Page 43 of Steeling Light (Shadowed Debts #3)

This was the greatest mistake I ever made.

I should have taken the Brand and Gauntlet and run.

I should have given them to Cole and taught him how to defeat my father.

If I had, everything would have been different.

Alas, I had not seen my worst fears come true yet.

I hadn’t understood what I was willing to do to keep her safe.

~Rhion Rahn, personal journals

Rhion

Three days was all it took. Three days of learning as much of the hidden knowledge that my grandfather had found in the world. He’d set out, not to journal about his day, but to give his grandson a weapon against his son in case he became the man that Daegon believed him to be.

He’d also simply stated where to find the Steel Gauntlet.

All the House relics had been hidden from the children of the original Kings and Queens because of their lack of trust in their children.

Each of them had been worried their child wouldn’t be able to hold the power of the Throne without letting it consume them.

It appears those fears have proven true with the absolute shitstorm of a world we’re currently living in.

While I was looking for mentions of the Steel Gauntlet, I found several passages about the bond that my father controls me with.

Daegon wrote about what he called the loyalty bond.

It had been something he’d had to use to control my father on occasion, but then it abruptly stopped working.

My father managed to break the loyalty bond, so it’s possible.

Even Daegon didn’t truly understand how he did it, though.

So, as I stand in front of a door with no knob and no hinges, I know that when I open it, I won’t be able to keep the treasure inside from my father. At the back of the workshop, there is a storage room. At the back of the storage room, there is a single mark on a single piece of stone.

With the tip of my dagger, I prick my finger, and when a drop of blood wells up, I wipe it across the glyph.

I speak the Draconic word for open, and instead of sliding down or inward as I’d expected, a door-sized section of the wall begins to melt.

The stone glows bright orange and flows like molten lead in gloopy drops.

It falls to the ground, melted stone splashing out in a wide spray.

I shield my face with my arm and catch several of the drops.

It’s more like acid than flames as it eats into my skin.

I curse and step further away from the doorway as more and more of the melted stone falls to the floor and explodes in my direction.

And yet, I barely notice it because the room beyond is something that no one has seen in thousands of years.

The molten stone in my arm cools as the last of the doorway drips onto the floor, and instinctively, I heal myself, pushing the now solid stone onto the floor.

It clinks softly against the gray granite, but I’m already striding through the archway that’s formed.

The room is smaller than a closet. There are no windows and no decorations. The only thing that sets it apart from any other empty alcove is the pedestal in the center of the space.

And the gauntlet that lies across it, fingers splayed as if grasping for something just out of reach.

There isn’t any doubt in my mind that it’s the Steel Gauntlet. The power that radiates from it is impossible to ignore.

I hesitate for only a moment to look in awe at it. Then I reach out and pick it up. It’s smoother than most armor. The plates and hinges that allow the fingers to move seem to be almost perfectly shaped to fit. It’s silent as I slip it onto my hand and make a fist.

Already, the power it holds flows through me. If I were not from the House of Steel, I would feel the call of pride, but that call has been an ever-present companion for my entire life.

Instead, I reach out, forging a bond with the relic, and I call to it. Unlike the Burning Brand, there is more to this piece of enchanting than as a source of a Great House’s power.

As soon as the bond is made between me and the Gauntlet, I feel the power waiting to be summoned, no different from the possibilities that are present when I am prideful. The distinction is that when I pull on this power, it doesn’t change me.

The steel that flows from it is unlike any metal I’ve ever seen or worked with. It’s liquid like quicksilver, yet harder than any steel I’ve ever felt. It’s flexible when I move, yet rigid when I am static.

The perfect armor. Armor fit, not for a king, but for a warrior. For a champion . I flex my arm and feel the cool metal expand around my biceps and forearm, and when I relax, it changes to fill the gap that was left.

There, in that tiny room, I let pride fill me, and a thick lizard’s tail sprouts from my body. Even with how fast I shift, the armor adjusts, flowing seamlessly around it.

I feel strong in a way I don’t know that I’ve ever felt before. And I know I could stand against my father wearing this. I could go to war with the man who has done so many terrible things to this world, and for the first time in my life, I think I would win.

No sword could cut this. No spear can pierce it. I look over the armor that coats me from head to toe in glittering steel and notice a single flaw. There, where the Gauntlet connects to the rest of the armor, lies a sword’s thickness of space between the relic and the armor.

The relic is just like any other piece of enchanting. By tying my power to the Gauntlet, I can summon a second skin made of impenetrable steel, but it isn’t part of the actual Gauntlet. They are separate things entirely.

My mind whirs at the possibilities within the enchanting discipline. This is unheard of. What else could be summoned? Could a man wreathe themselves in flames? Shadows? What about the webs of the weavers or the song of the sirens?

