“Please, do this for me.” I need them to leave. I don’t want an audience for what I’m about to do.
They all pause. I don’t know if I’ve ever asked them to do something so earnestly, so plainly.
“It couldn’t hurt,” Winny says.
They all reluctantly agree, stand, and leave. I descend to the smithy with a sigh of relief.
The forge is hot. It takes no time to fire it up to a workable temperature. All the while I loom over the dagger I freed from Solos’s chest. I stare at it, willing it to tell me its secrets. Maybe I have two gifts when it comes to the blood lore. One is an innate gift unique to me—to see the past written in blood. The other is perhaps one passed down to me from my family through the ages, and that is my gift of understanding the union between metal and blood.
I place the crucible in the forge, allowing it to get hot. Solos’s dagger is a beautiful piece indeed. A shame so much evil and heartache has been tied up with it.
Without a second thought, I toss it into the crucible.
“I will remake you into my own shape.” I hold my arm over the crucible, my own blood silver dagger in hand. I draw it across my arm just above my elbow and bleed into the melted metal from Solos’s dagger. “I take ownership of this curse. Let it be bound to my will and to my blood. I will take its burden from here on. It is enough, Solos. You can rest.”
I pour out the molten metal into a mold. While it is still red-hot, I lift it with tongs and place it on the anvil. Keeping it steady, I begin to work.
This will not be my finest piece. It doesn’t need to be. It just needs to be sharp and strong enough for this one final act.
When the metal has been quenched and cooled, I pick it up with my bare hands. It’s a basic dagger, nothing fancy or special. I have taken what Solos used to create the curse and I’ve made it my own. I have shaped it into my design and merged my blood with it. I have gained control…I hope.
I hold the dagger outward, looking at it in the early dawn. So simple. So elegant. To think so much rides on this little bit of nothing.
I point the dagger toward myself.
“A curse, wrought in blood, a curse on the people of Hunter’s Hamlet, and the man who led them. A curse in search of vengeance. A curse in search of retribution,” I say to the dagger. Though, in reality, I’m speaking to Solos. “Iaccept the punishment of Tersius as a descendant of his kind. I accept your curse. I will pay in blood for the blood that was spilled unjustly. Let it end with me.”
I take a deep breath and plunge the dagger into my chest.
CHAPTER47
A waveof magic bursts out from me as the dagger plunges between my ribs.
I collapse to my knees as the glass from the windows rains down around me. Rumbling is heard in the distance, as if the city is waking with a mighty yawn. A new sun is rising over Tempost, and the shards from the smithy windows look like ice, finally breaking free after a long slumber. Magic continues to pour from me in waves, wracking my body and spilling out over the city.
Groaning, snapping, crunching, rumbling from deep within. The earth itself is being liberated from this long night. I double over, the dagger still in my chest, one hand still around it, the other supporting me. I wheeze and cough. Blood splatters onto the ground.
Old gods, I didn’t intend for it to end up like this. I grin bitterly, digging my nails into the stone of the forge as if I am clinging on to life. Maybe I didn’t intend for it to end like this…but I suppose that part of me is glad it did.
I reclaimed what was lost, for the vampir, the humans, and for myself. And if I’m honest, if I’m going to die anywhere it might as well be on the floor of a smithy. I’ll die as I lived.
Pushing myself away from the ground, I lean back, and look at the sky. There are worse deaths, less noble ones. I can be content with this. But I wish that just once more I might have had the chance to—
Movement draws my attention to the doorway.
I blink several times, trying to force my eyes into focus. I don’t think that he is an illusion—a trick of my dying mind. But if he is…I’m grateful.
Ruvan is there. Breathless. Stunned. Lips parted and brows raised. With a whisper of wind he is at my side. His arm is around my shoulders. His other hand frantically moves over the dagger, too panicked to break my grip from it.
He looks as perfect as he did in slumber.So, so perfect. He’s everything I imagined.
“What—what the—what did you do?” He brings his eyes to me. They’re glassy with confusion, panic, and about a hundred other emotions.
“I did it,” I whisper, blood dribbling down my jaw. “It was a curse bound in blood. A curse demanding life for life. We already killed Tersius. Someone…someone had to pay the price.”
“No… No.” Ruvan shakes his head. “I won’t accept this, I refuse, I don’t understand.”
“There’s not much time left.” I sink into his arm, allowing him to pull me against his chest. “I have so much to tell you. So much I want to say…”
