Shadowbane

however, danced off it in a particular way. She reached out and could feel the power in the sword-the source of such power she had not even dreamed of.

“Will you take the sword?” she asked. “I mean, wherever you go next?”

“If I never touch that blade again,” Kalen said, “it will be too soon.”

“Now that is royally stupid,” Myrin said sharply. Kalen looked over at her. “That sword has chosen you, whether you like it or not. You cannot simply ignore it.”

“Don’t I know it,” Kalen said.

Words trailed off again between them and they listened to the gulls ringing in the dawn. Myrin turned, her arms crossed, and leaned back against the wall, looking toward the east. There, outside the city, the Waterdhavians would be hearing that the plague had ended and they would lift the quarantine.

“Looks like Luskan survives another plague summer,” Myrin observed.

“More’s the pity,” Kalen replied, stepping away.

Finally, frustrated, Myrin seized Vindicator by the hilt-awkwardly, since it was too heavy for her-and rounded on Kalen. “Is that all?” she asked. “You’ll just give up? And-”

She stopped, seeing Kalen standing near the packs, fully dressed in his gray-black travel clothes. “We’re not giving up. At least-assuming you’re with me.” He leaned Sithe’s axe against his shoulder. “Ready to go?”

Myrin blinked, startled. Then she smiled.

Something deep inside her kindled and burned with blue fire.

Several blocks away, in a forgotten graveyard called Yewblood, a block off Aldever’s, a small, cloaked figure sought shelter from the burning sun as it rose over the eastern mountains.

“Feh, death,” he said. “But at least it be but temporary.”

He looked down at his wound, which gaped but did not bleed. The flesh had turned to thick purple crystal laced with silvery veins and golden flecks. Flesh that was not that of a halfling. He thought that with enough blood, it would heal entirely.

Time to feed.

A rat scurried past his feet. Quick as a snake, he caught it in his crystal-coated hand. “A new power be rising in Luskan-town, no?” he said to his captive audience. “And we best be about that. But first-” His crystalline eyes twinkled. “Feed.”

He sank his fangs into the rat and sighed contentedly.

At least he had his morningfeast.