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“It might be worth trying a memory regression mage. There is one in Deva, I think.”

“I might need to make seeing him or her a priority. If Halak did smudge my memories, we need to find out why.”

Down the far end of the cavern, a familiar power surged. A heartbeat later, a shudder rolled through the stone underneath us. Given nothing happened within the cavern itself, Cynwrig was obviously clearing a pathway or a blockage in the exit tunnel.

I gathered the still air, sent it swirling lazily around each of us, then glanced up at Lugh. “Ready?”

He raised Jack and Jill. “And raring.”

I smiled, drew my other knife, and then walked down the left ramp. The two lights reemerged from the darkness at the far end and stopped. I warily stepped into the water.

Small waves rippled out from our entry point but didn’t spread far across the lake’s mirror surface. And yet, deep in the center of the lake, something stirred.

Waited.

I shivered and forced my feet on, walking warily toward the warm glimmer of metal. Each step was a little harder than it should be, simply because it felt like we were wading through thick goop rather than water. Perhaps there was magic here, though I had no sense of it and the knives weren’t reacting to anything.

The awareness coming from the center of the lake sharpened, and with it came a tremor of expectation.

Of hunger.

For a fight. For a meal.

“Am I the only one getting a very bad feeling about whatever is gripping the shield?” Lugh said. “I’m talking about a ‘we’re about to be lunch’ sort of feeling.”

“No, and there’s no need to sound so cheerful about it, brother.”

He chuckled softly and flexed his fingers against the two stakes. “It’s been a while since Jack and Jill had a decent outing. It’ll do them good to bite into flesh again.”

“You’re really quite mad, aren’t you?”

“I think it runs in the family.”

I think it did. After all, despite every bit of me wanting to do nothing more than to run, here I was, striding forward beside him, knives gripped fiercely and the air continuing to stir lightly around us.

That air might not be capable of totally stopping whatever lay ahead, but it was at least an additional barrier between us. I fed it a little more speed, just in case, though it wasn’t enough to slow our progress in any way.

The closer we drew to the center of the lake, the more the shield seemed to glow. The hands that gripped it were thin streaks of darkness against its luminescent surface, but there were blobs of white within the black skin now.

Knuckles, glowing with the force of their grip on the shield.

I stopped three feet away from it while Lugh moved around to the other side. The shield’s metal was untarnished by water or time, and the stylized flames that ringed the flange flickered and danced with a fierce golden light under the black water, a testament to the deeper danger that lay within its bronze heart.

“Those hands don’t look big enough to belong to a giant,” I said.

“What they appear to be and what they are might be two entirely different things.”

“That’s always a cheerful thought.”

“But a rule to live by as a relic hunter.” His gaze swept the shield thoughtfully. “I’m thinking neither of us will have the strength to pry it free from them.”

“Agree.” I studied the ground, looking for anything that might indicate exactly who or what those hands belonged to. But the lake’s bed here was no different to what we’d walked across. “I think we should stab them instead. Jointly, I mean.”

“Sounds like a plan.” He hefted Jack and gave a fierce grin. “Ready?”

I gripped the hilt of the knife in my right hand tightly. “And raring.”

He chuckled softly. “On three, then.”