Yaellin glanced to Castellan Vail. “And when Argent ser Fields, my father’s enemy, chose you as the new castellan, I feared you might have been corrupted. I was seeing Cabalists everywhere. So instead, I pursued my dead father’s wishes. To protect the Godsword from the Cabal. I watched Chrism closely, dogging his steps in secret. I hoped to discover where the Godsword might be hidden. To steal it if I could. I’ve even searched his rooms twice.” He shook his head. “To no avail.”
Dart remembered Yaellin sneaking out of Chrism’s chambers. He had been seeking the sword. If they hadn’t followed him…
Master Gerrod paced around the circular room, slowly, methodically. “Which brings us to the death of Meeryn. She must have learned about Chrism. He must have sent that black naether-spawn to slay her, to silence her. But how did it kill her?”
The answer came from an unexpected source. “With the Godsword,” the man in the bed said, pushing up on one elbow. He opened eyes a startling storm-gray in color. How long had he been feigning sleep?
Dart took a worried step backward.
“Tylar…” Castellan Vail said with relief.
He held her back with a nod, a silent assurance that he was all right. “The beast had a weapon,” he continued. “I saw it. A lance of silver that seemed ghostly yet potent.”
“Rivenscryr,” Yaellin said. “Chrism must have been able to forge it.”
“With the blood of the infant boy,” Tylar said, demonstrating how much he had overheard. “They must have a small cache still left.”
“But the source is too meager for them to show themselves,” Master Gerrod said. “They still move in secret.”
“For now.” Tylar’s gray eyes found Dart. “I think that was why Ser Henri kept this child alive… in secret. He could’ve slain her to keep her blood from ever falling into the Cabal’s hands, but he knew eventually a war would arise, a new War of the Gods here on Myrillia. And he wanted our side to have a way to wield the Godsword. So he placed a guard upon the one god who had knowledge of the sword.” Tylar nodded to Yaellin, then turned to Dart. “And he locked away a source of blood to fuel the sword.”
Dart felt a growing horror at his words. Tylar continued to stare at her, sorrowfully yet fiercely.
“So what do we do?” Castellan Vail asked.
“We do what we all must. I was named a godslayer. Now I must become one in truth.” He finally faced the others. “We must kill Lord Chrism.”
FIFTH
“There came a grate splitting of the sky. A thunderclap felled all to their knays. The rott’d trees cracked. The birds of the aer did stryke the ground, which did shake and growl like a beast in payn. Waters flooded their banks and drown’d the land. The sun did flare with grate fyre and fury. And the blue sky went the black of a bruise.
“And in that trembling light, he fell to the mount, to his knays, a grate lord of blood and bone, bearing a sword of light and shadow. He sayd unto me, ‘Lo, all is at an end.’ ”
22
Tylar sipped the draft of bloodvine, bitter but sweetened with honey. It was his third dousing. He held the mug with two hands, needing both. A shiver from his bones threatened to shake his frame, but he contained it.
Kathryn sat on the neighboring bed. He felt her eyes on him, a steady watch, as if expecting him to swoon at any moment. Upon his waking, she had tried to comfort him with her soothing hands and whispered words, but it grew too difficult for them both. Such intimacy was still beyond them, confused by old familiarity and new awkwardness.
And for the moment, more important matters had to be settled.
It was nigh on midday and a plan had yet to be worked that held any chance of victory. They had debated and strategized. How did one reach Lord Chrism with untold legions of ilk-beasts guarding his grounds and an entire castillion garrison roused to alert? And once cornered, how did one slay a god corrupted by Dark Grace and wielding untold power?
Tylar studied the room over his mug. They were too few: a thief, a warrior woman, a wise man in bronze, two Shadowknights… and two frightened girls.
Gerrod knelt with Dart. He peered into her eyes with a dark lens. Earlier he had pricked her finger and dabbed her blood upon a crystal wafer. He, with the assistance of the healer, had tested the girl as bell after bell chimed the passing morning.
He lowered his scope. “Thank you, Dart. That’ll be all.”
She nodded and scooted to the other end of the bed. Her friend sat down next to her. They leaned close to each other, like two frightened rabbits, eyes fixed and glassy. Tylar could only imagine such terror. His upbringing among the orphanages of Akkabak Harbor had not been easy, but it was nothing compared to the experiences of the two girls here.
Gerrod stepped over to Tylar. Kathryn sat straighter on the next cot.
The master shook his head. “Most strange. I can detect Grace in her blood, faint yet certainly present. But it is oddly and persistently inert. No alchemies can stir it or react to it. I’ve searched for any trace of quickening in her body, some faint glow at the back of the eyes, any sign that Grace manifests in the girl. But I’ve discovered nothing. It’s as if she has no ability to bless or utilize her Grace, not within herself and certainly not without.”
“So is she a god or not?” Kathryn asked.
“Not as we know a god to be. It is said that the gods, before the great Sundering of their own kingdom, bore no special Grace. That only after their naethryn and aethryn aspects were stripped from them did the remaining flesh quicken with humoral Graces. Masters have debated the reason for this over the many centuries. It is supposed that a god’s Grace manifests from some ethereal connection that persists between the gods of Myrillia and their torn counterparts, a bleeding of power that still flows through all three.”
“And the girl?” Rogger asked, joining them. He settled next to Kathryn on the cot.
“She is unsundered,” Gerrod said. “Whole. I think that is why she does not manifest with any significant Grace. But I would know more about this creature that accompanies her.”
“Pupp,” the girl, Dart, said from the neighboring bed. Despite her frightened countenance, she had been listening intently. “His name is Pupp.”
Gerrod shifted. “What can you tell me about him?” Tylar noted his calm demeanor and lack of condescension when dealing with the girl.
She licked her lips. “He’s always been with me.” She glanced over to Yaellin. He guarded the door, periodically checking the hallway, while Eylan kept a watchful eye on the healer. “Even as a babe, he was with me.”
Yaellin nodded. “I saw him in her dreams. Ugly fellow. Fiery eyes. All molten and barely formed.”
Dart’s eyes hardened.
“He’s not ugly,” the second girl declared, coming to her friend’s defense. “He’s… he’s… fearsome.”
“I thought no one could see this creature?” Kathryn said.