Part of me yearns to take off the Gauntlet to study it, but that part of me is a foolish child when I know the true need. Today is the day I stand up to my father. Today is the day all of this ends.

Maybe there isn’t any need for Cole’s war. Maybe there’s no longer a need for Ainslee and me to be on opposite sides.

I step into my father’s chambers, the Gauntlet on my left hand and my sword in my right.

He doesn’t even look up at me. He’s busy studying a map.

Chaotic scribbles have been written all over the map between Draenyth and the southern human kingdoms. Notes about some kind of movement.

Thick lines have been drawn and scratched out.

The entire map looks like the ramblings of a madman, and more than likely, that’s the truth.

“I fought the Wyrdling Queen today,” my father says without looking up. “She is weak. She will die when Cole Cyrus attacks easily enough.”

I don’t say anything as I approach him. The silence must unsettle him, and he looks up at me, taking me in for what seems like the first time in centuries. His eyes settle on my sword first, and then they move to the Gauntlet.

He knows what it is. I’m sure of it. Even without a strong affinity for enchanting, he wouldn’t be able to ignore the power radiating from it.

“You’ve found the Gauntlet,” he says softly. “Where did my father hide it?”

“In his workshop. The one place he knew you’d never go.”

My father huffs and finally stands up. “Give it to me,” he commands.

I curse as pain fills my body. I knew it would come to this, and I hold my ground, gritting my teeth as I refuse to do as he commands. “No.”

His eyebrow rises ever so slightly. “Rhion Rahn, my blood runs through your veins, and I command you to remove the Steel Gauntlet and give it to me.”

It’s like someone replaced my spine with a burning poker.

I cry out, and the Gauntlet responds to my pain, coating my body in steel.

I take a step forward, the agony fogging my vision.

A single stab through the heart is all it will take.

A single movement. My sword is desperate to feel the slight resistance as it pierces flesh and slides between ribs like a river through a canyon.

My sword seeks blood, but I want to see the light in his gray eyes go out. I crave the freedom that his death would give me. Freedom to rule this House as I see fit. Freedom to fix the pieces of this world that he’s broken. Freedom to be with the person who is bound to my soul.

The burning down my spine spreads, moving into the rest of my bones like a fever. My joints feel like they won’t work. My muscles feel swollen and exhausted. Underneath it all is the unmistakable feeling of being burned alive from the inside out.

I still take another step toward my father, my sword turned sideways, preparing for the stab.

He cannot stop me while I wear this armor.

No matter how hard he hits me, I am safe.

I do not have to be fast or skilled. I only need to be relentless because the look in my father’s eyes tells me he doesn’t believe that I’ll actually fight back.

Because I never have before.

“Drop your sword, Rhion,” he intones, “and give me the Gauntlet.”

Pain shoots through my sword arm far worse than any prior, and instead of dropping my sword as he commanded, I stab. The black steel moves through the air as quickly as any battle, unfettered by the pain that resonates within my body.

My father doesn’t dodge or parry. He simply twists his hips and causes my stab to miss his heart by two inches.

It glides through only air, his body shifting just as quickly as my stab.

He spins toward me. As if he were taunting me, his back rolls across the flat of my blade, and he slaps me across the face before he dances out of range of my sword again.

He does it all before I’ve had a chance to pull my sword back from the missed stab.

“You are an insolent child,” he snarls. “Worthless and weak. There is a reason you’ll never wear the Crown of Steel nor sit on my Throne. You do not deserve the name Rahn. How could you even imagine killing me? You, a whore’s son that I should have strangled in the crib.”

I feel the rage inside me take complete control, and the pain fades. It’s only after I’m halfway through my next attack that I realize that my anger has made the Gauntlet’s armor disappear.

Anger and Steel do not mix any more than anger and shadows do.

My father didn’t miss it for a moment, and he slams his fist into my face with enough force to break my jaw.

I feel two teeth come loose as I fall over.

“You would dare try to kill me? I am Gethin Rahn, the only person capable of saving this unworthy world. Calyr himself decried it, and you still think you are more fit to rule, more fit to carry the burden of a Crown.”

His foot lashes out as I try to heal my jaw. It connects with my face, and my nose and cheekbone shatter. I try to scream, but I choke on blood from the wound. “Do not heal yourself!” he shouts.

More agony courses through me as I try to ignore his command. I’ve stood up to him. I’ve ignored every command, and I try to heal through the pain, but I can’t hold an ounce of pride inside me.

I could have killed him. I should have. Instead, I let my emotions make me weak. I’ve lost the only chance I’ll ever have to kill him and protect Ainslee. No, pride has no place inside me now. Only regret.

I stare at the man who is supposed to be my father. I stare at him until he slams his boot down on my face and the world goes black.