She looks up at me, cheeks a pretty shade of pink. “No. It was my mothers, but that’s all I know. It’s probably the most important thing I’ve ever owned, and yet it’s a mystery to me. My mother…” She takes a moment to gulp down the pain I feel surge through her. “My mother didn’t seem like the kind of woman that would have such a weapon, but she did, and when she…it became mine.”
I walk over next to Briar and squat down, watching the shimmering blade of the dagger as she keeps her eyes down. She seems tense, almost bending away from me, but I ignore it. “Lux was the Goddess of Light.”
Briar glances over at me. “I thought your mother was the Goddess of Light.”
I nod. “She was, but this was long before my mother inherited the title. Lux had a child with a mortal man and left the child in the care of its father. She knew what she had done was forbidden, and she attempted to separate herself from him in order to keep him a secret and keep him safe. Later on in life, she fell in love with Dragaem, all mighty and all powerful.”
“Talk about bad taste,” Briar chuckles to herself.
My mouth twitches into a smile and back again. “It gets worse. When Dragaem vowed to enslave all of humanity, Lux thought of her child. She knew she had to kill her lover to protect her son and so she forged a dagger capable of killing a god. It was the only one ever created and she guarded it closely, much like you.”
Briar glances over at me, our proximity melting a bit of her defenses. I reach out and run my finger along the side of the dagger. “She fought Dragaem in a massive battle and ended up killing him, but not without getting mortally wounded in the process. No one has ever been able to fully trace the weapon and it is said that the dagger was passed down through her mortal descendants.”
Briar grips her dagger handle and stares at the blade, her brow furled. “I’ve never heard of Lux.”
I lean back and stretch my arms out wide, feeling the pain surge within my body. “Not many have. She was erased from the lexicon for what she did to Dragaem. The dagger you hold in your hands is the one the goddess forged to kill her lover, and the only physical evidence of her ever existing, besides her mortal descendants.”
My words cause confusion, and something else I cannot pinpoint, to boil inside of us.
She lets the dagger fall, her stare filtering off in the distance for a moment. When her thoughts return to the present, she looks over at me. Her head shakes in disbelief. “I don’t understand. Why would my mother have such an artifact?”
Chapter 7
Briar
Zculth is just as desolate as the books describe.
My eyes take in the sight of the large black stones that jut out of the barren landscape. Ash falls from the vibrant sky like snow. Gray stone, the color of my eyes, stretches as far as the eye can see. Strange symbols are carved into some of the sharp rocks, but I can’t read them.
Willem seems more tense than usual, his eyes shifting around, his hands white knuckling the reins of his horse. After seeing his reaction to the rift, I almost pity him. Both he and Kane have made offers to heal my wound, a small trinket of the battle, but it was healing fine on its own. I look down at my hand and barely see the red blotch that was there an hour or two ago.
“What do the symbols mean?” I ask Kane.
He seems eager to teach me. “Zculth is the burial ground of the Reapers.”
The grave tone of Kane’s voice and the rigid line of Willem’s spine tells me they’ve lost a lot of men. “What happened? Why are there so many?”
“I told you we met on the battlefield and that Willem was there to reap his first soul, but I didn’t tell you that it was a war between the Nephilim and the Reapers. For a reaper to ferry the soul of one of their own to the underworld is...it’s difficult.”
Kane avoids my stare and turns his attention back to the uneven terrain. I look to Willem and reach out to touch his arm. He flinches away, but not out of spite. I don’t think he meant to. A muscle ticks in his jaw and I reach out once more. For a minute I think my touch soothes him, but it isn’t long before he retracts his arm from my reach. “I don’t need your pity.”
“I don’t pity you, Willem. I barely tolerate you. But...I know how it is to lose someone. Not on this scale, obviously, but I still sympathize. These were your comrades, your brothers, and losing them must have been terrible.” I hold his gaze longer than usual, hoping he sees the sincerity I try to convey in my words.
He moves ahead of me before looking back over his shoulder with a sullen expression on his face. “The Nephilim were once Death’s army. Drogaem commanded legions of them until he died. Without his cruelty fueling their powers, they grew weaker. When Kane inherited the throne, he enforced the strict laws that forbid them from soul-leeching. But it wasn’t enough.”
I know firsthand how true Willem’s statement is. It isn’t enough to restrict the actions of Nephilim. They have the ability to kill even Kane if they collect enough souls. But then again, I hold the same power without as much bloodshed. Perhaps not bloodshed, but more heartbreak. I’m not arrogant enough to think that Kane might love me. However, it’s clear he cares. I see the way he looks at me now and it causes my stomach to do silly little flips.
Kane looks back at us. “We need to find a place to
