Page 182 of Sharpest Court

Embedding an object within dayglass creates a weakness in its structure, Keil had once told me, seen in a tiny discoloration under sunlight.

My gaze trailed to the vaulted tip of the ceiling, where the golden framework gathered toward that central golden orb. The orb was not part of the framework; one half of it must have been embedded in the dayglass above. And I believed I knew why.

Because the ceiling of the Ansoran throne room did not resemble a sunburst as I’d first thought.

It resembled a compass star.

Stian must have assumed I was committing the room to memory because he stepped closer, his palm still open.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said softly.

I met Stian’s eyes over the strand of my power. And gathering the rest inside me, like a lung expanding with a final gasp of air, I said steadily, “I’m not.”

Then I expelled the mass.

That fine hair of power went needle-straight as it blasted out from the force, but not toward him. It drove up, toward that indigo shimmer I could only have pinpointed in the daylight. Gushing on a tide of power so thick that it encased me, hazing my vision like a rush of water.

If you strike embedded dayglass with a eurium blade at the point of weakness, you can break the unbreakable.

I didn’t possess a eurium blade. But it didn’t matter.

I was the blade.

The strand of my specter collided with the indigo weak spot, and my body jolted at the impact. From this angle, I couldn’t see the fissure that ran the length of the tendril and into the bulk of my power.

But I felt it.

I heard myself screaming, saw my knees hit the floor. The sensation was lightning through bone, fire through blood, and I was writhing under its force.

Through my blazing anguish, I knew I’d shocked Stian into a state of horror because he hesitated before pounding toward me, his nightmilk dispenser glinting closer.

I tried to scramble away, but my body was humming from pain, my specter a twitching mess of liquid power around me. Using the eurium strike had shattered me, just as Stian had once warned.

But as a loud, splintering crack penetrated the roaring in my head, I knew it had been worth it.

Because under the blade of my power, the unbreakable walls of the Ansoran throne room were shattering, too.

53

The world exploded in glass and wind and rainbow light, the shards blasting out in a deafening roar.

I barely had time to shield my face before the fragments crashed to the floor, a blazing cascade of sharp-edged color.

I was breathing so heavily, still trying to recover from my own vicious strike, that I didn’t realize the dayglass had mostly crashed around me until I heard Stian’s pained groan.

He was on his knees too, doubled over, his nightmilk dispenser lost in the chaos. The shards had sliced through his power, just as I’d expected. But I hadn’t expected him to throw that solid wall of power over me in protection. The glass had therefore carved bloodied slashes through his tweed, until he appeared even more tattered than I felt.

The thought bolstered me. My gaze darted around, and—there. I saw the orb that had been embedded in the ceiling, the only glint of gold amid the shimmering wreckage.

The key to unraveling Erik’s plans lay within my reach. But Stian lay closer.

I scrambled through the glass, breathing frantically, the cold morning air now slicing through the room’s skeletal framework. Erik’s father pursued, his breaths rasping closer.

But not close enough.

I reached the orb first and, following my instincts, searched for a seam. I pulled, and the orb split open like a box.

Lying in its velvet-cushioned depths was an ornate bronze compass.