’re not talking about you destroying it, right?”
“Of course not.”
He gave her a tight smile. “Of course not. Because that would be madness.”
“Right,” she agreed. Perhaps it was madness, but she was the only one who could destroy it. She had no way to extract Synth from her. She wasn’t capable of killing Rakkley. But this—this she could do.
“I haven’t come across anything about destroying it,” Rylan clarified. “It’s thousands of years old and one of several of Mercer’s relics that have never been accounted for. The ones that were discovered were destroyed after the war. According to the records, everyone who owned the amulet wanted to keep it. Mercer is just one in a long list of owners over the centuries. Nobody has ever wanted to destroy it or thought it possible.” He turned the page and pointed at a passage.
She looked over the amulet’s history. If she found a way to confront the Primemage and destroy the amulet, there was no room for error. She had to get it right. “You said a long list of owners…how do you make it yours?”
“I would assume with protective spells. Most ancient relics used those to keep them from falling into someone else’s hands. It ties the item to the bearer.”
“And there is no way to break the spell?”
He shook his head. “Protective spells are like passcodes. The only person who knows the exact spell is the one who cast it.”
That complicated matters. Corvin would never willingly part with the spell.
She sighed and walked to the collection of books. “There has to be something on destroying the amulet.”
Rylan stood. “We could look into texts about Mercer’s early experiments.”
“Let’s start there.”
They rummaged through books and ancient texts for hours but found nothing useful.
“Maybe we’ve been looking at this all wrong,” Rylan said, surrounded by a sea of papers, books, and scrolls.
