Page 192 of Brimstone

“What am I supposed todowith it?”

“I’d recommend you start bypicking it up.”

“But what . . . if it doesn’t choose me? What if it doesn’t think I’m worthy?”

“You are, Tal.”

“But—”

“Youare.”

He stared at me long and hard, the muscles in his jaw twitching. And then he picked up the sword. Breathing fast, he ran his finger along its edge, donating a token amount of his own blood so that the sword might judge him. I saw the moment that the quicksilver began whispering to him: He started a little, his shoulders tensed, and his eyes darted to me as he listened.

Whatever it said to him, it wasn’t for me to hear.

Tal’s fingers closed around the sword’s hilt, holding it tight. A claiming, then. He and the god sword were one.

“What’s its name?” I asked. This was becoming something of a ritual—one I enjoyed more than I could explain.

Tal let out a long, shaky breath, considering the sword. “Tarsarinn,” he said. “It means . . . redemption.”

I grinned at that. Couldn’t help myself, despite everything. “Fitting. I like it.”

Tal then asked the same question Carrion had after he’d bonded with Simon. “And . . . will it have magic? Like Avisiéth and your short swords?”

I bumped him with my shoulder. “I can’t tell you that, I’m afraid.Thatis between you and the gods. As for everything else, I’m not arrogant enough to declare that we’re fighting on the side of right. Ihopewe are, but your precious fates are going to have to be the judges of that. Either way, right or wrong, from now on, Tal, you’llalwaysbe fighting withus.”

The former Keeper of Secrets to the Blood Court of Sanasroth smiled.

“Tell me what you meant.” It wasn’t a request. I gouged my fingernails into my palms, knuckles blanching white behind my back as I fought to look relaxed.

We’d left Orellis’s home. She had other friends who needed the shelter far more than we did. Neighbors who’d lost their homes. Caustic though she was, Danya was an excellent leader. The warriors respected her. She had spearheaded the logistics required to set up camp on the outskirts of Inishtar and had already put everyone to work, finding supplies to help repair or rebuild the damaged township as best they could. Everlayne was safe there, bundled up in a tent with Te Léna watching over her. The rest of us had been about various tasks throughout the town, helping where we could.

The explosions that had rocked the hillside during the battle had caused untold damage. Inishtar’s healing center and its town hall had been targeted. The cause of the explosions was still a mystery, but the locations where they took place? Well, the reasoning behind whythosebuildings had been chosen was obvious. Without a town hall, it was harder for Inishtar’s people to gather and regroup. Without its healing center, the injured populace had nowhere to go to receive help that might save their lives.

Along with the town’s officials, Foley and Maynir were sifting through the debris at the town hall, helping to recover whatever important documentation they could lay their hands on. Lorreth, Carrion, Iseabail, Hayden, and I had been doing the same at the healing center, hoping to salvage supplies, but the structure of the building had been drastically compromised.We’d fled the center in the nick of time, only seconds before the roof had come crashing down.

Since then, Carrion, Hayden, and Iseabail had been playing some sort of game with a crew of adolescent fauns in the town square, kicking a ball around and trying to score points against each other. By the sounds of things, the fauns were roundly beating them. Lorreth and I stood together on the sagging stone steps that had once led up to the town hall, watching the game, though neither of us were actually seeing it.

Lorreth threw the piece of stone he’d been fiddling with, deep lines of concern carved between his brows. “I spoke out of turn, Saeris. I shouldn’t have. Fisher was right. The suggestion I was going to make back in the drawing room was mad. It wouldn’t have worked. You should pretend I never said anything.”

I was going to fucking scream. Any second now, my fury and frustration would explode out of me, and I wouldn’t be able to stop it. A cyclone of panic, fear, and desperation whipped around me, invisible to everyone else. I stood at the eye of a storm, fighting to stay calm, but I was losing my grip. Maybe I could hold on for another hour. I was damn well going to try, but the way things were going, I only had minutes before my panic knocked my feet out from underneath me and I becameunreasonable.

“Fisher was going to explain it to me. He promised he would. Youheardhim make that promise. So now I need you to keep that promise for him, Lorreth.”

“He’s not gone off on some harebrained suicide mission without you, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“That’sexactlywhat I’m thinking. That’s what he did at Gillethrye. He left me in Ballard and went off alone to save Everlayne by himself. Remember that?”

Lorreth’s frown deepened. “You’re making this very difficult, y’know?”

“Good. That’s what I’m aiming for.”

The warrior sat down heavily on the steps, collecting another handful of rubble. He began tossing them one at a time down the steps. “He can’t have gone off to enact that plan, Saeris. He would have needed you. There’s no way he could have done itwithoutyou.”

“Perfect. Then, if he definitely hasn’t gone off to carry out this impossible plan, you should have no problem telling me what it was.”

Down in the square, Carrion let out a shout, performing a victory lap with his hands in the air after scoring a point against the fauns.