Because I can’t make a dark crown with love in my heart. This crown can only contain hatred and savagery and death.
Very carefully, I separate my grandmother’s pin from the other pieces, sliding it to the side of the flat surface. I will incorporate it at the end, once the core of the crown is solid and strong.
My hands shake as I lift them over the black metal, preparing to take hold of Malak’s hammer again, to use it one last time before it, too, must be melded into the crown.
I can’t do this without my own medallion, so I leave it on my hand. Between my medallion and Malak’s hammer, I will have all the power I need.
My heart becomes cold as I banish my happiness, all my memories of Erik and my siblings and Galeia. All the warmth and love. I take a mental knife to it all and cut it apart so that none of that happiness can wrap around my thoughts and find a way into the crown.
“Find the new,” I whisper to myself.
Take control.
In those final heartbeats, I tell myself I’m limitless.
Then I take hold of Malak’s hammer and embrace its malice.
Chapter 50
Iam cold.
The fire burns my right hand as I plunge the first pieces of dark metal into it without using tongs.
Pain strikes through me, and Malak’s medallions quickly burn red hot before I wrench them out of the fire and position them on the anvil.
My mother’s voice screams in my memory, telling me to forge until my hands bleed.
I strike Malak’s hammer down on his own medallions, and then the work begins.
Over and over, I reheat the metal before beating and folding it, adding the pieces one at a time, beating and folding them until only Malak’s hammer and my grandmother’s pin remain.
Hammering the mound of dark metal into a flat circle, I take the black hammer in my right hand and thrust it into the fire.
My hand is already red and raw from the fire, whatever pain sensors existed within it having burned away so that I feel nothing in that hand now.
When Malak’s hammer glows red hot, I place it down on the circle of metal and fold the edges up around it, kneading it like dough, using my left hand to press with my power as well as myincreased physical strength until the metal is flat and smooth once more.
A hush has fallen around me, the same as when I forged my medallion, but with every move I make, the scent of copper grows stronger in the air, and lightning flickers more brightly in the sky. The dark pall around me grows so dense that the monsters that have gathered to watch are black silhouettes, practically formless.
My arms shake with exhaustion. My mouth is beyond dry. I’m not sure how I’m breathing because even though the tornados have calmed, there is more ash in the air now, drifting like snowflakes all around me.
The spokes of a crown come together within my hands, each one tall and sharp, while the crown’s base is a thick, black band.
Finally, it rests, fully formed in my hand.
All of the dark metal has been melded into a single object.
But my grandmother’s pin is now a problem I don’t have a solution for. It rests on the anvil, a bright spot in the dark.
My fear is that it will bring light into this crown—a light that will undo all my work.
Maybe I need to leave it be. Simply take the pin with me in its current form.
I’m preparing to reach for it and slip it into my pocket when a cold hand wraps around my wrist.
My head snaps up.
The shadow-woman leans across the anvil, her fingers gripping my arm.
