“I want you to harness my power, if the tides are turning against us.”
There. I had said it out loud.
It had been a terrifying thought at first, but the longer I had reflected on it, the more I had realized that the Abbot was right. If I wasn’t ready and if we couldn’t figure out how to fulfill the prophecy together, there was only one way to go.
The Abbot spun around and looked at me. “What kind of trickery is this?”
I shook my head. “No trickery, you were right. I am no God, nor am I a Faerie. I can’t fight yet because my skills are basic at best. But I have one thing to give and that is my heka. So if we are losing this battle, I want you to harness my power to save Theo, to save everyone.”
He looked at me as if I was a riddle he couldn’t solve. “Do you know what you are saying? Harnessing one’s power is not something I can do with a flick of my wrist. It will most likely kill you.”
I gulped. Theo had said it was a cruel ritual and there was a possibility of me not surviving the ritual, but to hear it so loudly and clearly was a different matter.
“I know.”
He shook his head. “Why? Why would you do this?”
My eyes filled with tears. I didn’t want to cry, and certainly not in front of him, but the gravity of my decision wasweighing heavily.
“Becau… because I love him.”
The Abbot was silent, looking at me in disbelief.
I sniffed, “I am sorry for being such a mess. I need you to promise me that you’ll do whatever it takes to transfer my powers to him if we should be failing. And when it’s done and when I am gone… I want you to promise me that you will let Theo live a self-determined life. My life for his freedom.”
The Abbot still didn’t move. His face was unreadable, his mind probably racing trying to figure out what my angle was.
“I promise you, wordsmith,” was his only response.
I nodded. “Thank you. So… teach me what I need to know about the ritual.”
We spent the next hour going over every gruesome detail of the harnessing. The Abbot explained the different steps of the ritual and what I’d have to do in order to transfer my powers over to Theo. I took notes of the spells the Abbot would use and the runes that would allow us to channel my heka into Theo.
I left the temple feeling lighter for having made the decision, but so much worse for what it would mean to Theo when I was gone. I clung to the hope that we would be able to prevent the harnessing from happening and Theo would never hear about my plan.
But deep down inside, I knew that the Fates had chosen me for this exact reason. They had chosen me because I was a wordsmith, someone not to be trusted. Someone who would stop at nothing to get what they wanted—even ifit meant betraying the people they loved the most.
Chapter 34
Iwent back to my room and changed into the fighting gear I had asked the seamstress from Lumoria to make for me. It fitted like a glove, giving me the best range of motion possible while protecting the most vulnerable parts of my body. I braided my hair into two sections and secured them with plenty of little pins. I covered the area around my eyes, my temples and the bridge of my nose in black paint, just like I had seen the other soldiers do yesterday.
I strapped my baldric across my chest and checked the position of my sword in the mirror. I preferred the dagger in combat, but I knew if I wanted to survive on the battlefield, I would have to use my sword first. Just to be sure I had two daggers strapped to my thigh and in my boots.
A stranger was staring back at me in the mirror. Oh, how the times had changed. A few months ago, I would have never suspected that I’d be standing here today, about to engage in a battle of Gods and Faeries and to potentially betray the people who had put their trust in me.
I heard a knock on my door. I opened it, to find Veridus standing there, clad in black with a smirk on his face.
“Are you ready to kick some Heralds asses, wordsmith?” he asked and I nodded.
There was no smile on my face.
* * *
Veridus knew the Citadel inside and out. He knew which staircases to take to avoid being seen and when we ran into someone by accident, he quickly made use of his heka for storytelling. It was mesmerizing watching him, the way he leaned closer to people and with just a few words making them believe whatever it was he told them.
“You were just on your way to the kitchen, sentinel, to make yourself a sandwich with jam and mustard. You didn’t meet anyone on your way there.”
I could feel the vibrations from his magic and the confused look on the sentinel’s face told me that the spell had worked. With a dazed look in his eyes, he took off towards the kitchen and would probably end up with the worst kind of stomachache later.
