Page 246 of Eternal Ruin

After a second, he withdrew the blade and presented it to her along with the other one.

“I’ve tried to break these for sixty years, heiress.”

Exhaling, Kidan tightened her hold on the wrapped hilt. They were heavy, constructed of pure, dense silver.

Kidan looked to her sister. June smiled from the back of the room, eyes sparkling.

Tears? She was too far to tell but the nod was clear, sharp, and determined and it was all Kidan needed. GK’s face was grave yet alert. Ready for anything.

A soft hum reached her ears, morphing into a foreign language. A song in Amharic, deep and mournful.

The longer Kidan held the renowned blades, writing appeared on the smooth surface. This time no one interrupted Kidan from reading it.

As long as the water blade remains whole, vampires shall drink only from graduated actis.

“I can see it,” she whispered. “They’re… laws.”

“What?” Samson said, studying the blades. “I see nothing.”

She gave him a triumphant smile. “Guess you’re not special.”

His face became a storm. “Just try to break it.”

On the second blade, more writing appeared.

As long as the water blade remains whole, Varos and the Six Manes shall drink only from vampires.

Kidan paused. Varos… the second blade affected Varos and the Six Manes? All this time they were bound too. Forced to feed on vampires only. Had Susenyos known?

Taking a deep breath, Kidan started with the first one, pressing on opposite ends. Pushing hard along the curved scorpion tail-like tip and the cloth-wrapped end. It was like moving iron.

She pressed again, gritting her teeth this time.

Nothing happened.

Fury slithered into Samson’s eyes.

Please work. Please.

She needed power. Power no one could steal from her, power to bring back all she’d lost by ruin and blood.

There had always been something inside her, even as a child she’d sensed it. Kidan could never name it—but it was solid and sharp-edged, a reckoning thatwanted out, to break the world and rearrange it. And as she touched this foreign blade, they sang to each other, calling one another to wake. To march to the horizon and arm themselves for war.

Pressure built in her chest, in her very heart, as if the thing she was breaking was inside her too.

A scream rose and erupted, making everyone near her step back. She hardly recognized her own roar. It sounded many and one. Come from the skies and the earth.

Kidan strained. The object bent and bent but it did not break. Instead, a powerful glow shot through the surface like lightning. A flicker, there and gone.

A calling to its twin blade.

Eyes catching silver, Kidan reached for the second blade and brought its edge to the first. The moment they touched, a spark came alive.

Everyone took a collective step back. Kidan’s eyes burned, but she kept looking. Power surged through her fingertips, similar to Adane House’s law, but more permanent, grounded to her bloodline. She felt charged like a live wire, her cells burning and healing all at once.

A violent gust of wind sent her braids flying.

The writing upon the blades vanished like the words had never existed.