With a growl on my lips, I’m about to turn back to my father with a furious rebuke, but then?—
Her energy vibrates. It’s only the smallest tingle, but I realize that I extended the claws of my left hand and they must have come very close to brushing her form…
The hum of power around her increases in strength when I move my claws close to her again.
The magic that created her exists within me.
When I drove my claws throughThe Book of Dark Magicback at the catacombs, this keeper was present but standing behind me. I didn’t see what impact it had on her. Maybe none. Or maybe it had a big impact that I didn’t witness because my only thought at that moment had been of my own survival.
“Darling Father,” I say quietly. “Did you consider that she might not like being used in this way?”
He gives a snarl, finally launching himself out of his chair. “Enough of your talk! I’ve let you breathe the air of this room longer than I should have.”
I ignore him.
I came here to kill the gargoyle king and then my father, butthisI need to do first.
With a scream of rage, I drive my left hand, claws extended, through the light magic keeper’s form, bracing for agonizing pain.
Bracing for the fury of light magic to flay the flesh from my bones.
She is insubstantial. Nothing more than ghostly. A fact I didn’t realize the first time I saw her.
My hand and arm move straight through her, still completely visible to me.
But her weapon—oh, her weapon—it scraped and scraped against the stone wall of those catacombs in a way that drove shivers down my spine.
Clang!
My claws meet the weapon’s hilt, and a bolt of burning energy strikes through me.
A chiming sound rings through the air as if multiple strings had been plucked at once.
I’m aware of every dark creature in the room crying out and clutching their ears. My own ears are instantly bleeding.
But I’m also aware that everything is slowing down.
The chime continues in one long note, light magic as pure and strong as dragon’s fire filling the air and taking control.
Everyone except the light magic keeper and me seems to pause and become frozen in time.
The keeper of light magic opens her eyes, looking at me with a clarity I wasn’t expecting.
“Break this blade,” she whispers, her voice muffled because of my burning eardrums.
Her voice sounds like that of an older woman, certainly older than her younger face implies.
“The walls of my Realm had become thin. Just like the wall of the dark keeper’s Realm. Your father found my Realm. That dark book showed him how.” Her upper lip curls with fury. “He couldn’t command me, but he took my weapon. It pulled my power with it. You must break it, just as you broke that book.”
I struggle to speak. “But this blade?—”
“Is only a duplicate. It was needed to create me and now its purpose is spent. It is nowhere near as powerful as the blade it’s modeled on,” she says. “The original blade is safe where it can’t hurt anyone. If you break this metal like you broke the book, you will free me.”
The chime is already fading and I know I don’t have long before everything speeds up around me again.
Despite the terrible, horrible pain of making contact with her light magic, I can’t help but smile.
“Go back to your Realm, keeper,” I command her, my claws digging slowly into the blade’s metal, connecting with the metallic core that was used to create it. “Do what you were created to do. The walls of your Realm will be healed, and you will not be used against your will again.”
