“It wasn’t noxscura like you’re thinking.” She plucked at the material of her dress. “It was pure noxscura.”
He furrowed his brow, looking down at her for the truth but unable to see her face as she’d tipped her head toward her lap. If that were the case, it just…well, it didn’t seem possible. Pure luxerna was dangerous, even the priests said, and exceedingly rare to boot, but pure noxscura? Those who had seenthatdidn’t live to tell the tale. “You mean you touched it? And you survived?”
“Unfortunately.”
Reeve scoffed. “There is nothingunfortunateabout life.”
The hollowness to her silvery eyes as she gazed back up at him made him remember Father Theodore’s warning that one’s first thought was not always one’s best thought, and it wasn’t always made for the ears of others.
“That is, um, survival is a gift, and…” He cleared his throat. “Fine, so you are human, and this is your true form?” It would make sense that he could not suss out anything hidden with his divine arcana if that were the case.
“Sorry to disappoint.” She gestured to herself. “I’m not hiding anything exciting or beautiful beneath this.”
Compliments were chivalrous, but it wasn’t chivalry that made him want to correct her, rather it was his incessant need to tell the truth. “I didn’t mean to suggest…um,otherwise…I simply feared something more like a wolf or an ogre hiding under your skin.” Reeve pursed his lips. “And you chose to do this? You sought out pure noxscura to become—”
“No!” She gasped at the volume she had used and bit her lip. “It wasn’t like that, but don’t you know? Do the Holy Knights of Valcord and Osurehm not work together?”
“Holy Knights of Osurehm are…” Bullies, to put it plainly, but Reeve had been taught not to speak ill of others unless they deserved it. However, those who were deserving, in his opinion, sometimes differed from those his teachers believed deserved derision. “Overzealous,” he finally said, borrowing the word she had used when they met.
She made a small noise, neither agreement nor disagreement. “Well, I was only six when it happened, and it definitely wasn’t my idea.”
Reeve did not know what holy knights had to do with anything, but he could tell from her tone that there would be no more questions, and he finally managed to sit in silence beside her as the night wore on.
Reeve’s eyelids were heavy when he finally sensed it. The arcana in the hearth shifted, the light dimming, and the sleepiness was chased out of his mind. Beside him, Celeste’s head bobbed dangerously close to his shoulder. There was really no way to rouse her soundlessly without touching her, and so he carefully placed a hand on her arm.
In the darkened light of flickering arcana, Celeste tipped her head up, silvery eyes blinking. That frown she kept wearing was gone, and Reeve wondered if he understood anything about evil at all.
Well, it was there with them, creeping around the flue, that was for certain.
He jerked his head toward the hearth, and like she’d been struck with an arrow, she jolted straight, hands scrambling for her bag. The ceramic of the jar clanked against itself, the fire in the forge froze its pulsing, and with their cover blown, Reeve jumped to his feet.
Divine arcana flooded into the Obsidian Widow Maker as he took the hilt in two hands, darting around the forge with a quickness. There in the light stood a shadow. Shadows didn’t stand, of course, they were much more passive than that, but this one moved independently, and it set its eyeless sight on the knight.
Reeve struck out, but the shadow was fast. He sliced into the place it had been as it dispersed, and there was Celeste.
She shrieked, hands up. Reeve could not call back his spell though he tried, the luxerna arcing out of Sid’s tip, and noxscura bloomed to life between them. Their arcana clashed, and there was a burst like a lightning strike that knocked Reeve onto his back.
Metal tools rained down from the rafters as the beam above cracked. A hammer landed an inch from Reeve’s hand, and by the sound of Celeste’s cry, she was not so lucky.
Laughter filled up the smithy, circling them from on high. Reeve was on his feet again, and he called up more arcana into his weapon. Celeste had at least not been knocked unconscious, standing as well, but she limped as she took a step toward the wall to brace herself, the jar teetering in one hand.
The shadows above thickened and swept downward. A shadow wasn’t supposed to do that either, but slicing up its middle with divine light should put an end to it. As he swung, there was another flicker from the corner of his eye. Apparently, Celeste had the same idea, and she called out his name as if he were unprepared for what bore down on him while she too cast.
The odd concern bursting from her throat threw Reeve just enough to hesitate, but his spell was still released, once again colliding with hers. A bolt of light arced through the smithy and cracked into the wall over his head. Bricks dislodged, smashing the crate beside him.
Celeste was glaring at the shadow as it swooped toward the open hearth and then disappeared inside.
“I’ve got this,” said Reeve, calling up another spell.
“Don’t you need the apotrope?” She pressed against the wall, arms extended with the urn.
“No, just stay back,” he told her, intent on obliterating thethingwith a slice and his most powerful spell the moment it emerged from the forge.
But the flame went out, and they were plunged into darkness with only Sid’s glow for light. It was enough to illuminate the chamber, but the sudden change was jarring, and Reeve grunted with his next step forward. There was a rumble, a moment too strange and brief to be reacted to. Reeve did not have the experience to guess what was coming next, and really, how often do chimneys actually burst into broken bricks and lethal shrapnel? At least once in a holy knight’s career, apparently.
Sid was abandoned again because enchanted swords do just fine under flying rubble, but women, be they witches or nox-touched or otherwise, do not. Reeve’s chivalrous nature overtook his shock as he dove for Celeste. He tackled her, and the chill of one of her spells burst behind him.
Bricks slammed into the walls as the forge shattered, the sound deafening and in every direction. The dried-out wood of abandoned crates splintered as metal tools were flung through them, the entire smithy a field of flying debris, but nothing pummeled Reeve’s back, the cold arcana of Celeste’s spell a barrier there. The arcane fire was doused, and the Obsidian Widow Maker had none of Reeve’s magic left to glow, but the chamber filled with dust and soot so thickly it wouldn’t have mattered.
