Faith looked at the ornate hilt sticking up from my hip holster. “You have the Diamond Tear. I recognize the engravings.”
I was surprised. But then again, she did serve in an Immortal temple. And this was an immortal weapon. The people here probably knew more about the immortal treasures than we did.
“You came here for the Sapphire Tear,” she said.
That was the name of the other dagger, no doubt.
Faith didn’t appear upset to learn why we had come here. Nor did she look betrayed. No, she looked relieved. Even hopeful.
“The Diamond Tear led you here, to this world,” she said. “You were meant to come here. To help us. To pave the way for the Immortals’ return.”
That explanation sounded much better than we’d come here to loot their treasures, that we were no better than the Hive.
The force of a tightly-packed bundle of spells smashed against the temple’s front gate. Tiny particles of dust and debris shot in every direction, but the doors held. They must have been reenforced with the same magic-absorbing power as the prison bars.
“The Hive has returned with too many soldiers. The temple’s defenses won’t hold for long.” Faith cast a worried look at the besieged gate. “We must hurry.”
Damiel’s gaze panned the battlefield. “I don’t see a quick way past those soldiers. Both the Hive and the Magic Eaters will try to stop us if we make a run for it.”
“We don’t need to run.” Faith looked at the Diamond Tear. “That dagger has the power of the djinn, of teleportation. It can transport someone between worlds—or between places on the same world. Cadence, you can use it to bring us into the temple.”
“That certainly sounds better than fighting our way inside,” I agreed, drawing the dagger.
As soon as it was in my hand, that same sensation washed over me. The same natural, effortless feeling that the Diamond Tear knew exactly what I wanted. At the Legion, I’d had to work for every spell, fight for every ability I gained, but wielding this dagger was completely different. I didn’t have to figure out how to use it. It simply did as I needed. One moment we were standing in the woods, looking at the temple—and the next we were inside it.
Faith looked around. “We are in the temple’s main foyer.” She pointed to a flight of stairs. “We need to go down, to the Reliquary. With the combined powers of the Diamond Tear and the Sapphire Tear, you can defeat the Hive’s soldiers. You can drive them away from this world.”
“Why do we need both daggers?” I asked her as we hurried downstairs.
“Like people, each dagger possesses a different power,” she replied. “The Diamond Tear has the magic to traverse time and space, while the Sapphire Tear possesses the powers of the Spell Breakers. You can use the Sapphire Tear to break the bonds of magic between the Hive soldiers, that which gives them a huge collective power boost. Then you can use the Diamond Tear to open a portal and send those invaders back where they came from. After that, seal the magic mirror shut so they may never return here to plague us.”
So each dagger had very specific powers. And only the Diamond Tear could transport us between worlds. We’d gotten lucky to find it first, or else we might never have found our way to the Sapphire Tear.
“Faith, there’s something I don’t understand,” I said. “If the Hive has been harassing your world for years, why haven’t you used the Sapphire Tear to fight them off? You could have used the dagger to break the bonds that unite the Hive soldiers. That would weaken their collective magical might.”
“Only the worthy may claim the Sapphire Tear,” she said. “Only the heir.”
“The heir?”
“You, Cadence, the heir to the Immortal Legacy. The Champion of Magic. It is written in the prophecy that the heir’s arrival will pave the way for the Immortals’ return.”
She’d lost me at ‘heir to the Immortal Legacy’.
“You are of Immortal blood, Cadence,” she told me. “Most people possess Immortal blood, but in them it’s weak and diluted. But not in you. In you, the Immortal blood is strong.”
“That must be why indirect magic powers have manifested in you even before you became an archangel,” Damiel reasoned.
“Yes.” Faith nodded. “The magic of pure Nectar is enough to spark Immortal Legacy magic, no matter how weak or diluted someone’s Immortal blood is. But Cadence demonstrated those abilities even before she sipped that pure Nectar that would make her an archangel.” She smiled at me. “You are special.”
I canted my head sideways toward Damiel. “And what about him?” I asked Faith. “He’s manifested these powers too.”
“Immortal blood also runs through his veins.” She looked at Damiel, considering him. “But an heir to the Immortal Legacy?” She shook her head. “I just don’t see it. His mind is jaded, suspicious, closed off. The Immortals aren’t just about magic; they are about acceptance and diversity. About trust and faith. Only the truly worthy may claim the Sapphire Tear.”
“Who decides if we are worthy?” I asked.
“The temple’s guardian spirit,” she told me. “It protects the Sapphire Tear. Only someone who is worthy can wield the dagger’s power.”
The walls quaked.
Faith winced. “We don’t have much time before the Hive breaks through. We must get to the Sapphire Tear first.”
“What are the chances one of the Hive soldiers is worthy enough to wield the dagger?” I asked.
Because if that happened, we’d be in a whole lot of trouble. More than Nightingale, this single world, would be in danger. The Hive sounded like the kind of friendly people who would chase us all the way back to Earth for daring to interfere with their siege.
“It is unlikely any of the Hive soldiers are worthy.” She nodded slowly. “No, not when no one here was worthy to wield its power.”
“They don’t have to wield the dagger’s magic in order to steal it, to keep it away from others,” Damiel pointed out.
“Just so,” agreed Faith. “If the Hive gets their hands on the Sapphire Tear, they will ruin everything. The prophecy will never come to pass. The Immortals will never return to us. But you can stop the Hive, Cadence. You are the Champion.”
I looked at the young girl who had stars in her eyes and so much hope in her heart. She was putting all that faith in me. And I’d thought my father had put a lot of pressure on me. This girl thought the future of her world, of all the worlds in the Immortals’ fallen empire, lay in my hands.
“It’s not far now,” Faith said as she led us down yet another spiraling staircase.
“There is a reason she helped us,” I whispered to Damiel as we followed her. “She wants us to save her people. She needs us. She can be trusted.”
His brows drew together. “Just because someone has a reason for what they do, that does not make them guiltless. The guilty always have reasons for what they do.”
“The girl is guilty of nothing more than of having hope and helping us.”
“We shall see.”
Damiel remained stubbornly unconvinced. He didn’t truly have faith—in people, in the world, in the universe, in the idea that everything would work out in the end if we worked hard and just did the right thing. That’s why he was unhappy. He needed a little faith in his life.