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“So, Draven brought the chalice back?”
“We had it. He took it. He brought it back again.”
“Wait, wait, wait...” I said, suddenly grasping something. “This cup...”
“This cup is the grail,” Rychel clarified. “You might have heard of it.”
“The sword, the spear, the grail’s mystery,” I said, repeating the lines I had seen etched into the stone in Orcades’ underwater prison.
Rychel wrinkled her nose. “Right. The grail is mysterious all right.”
“Why did your brother take it?” I demanded. “What did he want with it?”
“He’s not exactly forthcoming, but if I had to guess, he wanted to destroy it. After all, my father used it to craft the plague.”
Fuck. I hadn’t realized that. “Why didn’t he? Destroy it, I mean.”
Rychel shrugged. “Probably because he couldn’t. Do you have any idea how much magic went into creating this thing? You do know it’s said to have been created by the goddess Marzanna herself?”
“But that’s just a legend,” I said slowly.
Rychel rolled her eyes. “Everything is just a legend. But legends hold truths. Sometimes frightening ones. Which is why the Siabra have a temple to the gods that they now treat as nothing more than a museum. Because they’re too afraid of what the gods will do to them if they ever return one day, they’ve turned their backs on the gods first instead.”
“What do you mean?”
“The gods were probably just powerful fae who lived long ago, Morgan. But the legends say they’re immortal–really immortal. So, if you’re a true believer, then they could still be around. Floating up in the sky somewhere. Or maybe on another plane. Who knows.” Rychel shrugged.
Or hiding inside the fabric of time itself?
I swallowed. “Who knows.” I looked at the grail. So plain and unassuming. “He could have tossed it into the ocean. Buried it deep underground. Why bring it back?”
“Maybe he didn’t want to risk someone innocent finding it and setting off the next cataclysm. Imagine this thing washing up on the shore one day and being picked up by a poor fisherman.”
“So it’s back where it started. The Siabra had the grail. They used it to do something horrible. The Valtain had the sword. They buried it with Orcades. And the spear?”
“Oh, the Valtain probably have that, too. Supposedly it’s their High King’s favorite weapon. It sounds like it gets the most use out of all these three things. Excalibur can’t be used by just anyone, you know. It has to like you.”
“Excuse me?”
“It has to like your blood,” Rychel clarified. “All of these things are bound by blood. The grail is the greediest. It will do a lot for blood. New blood, old blood. That’s why it cooperates with the Blood Rise. It gets to taste each competitor. Sephone takes a sampling of each challenger’s blood and mixes it in. You didn’t see that part of things at the ceremony, did you?”
I shuddered. “You make it sound as if it’s... alive.”
“They all are. Each of the objects the gods created. That’s what makes them special. They have... well, minds of their own. At least, that’s my theory.”
“How is that possible?”
“How is magic possible at all? We use it and we still have no idea. There are powers in Aercanum that the fae can harness but mortals can’t. How is that fair? How does it all work? Maybe someday we’ll know. I hope I live that long.”
“What are you going to do with it... with that... thing?” I said, staring at the grail with dislike.
“Well, if our father could use it to turn a plague into something so powerful and terrible that even he didn't understand it, then...”
“Then you think you can use it to undo the same plague?” My eyes flashed. “Now that’s stupid.”
“Is it?” Rychel mused. “Probably. But I’ll study it nonetheless. See if I can learn more about what makes it tick.”
“Get killed in the process,” I muttered.
