Page 21

Indeed. What is it you wish? You should not linger here too long, young Aodhán—it could be fatal.

Which made me remember the shattered mess I’d been after the bonding ceremony.The confluence’s gatekeeper told me the Sword of Darkness must be returned to the darkness in which it was born. Are you able to tell me where that is?

The glowing books whirled briefly around me, then one popped out and floated toward me, hovering in the air while the pages flipped open.

There were no words—or if there were, I couldn’t see or understand them—but there were images.A malformed limestone rock formation that stood high above a disused quarry. A jagged slit in the cliff face that swooped down into heat and darkness. A massive blacksmith’s forge in which coals still glowed white hot, as if the smithy had merely stepped away only a few minutes ago. A hammer that glowed with an eerie light and bellows no earthly hand had ever used.

The book snapped shut and whisked back to its place. I took a deep breath and felt an odd sort of quivering stir deep inside and instinctively knew it wasn’t excitement or even fear. It was this place draining my energy. My life force.

That was why the omniscient presence had warned against staying too long.

Can the Ring of Ruin be destroyed the same way as the sword?

What forged one claw forged the others.

Which was the long way of saying yes. Old gods rarely used one word when more were in the offering. I hesitated briefly, quickly sorting through the questions crowding my mind in order to find the ones we most needed answering.Does possessing all the three Claws offer the user additional benefits other than their individual powers?

That is the way of these things.

I waited, but when no further information came, said,what might that be?

Another book wheeled out of the shelving and hovered in front of me. After a few page flips, it revealed a series of moving images—the crown immersed in waves of gray that were neither light nor day, but an odd combination of the two, sitting in a land that held no color or life. The sword steeped in a darkness so thick that the crawling dead made waves through the air. An ouroboros ring—in the form of a serpent devouring its own tail rather than a dragon—presiding over a land that was barren and empty. Then the page flipped one more time to show the three Claws being used at once. The sun fell from the sky, the darkness consumed all, and the earth rose up in a wave to destroy everything that stood on her, until the very world itself was destroyed by the energies that tore through her.

Holyfuck.

I’d suspected the combined forces of the Claws would indeed offer an enhancement of all three dark “gifts,” but if this book were to be believed, the Claws united couldliterallydestroy our world...

If you do not wish to believe what you see, then do not ask the question.

There was a hint of censure in that comment, and I swallowed heavily.I did not mean to doubt. It’s just... a lot to take in at once.

It is your first visit, young Aodhán, so your disbelief can be forgiven.

Suggesting that in future sessions, I had best keep my emotions and doubts to myself—though that might be a tad hard when my connection to this place and the omniscient presence within it seemed to be a metaphysical one.

Not to mention the fact he could obviously “read” what I was thinking.

Can the powers of the Claws be reversed? Can it banish darkness as easily as it draws it down?

Another page flipped.An image of the sun chasing the moon and the night from the sky. Rather than darkness, there was endless light in a land that heaved in dusty barren emptiness, until all was gone.

In other words, we were right. The powers of the Clawscouldbe used to forever ban night, though the end result remained the same.

I sucked in a breath and flexed fingers that didn’t exist in this place to calm the rise of fear and trepidation.

We were told that only a mage can access the sword’s powers, so is that true of the crown and the ring? What is the cost of combining the three?

The book hovering in front of me flipped another page. Obviously, unless you asked a specific question, you would not be shown all the information the library had.

A final image—an androgynous being holding the Claws being consumed by the very powers they were unleashing.

Although “consumed” was putting it mildly, given its flesh melted, its muscles turned to liquid, and its bones to ash, until all that was left were the hands holding the Claws. Then there was nothing. Nothing other than a crown, a sword, and a ring, gleaming in the destruction they had wrought.

The price of unleashing all that power was high indeed.

You should go, young Aodhán. You linger too long.

His words seemed to quicken the reaction within. Suddenly I could feel the frantic beating of my heart and a wash of weakness so strong it felt like my very being was wasting away.