Burgrave what he wanted or defy the man and risk everything.
A sword he didn’t need. A sword he barely knew how to use. Give it away, he told himself, and buy a little goodwill.
Croy wouldn’t like that, of course. To Croy, the Ancient Blades weren’t just weapons. Croy considered Ghostcutter to be the manifest form of his own soul. And when Croy had given Acidtongue to him, the knight assumed that he would come to feel the same way. Croy had always intended to take him under his wing, to teach him the proper use of the sword and make a knight of him.
Malden could imagine few fates he’d relish less. But still… to Croy, the Ancient Blades were not commodities to be traded like coins. They meant something. And Malden didn’t trust the Burgrave, not an inch. This free nation Tarness wanted to build-it was just the same old feudal system with different management. No question about that. The Burgrave could use all the pretty words he liked, but it came down to one thing: he was going to usurp the throne of Skrae. In the process he would start a civil war that would mean unending bloodshed and pain for the people he claimed to represent. And if he handed over the sword, he would be helping to make that happen.
But still…
He had a responsibility to the thieves of the guild, too.
If he didn’t do this, Cutbill’s men-Malden’s men-would be hanged, one by one. That was the threat, and he understood it just fine. Hood, the new bailiff, would wipe the guild off the map. Long before he finished the last one off, though, Malden himself would already be dead. When the other thieves realized what he’d brought down on their heads, they would turn on him. His life wouldn’t be worth a farthing.
The sun showed half its disc over Eastwall. Orange fire traced the ribbon of the Skrait as it wound through the Free City of Ness. The old stones of the Spires, of the Golden Slope, and of Castle Hill, were washed with yellow light.
Down in Market Square, the Burgrave rode out. Under the biggest and brightest of his faded banners, he rode in iron armor painted black with enamel, with silver filigree coating every inch of him, head-to-toe, in a convoluted floral pattern. Old-fashioned stuff, but that was the point. Ommen Tarness, the current Burgrave, wanted people to associate him with Juring Tarness, the ancient general and founder of the city. Bright red plumes bobbed on his shoulders and helmet, and he carried a lance pointed at the sky.
The assembled men cheered to see him, and together their voices roared like the ocean pounding on the shore.
Tarness had no retinue but the packhorses and wagons that followed after him. He had no knights to protect him, nor any priests to bless every prancing step of his horse. That would be intentional, of course. Supposedly he was just like all the men who followed him-free and equal. Maybe dressed a little better, but really, just one of the boys. It was hard to believe anyone would fall for such nonsense, but then in times of hardship-in times of war- every man clutched at straws.
Tarness stopped his horse and made a very brief speech Malden could not hear. Then he paused awhile and just sat there, looking left and right.
Malden knew what he was looking for.
Time to give it to him.
The decision was made. He had to accept it could never really have gone another way. The Burgrave was just too powerful, and too dangerous. Thwarting him would be suicide.
His own feelings didn’t matter one bit. He had to do this, and he had to do it now. He would give Acidtongue to Tarness and let historians decide if he’d done the right thing.
He paused to let out one long, pained sigh. Then he leaned over and grabbed the hilt of Acidtongue where it lay in the belfry. Tried to pick it up.
The sword wouldn’t budge.
Malden stared down at the weapon, confused. The thing was heavy, surely, but he’d lifted it many times before. He tried to pick it up again, with no better luck. Tried to pry it off the floor of the belfry. Heaved and grunted and sweated as he tried to lift it.
Acidtongue might as well have been fused to the belfry floor-or carved out of the stones themselves. It would not, no matter how hard Malden tried, shift even a fraction of an inch from where it lay.
Down in Market Square the Burgrave made a gesture. Pritchard Hood came running over to take his lord’s final orders.
“No,” Malden said. “No! You fucking bastard, let go!”
But the sword wouldn’t move.
In the square, Hood nodded in understanding, and then headed back into the walls of Castle Hill. The Burgrave dipped his lance, and there was more cheering, and then almost every able-bodied man in Ness followed him as he trotted downhill toward Hunter’s Gate, and glory.
Up in the belfry, Malden kept heaving and shoving and prying at the sword. Eventually, the last soldier cleared Hunter’s Gate, and its massive doors were shut behind the army, and bolted, and locked up tight.
And only then-only when it was too late-did Acidtongue move. It came free from the floor in Malden’s hand as if it had never been stuck.
“Sorcery!” Malden cursed, fuming with rage.
But even then he knew he was wrong. It wasn’t sorcery that had bound the sword where it lay. It had been witchcraft.
Chapter Forty-Seven
The air in Coruth’s house felt like it had been replaced with thick jelly. Cythera gasped in great breaths of the thick stuff and stared at the candles around her. The flames burned low and greenish, as if they burned not wax but strange vapors. She was too weak to ask why, too weak to do anything but hold her head up as she slumped in a straight-backed chair.
Directly before her she saw her mother’s face, framed by its wild iron-gray hair. Coruth’s eyes met hers exactly, stare for stare. Then the old witch nodded, just once.
“Good,” she said. “You did well.”
Cythera struggled to speak. Every muscle in her body felt heavy and weak. What she’d done… what they’d done together, made no sense to her. She had felt the power moving through the room, like a wind so subtle it could not even stir her hair, and yet so vast and world-engulfing she thought it might pitch all of Ness into the sea.
“Is… it… always…” she gasped. She couldn’t finish the thought.
She didn’t need to. “It will get easier,” Coruth told her. “You’ll learn to work with the natural currents and eddies of the ether, rather than fighting them. That is what a witch does. She works with what is already there. Do you understand?”
Cythera thought she might be starting to get it. And that terrified her.
“Was… it…?”
“Necessary?” Coruth asked. “You want to know why we thwarted your lover. It does seem strange, doesn’t it? I like the boy. I did not choose this to inconvenience him, girl. I am not that petty. Close your eyes.”
Cythera felt Coruth’s thumbs touch her closed eyelids, felt her mother’s fingers digging through her hair to her scalp. Coruth’s nails were ragged and they scratched her skin. “I’m going to give you a vision now, child. Just a little glimpse.”
What she saw then made Cythera scream for her mother to stop. War-bloodshed-bodies piled before city walls-fire lancing across battlefields-a sword-always the sword- the sword, Acidtongue, the one she’d enchanted just as dawn came up. The sword she’d touched with her own power. She saw the sword in a number of different hands, and knew she was seeing possible futures. She saw Skrae fall. She saw the barbarians driven back, cut to pieces as they screamed for mercy, and Skrae saved. She saw a war that never ended. All the images were superimposed one atop the other, yet she could make each one out distinct and so vivid it had to be real.
The hands that held the sword were all bloody, but Malden’s hand-she recognized it instantly-was only flecked with gore, where others were stained so red they could never be washed clean.
