Daigen held out his hand and silenced me. “Hand over that hunk of rock in your pocket and you’ll know soon enough.”
I held my cape tighter around me. My blood bond was gone and the flower crown Riyan had given me withered, why did he want my Nordingaard crystal too?
Daigen’s brow hardened. “Trust,remember? I’m going to make it useful.”
I let out a tense breath, but retrieved the rough crystal from my pocket. The crystal made a grating clink as Dagain’s claws snapped around it.
He unsheathed his ancient blade from a scabbard at his hip. “Here, I’ll hold your precious little trinket and you’ll hold mine.”
I tentatively held out my hand and he placed the worn leather hilt in my palm. I ran my fingertip down the ancient and tiny runes carved into the blade.
“Reginbani,” Daigen said. The word sounded rough and ragged, must have been in Old Tongue. “That’s its name.”
Riyan had once told me men name their weapons to give them more power. I had no idea whatReginbanimeant, but the weight of the name hung around the steel.
He turned on his hooves and slowly walked over to a small table that was littered with iron tools. He sat down and placed my crystal in a vise.
I tuckedReginbani’shilt into my palm and slowly walked toward the firelight to join him at the table.
He tapped the hammer to the chisel and a piece of the blue crystal chipped off.
I threw out my hand. “Stop! You will ruin it!”
My magic reached for him again, but nothing responded. A sneeze would have made stronger contact than whatever I had just done.
“Calm down.” Daigen scoffed as he chipped another piece off. “These things aren’t delicate like your sensibilities.”
I sat on the stool opposite Daigen at the table. I focused on that little white fire around my heart that flickered slowly, like the single flame on a candle’s wick.
What was the point of having the gift of sorcery if I could do nothing with it?
“Magic is based on your emotions, that is why you struggle with it,” Daigen said as he calmly chiseled at the crystal. “When you want to change something—step through thin air, alter appearance, turn snow into flame—you have tobelievein it. You have to want something so badly that you bend reality itself to satisfy that deep emotional need.”
He gave the crystal a sharp tap. “For example, Fraleigh’s damn blood bonds are supposed to be impossible to remove, butIhave a deep emotional need to rid them from every mortal I come across…and here you sit, liberated from the corruption. You can thank me at any time.”
When I last used my power, I allowed the pain of losing my brothers to warp my body until it did exactly what I wanted—destroy the giant that killed Endre.
Unlike then, my heartbeat now echoed in a hollow cavern. How was I ever supposed to use my magic if the grey numbness had taken over my body again?
“Thanks to yourliberation,” my voice broke and I swallowed, “I do not have a deep emotional need anymore.”
I spoke but my words had no flavor. My voice had no melody. How could I know what I wanted if I did not even yearn for food, or sunlight, or…happiness?
Daigen sighed and put down his tools. “You are changing. Still very much mortal but…changing.”
His hooves clicked as he rose from the table. He walked to a wooden shelf on the wall full of small glass vials. His claws clinked against the glass as he plucked a vial filled with white powder off the shelf.
“I used to be an alchemist’s apprentice.” He speared one of his claws into the cork and unstoppered the bottle. “I crafted remedies and illusions alike.”
He poured a small pile of the powder into his left palm. His hand dipped slightly like he was carefully weighing the contents. “A couple of tricks here and there to amuse the simple-minded…”
He tossed the powder into the fire. The fire blazed blue. Hyton Blue.
I blinked. “The blue fire the Hytons use…was never Fraleigh’s magic.”
Daigen barked out a laugh. “No, though the Hytons do love to steal things. It was one of Alastar the Conqueror’s favorite tricks of mine. His wretched son loved it too, among all the little feats and illusions I performed for decades.”
His head slowly turned back to me, the blue fire casting a glow onto his white hair. “But the most important element of crafting illusions is not the materials I use, butprecision.”
