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This was the worst scenario to be in for calculating. Dozens of shadow demons were watching my every move. Sylas was watching my expression.
“You’re crazy,” I whispered to him. “I know what Dakta is. What they can do.”
Sylas caressed my face, and I let him. It wasnotworth the risk of brushing his hand away. Notjustyet. “Only crazy for you, and for Dakta.”
Bile slicked my throat. He loved the idea of me being a vessel.
Sylas took my hand in his and rose it above both our heads. “We leave today to bring siege to my brother’s remaining supporters. But first, your future queen will enchant the blade that will see his final end.” He looked at me. “Won’t you?”
Sylas gestured for someone to come forward. A shadow demon, but also clearly a mage. I could feel their power washing over me before they’d even gotten close. His aura felt familiar, like a waterfall coursing over me.
“Arkza will guide you,” Sylas said to me as he shook the demon’s hands. “I know he is not your preferred magic partner, but you understand my cause for safety.”
Sylas gave Willa a long stare—a warning—but I pulled his face back to mine. I even made it look seductive, although I wished my hand was around his throat instead.
“Of course, myking.” I nearly spat the word.
Sylas grinned. “Perfect. Arkza?”
The demon bowed. “Yes, my king. Here.” He held out his hand, and I took it. Arkza led me several paces away to where we had room and guided me to hold the sword before me with my palms facing the ceiling. “Repeat after me.”
Arkza recited a spell, and I tried my best to copy it—not just the pronunciation, but to retain it to memory. If I really could do this without Willa’s help, then there was still a chance. But if Sylas had planned on having himself and an entire court watch me enchant this sword in a way that might permanently kill the love of my life, I wasn’t sure what I’d do.
I needed to live to enact my plan. But even if I didn’t make the sword and died because of it, my death might buy Mrak more time.
“Good,” Arkza said. “Now, this will sting.” He pulled a dagger from his belt and touched the tip to my wrist. His magic fell over me like water again.
“What are you doing?” I said, breaking the recitation. Suspicion sparked within me at Arkza’s intentions. His blade, the familiarity of his magic—all of it felt simplywrong.
“A ward against a demon as powerful as the Exiled King requires something of him to make,” Arkza replied.
“Why did you stop?” Sylas asked from several paces away.
I could feel the entire court watching us. It took everything within me not to look to Willa for confirmation of this enchantment process, or to Quinn for literally any bright idea she might have had to get us out of this. But I managed to keep my attention on the task at hand—barely.
“A ward against him requires an actual ward,” I argued. “My body is not his.”
Arkza clicked his tongue. “We heard a rumor you were brought back from death by him twice. Magic like that leaves a mark. As for the ward itself.”
The mage waved a hand over the blade I was holding and Mrak’s symbol—the same that’d been on his book and the sword design Leif had originally brought me what felt like a lifetime ago—appeared on the sword in gold magic. Magic that burrowed into the nightsteel with a loud sizzle.
“It is here,” Arkza said as the tip of his blade sliced open my skin. “And now the anointing of that symbol.”
“Wait!” I screamed as my spilt blood seemed to flow at Arkza’s command off my wrist and to the portion of the blade covered by the ward. “No!”
I had never intended to be party to his blade actually being made. Not in full. I thought—I’d thought a lot of things. That there’d be time with Willa. That Mrak might have attacked before this started. That maybe Sylas would wait to enchant the blade until we were closer to Mrak’s palace and he was in range to use it.
Instead, Arkza picked up the spell where I’d left off, and my blood boiled inside and out. I’d long ago lost control of my human form, now feeling larger than normal and out of place, even in a room full of other shadow demons. My blood ran black as it covered the nightsteel blade.
A force pulled on my heart and I fell forwarded onto my knees. Arkza caught me, holding me upward as I clenched my fingers around the blade. The nightsteel immediately burned my skin, crackling like firelight around my palms.
I glanced up at Arkza, wondering if this, too, was part of the ritual, but what I saw didn’t make sense. It was like a reality had shifted around just him, the same way illusion magic had been used to hide Lazarus and Cassius’s feeder communities for the world.
For a split second, I saw two realities at once. One real and one illusory.
I saw Arkza, a shadow demon mage loyal to Sylas. And I saw Karn sharing the same place.
My stomach sank.I’d been right. Karn was a traitor.Karnhad betrayed Mrak straight to his face time and time again.
