Page 63 of Sharpest Court

Keil’s body remained slightly angled in front of mine as Calytrix approached, the wind whipping a stray curl across her forehead. She sat on the floor, faced the symbol, then crossed her legs. In the watery light, I saw that the buns of her hair were dyed rose pink.

“The old language is lost, but I’ve been coming here since childhood.” As Calytrix reached for the floor, I saw she was wearing worn leather gloves—accessories incongruous with her flowy camisole and trousers. “It’s how I recognized your symbol.”

“It’s not my symbol,” I said quickly.

“Oh?” She looked up at me. “How did you come upon it?”

I glanced toward Raff, whose crossbow still dangled in one hand. “How can I trust that this stays between us?”

“You can’t,” Calytrix said. “But considering how eager you were to meet me, I have less reason to trust you. As my husband said, we are not Wielders. We agreed to this meeting knowing that you and your partner outmatch us in strength.”

Raff made a disgruntled sound. “Thank you for that vote of confidence, love.”

As Calytrix’s mouth twitched with a smile, I glanced toward Keil, silently communicating my doubt. But his expression seemed to say, This is your decision.

So, sighing, I joined Calytrix on the floor, the stones bitingly cold under my thighs. “The king of Daradon has appropriated this symbol,” I said. “He wishes to forge an empire, and I believe this symbol is somehow connected to his plans.”

Calytrix slowly nodded, seeming intrigued but not wholly surprised. “This language is known as ancient Ansoran, but that name is misleading. The language existed long before the First Emperor Saxon brought this continent under his reign during the Great War.” Her gloved fingers trailed over the engraving. “My grandmother told me that this fortress belonged to Saxon. That he engraved this symbol here so his soldiers would never forget what—or whom—they were fighting for.”

I straightened, the implication taking hold. “This symbol belonged to Ansora’s first emperor?”

Calytrix dipped her head as Keil joined me on the floor. I didn’t realize I was shivering but Keil must have, because he positioned himself to block the stream of wind.

“And now,” he said darkly, “it belongs to the man who wants to become Daradon’s first emperor.”

Gods cannot stand alone. Those hadn’t been Erik’s words. He’d borrowed them from a conqueror who’d existed hundreds of years before him.

A conqueror who’d succeeded.

“So he wants to emulate a Wielder emperor?” Raff plopped down beside Calytrix, one hand gripping the crossbow, the other drifting to her lower back. Their bodies seemed to be constantly tilting toward each other—magnets leaning into the pull. “That’s an odd choice of role model for a Wholeborn king.”

I frowned, considering; perhaps it wasn’t an odd choice. Erik had built his prisons in the Verenian tunnels, transforming what used to be a Wielder stronghold into a Wielder slaughter ground. Maybe he’d appropriated this symbol to similarly scrub out the memory of Wielder strength and replace it with his own brand of bloodshed.

“Why did Saxon choose those words for his symbol?” I asked. “What did they mean to him?”

“That, I cannot say.” Calytrix cocked her head. “But I know that Saxon first earned his name as a warlord, serving an idle, foolish Wielder king on the continent. Believing that those unworthy of their power did not deserve to keep it, Saxon usurped his king. And in doing so, he gained the king’s Spellmakers.”

Raff stiffened, as though she’d given me information she shouldn’t have divulged. But I already knew that Spellmakers had once been a part of every monarch’s court: revered as gods-touched beings, fawned over as pets, and yet worked to the point of sickness. As each generation weakened, their rare bloodlines had eventually become extinct.

“When Saxon sought to expand his territory,” Calytrix continued, “he had the Spellmakers forge a weapon that would win him every battle he waged.”

“The Unbreakable Blade.” Keil’s quiet words stirred a memory from Budding Ball, when he’d first mentioned that name to me. “Every Ansoran child grew up with the tale of Saxon’s sword, a weapon imbued with a godlike power so great that Saxon was feared above all others. But after Saxon died, the blade lost its properties. When his followers tried to wield it, they found it to be a regular sword.” He looked at Calytrix, brows pinched with confusion. “It’s useless now. Sealed within Saxon’s tomb.”

“Spellmade objects do not lose their properties,” Calytrix said. “But those properties can lie dormant if the object is separated from its siblings.”

“Its siblings?” I echoed.

Calytrix folded her hands in her lap. “Do you know how Spellmade objects are forged?”

“From the molted power of a specter, left over after a Wielder has died.”

“Not a single specter,” she said. “From many specters. Spellmakers must pull from a source of concentrated power to work their craft.”

“You mean a place where many Wielders have died at once,” Keil said.

She nodded. “The power coagulates in such places, forming vats from which Spellmakers can pull. Objects forged from the same vat of power are intrinsically linked—known as siblings—and they work in tandem to perform extraordinary feats. But if these siblings are separated beyond a certain distance, they will not perform as intended.”

Dread crept over me as she spoke, the weight of the compass seeming to grow heavier at my side. “So you believe the Unbreakable Blade had a sibling,” I said, mouth dry. “And that they were separated prior to Saxon’s death.”