Azazel nodded slowly, his fingers steepled under his chin. “Perhaps the Chain had the right of it.”
“So you know this land?” Tascius asked, his metallic eyes focused on the Watcher. “You looked like you knew what she was speaking of.”
Azazel’s jaw tightened, just a fractional movement that gave away so much about his feelings. “I have very strong suspicions, but I want to scry the area myself before I claim anything with greater confidence.”
I leaned forward. “And if you’re right, we’re going. Let’s all agree now. The moment we know where they are, we go.”
He gave me a sharp look. “Satan is with him, Melisande. The Sword is in pieces.”
“We have a smith,” I countered. “I’m sure Wayland will put it back together.”
Azazel’s eyes softened. I knew he would go with my plan, unwilling to blunt my hopes. “If Wayland can touch the pieces, then we’ll have it remade. But we’re not rushing in without a plan.”
I nodded, but my mind was now a million miles away. I didn’t think my hopes were wrong at all. Having faith that everything would be well was how I made it through the darkness; I wouldn’t lose it now.
Not when everyone needed it the most.
13
Melisande
Tascius looped an arm around my waist, looking down into the abyss below. “Ready to go in?”
Without total faith in the ability of my wings to support my weight, I was feeling actual vertigo for once. The depths of the Pit seemed so much more shallow when I knew I could pull myself out; right now, I mostly just felt a sense of impending dread while peering towards the invisible bottom.
I felt for the pouch tied to my belt, ensuring it was firmly attached to me. “Ready. Let’s drop.”
Tascius leaned forward and plunged into the drop, bringing me with him.
The air whipped my hair up behind me as we fell, plummeting right through the icy, pale blue fire that shocked me and crept over my skin like lightning.
When the spires of the towers below came into sight, Tascius’s wings spread wide and caught the air, slowing our plummeting descent to a gentle fall. He gripped me even tighter, his brow furrowed with concentration as he found a clear landing spot on the black floor.
As soon as he put me down, I unhooked the bag’s loops from my belt and pulled it open. “Maybe you should let me handle this part. Just because it’s broken doesn’t mean it’s inert.”
Tascius shrugged one broad shoulder, looking around the Pit with a suspicious eye. “We don’t know until we try.”
I didn’t complain about his unsubtle recon of the area. The assassin in the Sixth Circle had been far too close a call for my liking, and for all we knew, the loyalists had moved into the Pit as soon as Satan left.
Far above us, Azazel was in his shadowy raven form, circling over the entrance to the abyss like a vulture. As we’d agreed, if anyone stepped foot near here while we were at the bottom, he wouldn’t hesitate to swallow their souls.
I’d tried to convince him to at least get an explanation, but no one was willing to be that lenient, and with the potential for more angry assassins, I couldn’t say I’d fought too hard against their bullheadedness.
But it was dead silent down here. Not even the wind overhead could be heard; it was a silence so complete it pressed in on my ears, with the exception of Tascius’s soft footfalls and our breathing.
I found the remnants of the broken Sword of Light almost immediately, thanks to the soft glow Tascius now seemed to permanently give off. The pale light glinted off the silver shards scattered across the floor and caught the warmth of gold; the hilt laid there forlornly as though waiting for me to pick it up, surrounded by its broken body.
I bent low and picked up a shard of metal, twisting it between my fingertips. It was a clean break, not even scorched, but the lambent fire of the Sword hadn’t gone out despite its injuries.
It seemed to be lying in wait, reaching out to me with a faint voice. It wanted to be put together again.
I dropped it in my bag and picked up another piece as a rhyme from Old Earth echoed through my head; something about a broken egg and horses. It was on the tip of my tongue when I caught sight of what Tascius was doing, and all thoughts of it left my head.
“Don’t touch it!” I snapped, my muscles tightening in sudden fear as Tascius reached for a shard of the Sword.
For a moment everything went still, and every hair on my body stood straight up.
Then a sharp crack echoed through the Pit as a ribbon of pure light snapped out from the little fragment of metal, scorching Tascius’s fingertips and leaving them red.
He winced and shook out his hand. “Well, now we know.”
I was frozen in place. “You could’ve been incinerated, friend. This isn’t one of those things where you learn from the same mistake twice!”
He raised an eyebrow, a trace of a smile on his lips. “I’m still here, aren’t I?”
My heart was pounding so fast I felt it against my rib cage, but honestly… who wouldn’t be curious? Just the fact that the Sword of Light could be shattered at all was almost unbelievable, so the possibility that it could be made to accept another person seemed plausible in itself.
“You’re still here,” I agreed, forcing out all my anxiety in a rush of breath. “But if you’d picked it up entirely…”
Tascius reached out and rubbed my shoulder reassuringly. “Live and learn, eh?” I scowled up at him and he laughed. “I’ll leave the rest of the dirty work to you, then.”
“Good. That’s exactly the way I like it.” I knelt back down and dropped several more shards into my bag, handling each piece carefully. The edges were still razor sharp.
There was no way of accounting for every single piece without laying them out down here, but at least I could rest assured that nobody else would be able to touch them. If I brought it all to Wayland and he told me one was missing, I could probably just follow the scorched bodies to the locations of the missing fragments.
Finally, only the hilt was left. I balked for a second, the memories of scars and pain still fresh in my mind, but I forced myself to pick it up.
But nothing happened; there was no agony, no searing heat across my palm. I had the faintest sense of regret and relief, almost like an echo of a feeling, as I wrapped my fingers around the comfortable leather-wrapped hilt.
It felt wrong for it to be so light, separated from its greater whole.
On a whim, I pressed a kiss to the pommel. “We’ll put you back together again. If anyone can work magic with metal, it's Wayland.” I settled it in the bag and pulled the drawstrings tightly shut. “I think that was all of them.”
We walked the Pit one last time, making sure none of the shards had fallen behind one of the dark towers and gotten lost in a shadowy crevice, but I was confident the hilt of the Sword would’ve told me somehow if I’d missed an essential part of it.
Even with it broken, I felt better just having it on me. At the very least, if an assassin came for me again, I would shove a fragment into their eye and watch them burn alive from the inside.
The thought was strangely satisfying.
I looped my arms around Tascius’s neck, and he launched us from the floor, beating the air to gain lift. As soon as we passed the pale fire, the sensation of dread and being watched faded like a bad dream.