Soon enough, her living half takes the form of a woman with gray hair and slightly stooped shoulders. A much older version of herself than she’s ever shown me.
“Many humans and supernaturals would kill to attain knowledge about the Blacksmiths.” Halle presses her wrinkled, living hand to her charred heart. “Your mother knew this. I believe it’s why she never told you these things. She wouldn’t have been able to risk speaking of them once she was captured, in case she was overhead. Dark saints, if thoseangelsknew about the power she carried in her chest…”
Halle spits the word ‘angels’ as if there were no darker beings than those creatures of the light.
“I also believe,” she continues, “that when the books of magic were created, part of their purpose was to drain all knowledge about Blacksmiths from the pages of every other book. Much like the keepers were created to drain and tether the magic of the dead. To keep it from falling into the wrong hands.
“Even my own family—my older brother, the wolf—was obsessed with attaining the books of magic and discovering the secrets they contained. As for how even a small piece of this information got into one of Ryuji’s texts… well, I can only guess the books allowed it for some mysterious reason.”
She peers at me meaningfully and I assume she’s trying to silently tell me thatIwas that reason. As if the books had predicted I would be on that island, asking questions of a dragon master, at that point in time.
I shudder at the power that could have identified those events so accurately.
Halle takes a breath, swallowing visibly. “But you, dearest Veda, you have forced this knowledge to resurface. You have forced it to be spoken of once more by those of us who still remember it.” She glances around at the others—my pack, her people, and finally, Jonah.
“I could ask everyone to leave,” she says. “I could continue protecting this knowledge. Just as the keeper has continued protecting it, speaking in riddles, tell untruths to conceal all ofthe terrible knowledge from coming out.” She rubs her face. “But what am I to do, dearest Veda? Dark saints, what should I do?”
When she looks up at me again, I say simply, “I am more of a danger without this knowledge than I am with it.”
I take a deep, shaking breath as I voice the things I’ve learned about myself, even if I don’t understand thewhyor thehow. “My father told me I’m very difficult to kill, even if there was a vision inThe Book of Dark Magicthat showed my end. And even then, it was one supernatural who ended me.One. After I kill thousands.”
Even the crimson wolves in Portland—powerful creatures of old magic—said I was dangerous. Dangerous andwounded. But they also said, despite their instinct to end me, that I should live.
“Then I went and killed a book of magic without understanding how or even knowing that Icould. What else could I do without knowing the consequences? So, I say again, I am more dangerous without knowledge than with it. And here is what I also know…”
I cast my gaze across my pack, to Anarchy, Riot, Rumble, and Strife, these gorgeous dark elves with their luminous, blue eyes and lilac hair and dark-as-fuck souls. And then to my brother with all his strength, even if he was told his whole life until now he was weak.
“These beautiful, loyal, strong beings who have chosen to stand beside me… they need to know how to stop me, if it comes to it.”
I pin Halle with my gaze. “So fucking spill it, Goddess.”
Halle seems to manage a smile, although it quickly fades. “Very well. Then you should know this: The two most powerful Blacksmiths were from separate families. That is, separate Houses. One was from House Ironmeld. The other was from House Silverspun. One tore the world apart. The other bent the fabric of reality to save it. Both at a terrible cost.”
A shiver runs down my spine, my palm chilled where it rests near the keeper’s face.
“One of them was responsible for creating your mother’s heart, but she never knew which,” Halle says, pausing for a moment to let her meaning sink in. “She was a baby when it happened. She never knew if she carried pure malice or pure hope in her heart. She never knew if she’d been kept alive because of hatred or love.”
The fear in Halle’s eyes strikes me hard as she says, “And now, the question that plagues me is this: whose power have you absorbed?”
CHAPTER THIRTY
I’m frozen where I sit. “You think I absorbed…”
“Blacksmith magic.” Halle nods. “From your mother’s heart. From one of the two most powerful Blacksmiths to ever walk this Earth.”
I squeeze my eyes closed, remembering what the echo said in Veritas.
“The magic in your mother’s heart should have died with her. Instead, she passed it on to you. It is a magic so terrible that wars were fought to defeat it. Hundreds died. The soil was turned to ash and the sky to blood…”
“It is a power that can transform any living thing,” Halle continues. “Like a human man into a beast. An animal into a monster. Sky to blood. Earth to ash. Living flesh to stone. It is limited only to the imagination of its wielder.” She shudders, her charred half becoming dull and gray.
“Do I control that arcane power?” I ask, seeking complete clarity.
Halle’s expression is grim, her half-living, half-dead appearance remaining firmly in place. “You tore throughThe Book of Dark Magic, which was created by Blacksmith magic. Your claws may be able to cut through many things, but onlythe strongest Blacksmith magic could destroy that book like you did.”
Despite my need for answers and my determination to hear them, my hands start shaking.
There’s a part of me that feels outside myself. It’s a part that wants to run as far as I can away from everyone I care about.
