Page 11 of Devoted in the Midlife

"We're in," Kendra said tightly. Her face looked pale in the lamplight, taut with an unease I'd never seen from her before.

Adalinda took the lead, her posture telegraphing coiled readiness. The portal opened into an intimate circular vault, its walls lined with faded remnants of burnt scrolls. But what made my breath catch was the central dais - a rough-hewn slab of obsidian cradling two simple scabbards that pulsed with piercing white light.

The daggers.

Power rolled off them in suffocating waves, both alluring and profoundly unsettling. It felt primordial, an echo of creation too immense for mortal comprehension. I fought the sudden urge to drop to my knees.

"Easy," Adalinda murmured, though I wasn't sure if she was speaking to us or herself.

As we crept closer, the chamber's hungry shadows seemed to lengthen, their edges shimmering through my second sight. My fangs tingled, and a vicious migraine spiked through my temples. Izora hissed, her hands clenching reflexively.

"Something's wrong," Zara whimpered. Her face contorted in pain. "I feel like gravity tripled. Everything's so heavy."

"My magic," Kendra gasped, "it's gone." She snapped her fingers, but no sparks appeared. Her eyes widened in naked fear.

Dizziness washed through me, an awful human frailty I hadn't felt in years. I braced against the wall, breathing raggedly. "The daggers," I gritted out. "They're suppressing our powers."

Izora snarled, more animal than woman. She lunged toward the dais, only to stumble and nearly fall. Luke caught her awkwardly.

"I can't charm," he said numbly. "I'm trying, but there's nothing there. How..."

"We have to get them in the box." I dragged words out by force of will, fighting the gray haze pressing at the edges of my vision. "Take them out of here."

Step by torturous step, we struggled to the obsidian plinth. Adalinda's hands shook as she grasped the pommels, her skin blistering on contact. I clawed open the lead-lined case, shovingit toward her. The daggers thunked into the cushioned lining like ingots of frozen starlight.

The pressure eased instantly, like a vise releasing. I gulped air and straightened tentatively. My fingernails extended into claws, then retracted - there and controllable again. Kendra whispered something liquid and crackling, and green witch fire bloomed between her palms. We shared a pained grimace of relief.

"Let's not do that again soon," Luke croaked, still cradling an alarmingly pale Izora.

Wordlessly, I secured the case and clipped it to my belt. The knowledge of what it contained, what it could do, settled like lead in my stomach. In one fell swoop, we'd acquired the power to bring the supernatural world to its knees - and it terrified me.

"Portal us home," I told Kendra quietly. "We have work to do."

As the chamber dissolved into light, the last thing I saw were those charred dragon murals, their gemstone eyes accusing in the dark. We'd found the relics of myth, but at what cost?

I had a feeling we were about to find out. The hard way.

6

HAILEY

The nullifyingdagger lay on my coffee table like an ominous centerpiece, its dark blade seeming to swallow the light from the autumn afternoon filtering through the windows. Around it, the most powerful beings I knew shifted uneasily, their movements sluggish as if moving through water instead of air. I wiped my palms on my jeans, my skin prickling with the wrongness radiating from the artifact.

"Well, I think we can definitively say it works on vampires," Luke quipped, his usually fluid grace reduced to a halting shuffle as he circled the table. His face, always pale, had taken on a waxy pallor, dark circles blooming beneath his eyes.

From her perch on the armchair, Adalinda observed the effects with a deep frown. Her elegance remained intact, but I caught the minute tremor in her fingers as she swept a lock of raven hair behind one ear. "This dagger nullifies magic. I’m not sure what the other does. But together they can kill a dragon."

A thought struck me, and I glanced around, realizing we were one dragon short. "Where's Flint?"

Jax shrugged, the movement stiff. "Hiding in the bedroom. He said the dagger makes everything feel 'yucky.'" A ghost of a smile flickered across his face at our son's choice of words. "Can't say I blame him."

Yeah, me neither.

"So, it weakens us physically, disrupts our magic, and generally makes us feel like microwaved crap," Zara summed up from her spot on the couch. "But how do we use it without...you know, using it?" She flapped a hand at the dagger, unwilling to move any closer.

Izora tilted her head thoughtfully. "Therein lies the problem. We have to get close enough for it to affect the killer, but that means it affects us too."

"And we still don't know exactly what it might do to a vampire long-term," Luke added, worry creasing his brow. "Or a shifter. If it can block shifting, what happens if one of them gets cut?"