Capitolo Quattordici
The air in her lungs was an angry swarm of bees, fluttering wildly. Ravenna clutched the hammer, its handle smooth against her clammy hand, and slowly walked toward the nearest stone. It seemed to anticipate her intentions; its surface shimmered and shifted. Before, it had tolerated her touch, but now she carried a chisel and a mallet.
Volterra was surrounded by cliffs; she knew stone. Had seen countless rock formations, had worked with many of them. But what stood before her was an entirely different thing. The stone was alive, radiating magic, pulsing with hypnotic energy. It swirled around her; she inhaled the magic through her nose, tasted it on her tongue. The squeeze of lemon, tart and sharp, and something else, as if she tasted the secrets of the fae, sweet, divine, infinite. It was enough to make her brow scrunch as she took another step closer, and then another.
For the first time she wished she’d paid better attention when her aunt tried to teach her about the gemstone she’d inherited. Its powers, the flame trapped within it. But she’d refused. She wanted nothing to do with the gemstone or the magic it carried.
Her gaze shot to Saturnino. He was an aloof presence; he’d crept back to the cool and dark shadows, observing her every move, every flicker of emotion that danced across her face.
A knight and a killer, a defender and a murderer. He was both. An odd paradox, and an even stranger immortal who looked and sounded like a fae but maybe wasn’t.
Ravenna tore her gaze from his. With a deep breath, she aligned the chisel to the stone’s surface and struck it with the mallet. Thesound rang out unnaturally loud, reverberating off the chamber’s circular walls like an explosive warning. A thin crack appeared on the surface, but it quickly sealed itself.
The air shifted, and Ravenna flinched at a sudden rise in temperature. The stone flared, its blue veins churning like a furious tempest. The magic within roiled with annoyance and radiated hissing steam. It enveloped her face, scalding her cheeks. She jerked back, arms instinctively covering her face. The heat was suffocating, iron-hot.
She turned away, breathing hard.
The magic inside her roared to life, furious. It prompted her to make a stand, to fight back against the virgin stone. As if of their own accord, her feet moved, taking her back to it; she raised the chisel and mallet, striking again, but harder this time. The side of her hand brushed against the surface, and the stone grew warm, then hot, then scalding. Sweat beaded along her hairline, at the back of her neck. The burn crept up her palms, and she pulled back again.
The stone would not yield to her.
Saturnino’s voice cut through the air like a knife. “Impressive.”
Ravenna jumped; she’d forgotten he was there. She turned to him, pointing to the stones. “It’s impossible. The Nightflames are too well protected. I can’t get through.”
Saturnino stepped closer, the torchlight catching the silver threads in his doublet. “Not good enough, Ravenna.”
The enormity of what he was asking was staggering. It really would take a miracle. “Ican’t—”
Saturnino cut into her protest with a precision that stole her breath. “Then we’ll find someone else who can.”
Her gaze snapped to the abandoned tools filling the several pails lining the workbench. All the men who had toiled before her, their work doomed before they picked up the first chisel. This was a fool’s errand.
Would she meet the same fate?
She couldn’t look away from the ceramic pots.
Ravenna gritted her teeth and retrieved another chisel. The magicsprang in her belly, rose up to her chest. It burned through her, giving her courage. Once again, she struck the stone. Again, it fought back. This time her chisel cracked the stone, but it healed itself quickly; the surface shifted, spitting out steam. Ravenna didn’t pull back this time—she fought through the furious heat and struck again and again and again. Each time, the stone kept her out, protecting the Nightflame.
It hissed loudly, steam enveloping her, making her dizzy. Her hair curled around her temples, a frizzy mess, clinging to the back of her neck like a second skin. The chisel in her hand sparked, loud crackles that bit into her tender fingers. She let out a shriek and flung it across the room. Chest heaving, she sank to the ground, exhausted and sweaty.
The toes of Saturnino’s boots appeared in her line of sight.
Ravenna tipped her head back, met the dark green poison of his eyes. His expression was tight, jaw clenched, a muscle twitching in his cheek. A flicker of emotion glimmered at her; she could see it in the faint lines fanning across his brow. His face was a mask of control but with cracks beneath. He ruthlessly smothered whatever feeling bled through him, his countenance unreadable once more. He was like the virgin stone—guarded, hostile, unbreakable.
And if she wasn’t mistaken, he was also scared.
She’d seen terror thunderclap across the immortal’s face before he shuttered it away with the other feelings he refused to indulge in. He didn’t speak; words between them weren’t necessary. The look he gave her was not cruel.
But it was unforgiving.
He would kill her if she failed. It would be the work of a moment, done without remorse or regret. Saturnino turned and left her alone in the dungeon. Ravenna could hear the soft murmur of conversation between the knight and the two guards keeping watch.
Then the door was shut, and she was locked inside.
Without him having said a word, Ravenna instinctively knew he’d left to report her lack of progress to the rest of his family. And soonenough, the Luni famiglia would decide if she was worth keeping—or if she was another failure to be discarded.
For the next hour, Ravenna tidied the chamber. She wiped down the workbench, swept around the virgin stones, and meticulously cleaned the tools. She tossed broken handles and shards into a pail and rearranged everything to her liking. It wasn’t her quaint studio, but it felt a little less overwhelming. And while she cleaned, Ravenna’s mind whirred with one thought after another, until she came to three realizations.
