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Chapter 17
The next few hours passed by in a blur of unrelenting heat from the forge and constant work. Every hit on heated nightsteel became another question unanswered. By the time I’d finished the base of the sword, the full length of its shape and balance, I was exhausted and left with more questions than answers.
I sat against the wall, the blade before me on the ground, and wiped sweat from my forehead. The shortest end to all of this was getting a chance to be close enough to kill Sylas with this blade. But injuring him wouldn’t be enough—if it was, Leif would have settled at a simple nightsteel blade against Mrak. Granted, Mrak hadn’t yet taken on a form Leif could havehitwith a blade. But the logic still stood.
I needed a ward. Therightward. And a ton of magic to get it all to work together. The ward had to be enchanted on to the blade itself.
I tried to keep my thoughts on this process. On these simple steps. Blade. Enchant. Kill. But it wandered, and as the night had dragged on, it grew impossible to stop my thoughts from doing so.
My eyelids kept drooping as I now stared at the forge and tried to puzzle together a larger picture.
Sylas had wanted power from Mrak. Whether he genuinely believed Mrak to be a cruel ruler or he simply saw an opportunity to oust his brother and take the throne, it changed nothing. So I started there: Sylas had wanted the throne. It was simple enough, except I now saw his more true motive.
Sylas had wanted war. Suffering and fear, and he’d continued to bring or cause it ever since Mrak had been exiled. He’dusedthat exiling as another tool.
He exiled Mrak to the same place Dakta rested.
My eyes opened, a second wind building within me. Sylas hadn’t just sent Mrak to Earth though. He, and other shadow demons apparently, had spent time on Earth feeding from all the suffering and death there, too. At one point, he’d stolen a female human Seer, born from a family of demon hunters, and had taken her to Kithonia. Sylas had kept Quinn here, alive, until he’d finally turned her into a shadow demon.
Why? Why make a human Seer a shadow demon? He clearly didn’t want her as queen, or they’d have been married already, regardless of whether Quinn had wanted it.
Sylas needed Quinn. He needed a Seer. In hindsight, it was obvious now. Sylas knew Dakta was on Earthsomewhere. Quinn should have, in theory, been able to see where Dakta was. But in the same way I didn’t see Kithonia genuinely until I had shadow demon eyes, maybe Quinn couldn’t have seen Dakta, potentially, until she’d been turned.
But it was more than that. My power had grown as a shadow demon—although part of that was because my power had been tied to Mrak. Quinn’s natural Seer abilities wouldn’t have been strong enoughperiodas a human.
So, Sylas turned her so she could attune most effectively to Dakta’s location of rest. To open portals between to Earth from Kithonia so he and his people could gain power, he had to create a war within the kingdom. All of that pain, all of that death, had powered Sylas and his court. Earth’s suffering would power them again. Grant them enough strength to raise Dakta.
So why keep me alive? Sylas had other forgers to make his weapons. Yes, taking me had hurt Mrak. But if Sylas planned to off Mrak anyway, certainly the amount of pain from my marrying Sylas wouldn’t matter that much.
Realization dawned on me with such force that I shook. I breathed through it, slowly, as I stood.
In the same way Mrak needed a vessel to open a portal home to Kithonia, Dakta would need a vessel—an anchor of sorts—until the dead god also returned.
Sylas planned to use me. He might have used Quinn before, but why bother when this—all of this—would hurt his brother so deeply?
Fuck. I’d given Sylas everything just to risk a single chance at killing him beforehand.
Willa had been right. I did not think things through. Ever. Even if I’d not had enough of these puzzle pieces prior to coming here with Sylas—fuck. Gods. I was so stupid. So so stupid.
I slid back down the wall, sitting with guilt and shame as they both overwhelmed me. If I didn’t make this blade just right, if I didn’t have time to use it on Sylas, this,everything, would be over.
I closed my eyes and wracked my mind for any more information Leif had given me about his original sword design. I recalled, piece by piece, the diagram I’d only looked at a handful of times. It’d come from a book—Leif hadn’t said as much, but it had been clear the page had been torn from a larger tome.Andother demon hunters had confronted me about it. So it was possible, though the chance was small, that Leif currently had access to a book with other demonic wards. Potentially even Sylas’s.
I just had to talk to him.
If only I wasn’t an entire world away.
