Shaking, I stare, breaking out in a chilled sweat. It’s been so long since I last held the knife, so long that I didn’t recognize it at first glance. I don’t sense it anymore. The blade is still black as midnight, and theStone of Ghent still shines, but any bond I ever had with this creation feels broken—at least for me.
“This is fucking impossible.” Instinctively, I push away from her. My heart trips over itself, and I can hardly breathe. “There was only ever one God Knife, and it vanished many, many years ago.”
I press my hand to my chest, seeking power I cannot reach.
She blinks once, watching my reaction so closely.“But itisreal,”she says.“You know what a God Knife is?”
I have to fight not to scoff at that. “Yes, I know whattheGod Knife is.” I scrub my hand down my face, certain I’m frozen in a nightmare. “Butyoushouldn’t, and youcertainlyshouldn’t have it.”
On impulse, I reach for the knife, but Raina’s too fast. She’s up and two strides away—knife sheathed in her thigh belt—before my hand can get so close as an inch from the hilt.
My mind still feels like I’ve fallen into a broken reality, even more broken than the one I’m currently in, trying to move all the pieces back to their correct places so I can make sense of what this means.
One of the pieces slides into place.
“Was that the knife you put to my throat? Have you had it all this time?”
She nods but then shakes her head like she’s confused as to how to answer. There’s no denial on her face, and why would there be? She owes me nothing, and she certainly owed me nothing before.
“Hel had it,”she signs.“I thought I lost it in the fire. I took it from near her cage.”
I never saw it. Never took the time to notice. The shadow wraith usedmydagger when it came after me on the ice, but when it attacked me in the wood? So much was happening, and so fast, that I can’t remember what knife the girl held. All I know is that the wraith had permission from its prince to end my life, called mesorcerer, and tasted the ancient shade within me. That thing—and very possibly the Prince of the East—knows more about me than most anyone.
Heart pounding, I stand, hands raised in placation as another piece of our situation sinks and settles in my mind, followed by another and another until I’m imagining all sorts of fallout. Raina has no idea thepower she’s holding, how this weapon could turn the tide of our entire world if it falls into the wrong hands.
And the wrong hands are working very, very hard to acquire it.
“So you have the God Knife.” I keep my voice steady as I sort through my chaotic thoughts. “And the Prince of the East knows it exists.”
She nods, brows pinched.
“And he sent his crow here to retrieve it. Because he can see us?”
Again, she nods.
I cover my mouth with my hand and drag my fingertips through my beard.
“Perhaps it does not matter,”she signs,“or perhaps the knife is not as powerful as I have believed.”
I stare at her, dumbfounded, though I realize that her lack of understanding is not her fault.
“I cut the prince with this knife,”she adds.“After he stabbed you.”She draws a line on her face, from temple to chin.“And he is still alive.”
Of course he is, though I can’t understand why he didn’t take it from her when he had the chance.
Before I can inquire further, she says,“He said that he sensed it all over me, that it kept drawing him back to me. He wants the knife back where it belongs.”
I don’t know what that means. The last place the prince should want the knife is back where it belongs. It is of no use to him that way.
“He also said that this is goodbye, for now,”she signs.“That we are trapped until he is ready for me. He called me Keeper. He called me that before, too, on the green. What does it mean?”
Keeper. I rummage around in the recesses of my mind for anything that could give that word meaning in this instance. There were Keepers in the Summerlands—in the Hall of Holies—magi who protected the ancient scrolls and wisdom housed there. Raina is no mage, no Summerlander. Neither were her parents.
“I truly don’t know what it means. Maybe tell me how your father came to have the knife. In detail.”
She tries, but her father withheld so much, and much of what heknew of the knife was polluted by centuries of twisted lore. However, one thing stands out.
Yes, daughter. I keep it. Because I must.
