A Thirst for Vengeance (The Ashes Saga, Volume 1) (15 page)

I was not simply selecting a knife. I was selecting
my
knife.

And it had to be right.

So, I busied myself with looking through all of them. I didn’t know what I was searching for. I just hoped, when I stumbled upon the right one, I would know.

I tried and discarded knives large and small. I tried and discarded ones with blades the width of my hand, and others as fine as pine needles. I tried ones that were big enough to be considered swords before setting them aside. I tried ones the same size as my old butter knife, before also setting them aside.

In the end, I narrowed my choice to three.

One was a silver blade with jewels encrusted in the hilt. I did not take it because I liked the sparkle. I took it because it was well-balanced and compact.

The second knife had a simple hilt and a long, dark blade. For someone my size, it was nearly a short sword. I chose it because it felt solid against my palm, and I could grip the hilt with two hands.

The third, and final, was an inconspicuous little thing that I had almost overlooked entirely. I did not even bother to pick it up when I first saw it. It looked too frail. But when my fingers brushed it by accident, I felt a tiny spark of power run up my arm.

The phenomenon did not repeat itself, no matter how many times I tried. I may have imagined it. Still, the experience stood out in the back of my mind. Maybe there was something special about the small knife.

I pulled up a chair and stared at the three choices before me. I felt as if the moment I picked one, my destiny would be sealed to it. It was not a decision I took lightly.

There was still no sign of Blackstone. I tried to think back and remember if he had ever given me any hints about this choice in my training.

I could not remember any.

So, I sat there, mulling over my choices, for long minutes that turned to hours. My hands hovered over each knife in turn, but I did not want to pick one up until I made my choice.

I weighed the pros and cons of each in my mind. But no matter how many times I went over my decision-making process, I could not help but feel that something was
missing
. Even though I had narrowed my selection to three, not one of them called to my heart.

I closed my eyes and took slow, deep breaths to clear my head of thought. That was one of the techniques Blackstone had taught me. He said it allowed you to transcend the limitations of your physical body and exist solely as a spirit in your mind.

I thought that was a crock of bullshit. But it did help me ease my nerves when I was stressed.

I opened my eyes. I noticed the light from outsider getting dimmer. I glanced over my shoulder, and saw the red sun dipping below the horizon. It was nearing dusk.

I turned back to the knives. Suddenly, a new feature of the chest caught my eye.

The lid was thrown back, and with the light shining in the room a particular way, I saw for the first time that the inside of the lid was padded.

I stood up and reached for it. My fingers traced the edges. I brought my free hand to the other side, and I felt that the lid was slightly thicker than it should be.

Aroused by curiosity, I pulled the chest toward me, disturbing the neat row of knives in front of it. I brought my ear to the inside of the lid and knocked.

It sounded hollow.

Excitement burst to life within me. I had discovered a hidden compartment!

I felt a flash of guilt at the same time. What if Blackstone didn’t want me to know about it? But then, I figured if he trusted me enough to leave, he shouldn’t get too angry if I found something I was not supposed to.

I flipped the chest over, so the lid was on the table, and started to search for my way in.

There was no button to push or lever to depress. All in all, the chest had the appearance of being solidly built.

But I knew that appearances were meant to deceive.

After searching every square inch of the surface for half an hour, I decided that the only way in would be to crack the inner lining.

Again, that tendril of guilt surfaced within me. Blackstone would be furious when he came back and found his chest ruined. I had no doubt of that.

He might even throw me out.

But, I was gripped by the curiosity that only a nine-year-old can feel. I thought that I had unearthed a great treasure. My mind buzzed with what I might find inside.

Most of all, it was fascination with the unknown that made me pick up the dark, thick knife, jam it into the side of the chest, and pull with all my might.

The chest cracked. I grinned and pulled harder. I hung my entire weight on the hilt and jerked it down.

I heard a splinter, followed by a loud
crack
. The blade torqued in my hand. I fell to the floor.

Quickly, I scrambled up, seized by the promise of seeing my discovery. When I laid my eyes on the inside of the chest, a murmur escaped my lips.

“Whoa.”

Embedded within the surface I had broken were six knives of a kind I’d never seen before. Their blades were white like snow. Their hilts were yellow gold. Each had a slight curve along the neck of the blade.

My fingers shook as I reached out to pick one up. There was no doubt in my mind: Blackstone did not mean for me to find these knives. They were forbidden.

That made them so alluring.

I brushed the hilt with my fingers and sucked in a reverent breath. The metal was smooth and cold to the touch. I knew, just by looking at them, that these were no ordinary knives.

My fingers reached the blade. As soon as I touched it, a sharp, jolting pain exploded above my shoulder, right beneath the old scar on my collarbone.

Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I should say that at that precise moment in time, I did not know that my mother had been the one to give me that scar. I did not know that she had once tried to kill me. I did not know that I actually
had
seen a knife of this type before, when I was one.

I only learned those things years later, when I returned home and spoke to my mother minutes before her death.

Would she have died if I did not come and see her? No. But that is a story for another time.

Back in Blackstone’s home, I cried out and jerked my hand away. Heat started to form around the scar. I felt it swarming down the length of my arm like an army of fireants, leaving a trail of menacing intensity.

I stumbled back. My foot caught the leg of the chair, and I fell. The heat was seeping into the very marrow of my bone. The pain was excruciating. I gritted my teeth and clutched my shoulder, hoping desperately that it would pass, and doing my best not to make a sound. I was terrified of how Blackstone would react if he saw me like this.

I rolled to all fours and tried to push myself up. But as soon as I put the smallest amount of weight on that arm, the pain magnified ten-fold. It felt as if an inferno had opened and swallowed my shoulder whole. I opened my mouth to scream, but by then the pain was too much, and my body was too far gone.

I passed out from shock.

Chapter Twenty-Two

I came to, shivering from the cold, even though I was under a pile of blankets. A wet rag lay on my forehead.

I was drenched in sweat. I lifted my head to look around, and that slight movement sent a piercing pain through my head.

I saw movement flicker in the corner of my vision. I turned my eyes that way and found Blackstone.

He looked exhausted. His irises floated in a sea of red. His eyes were rimmed by dark circles. His hair was unkempt, his usually tidy beard disheveled. His shirt was creased in many places, as if he’d been sleeping in it for days.

“Here,” he said, giving me a full cup. “Drink.” His voice was hoarse and heavy.

I took the wooden cup from him and winced as I sat up. Motion of any kind disturbed the uneasy equilibrium my body had adopted.

I drank the liquid—not water—under Blackstone’s watchful eye. It burned my throat. It tasted of pinesap and alcohol. When I was done, I tried to give the cup back to Blackstone. He grunted and ignored my outstretched arm.

Suddenly, I remembered the chest. If I was in bed, and Blackstone with me, he must have seen what I’d done!

“I’m sorry,” I began, “I didn’t—”

“Drop it.” Blackstone’s command left no room for argument. “Don’t tell me you’re sorry unless you mean it. I know you don’t. Because you don’t even know what you should be apologizing for.”

“Your chest,” I said. “I broke it open.”

He barked a hard laugh. “You think I’m worried about some piece of wood? No.” He glowered down at me. “I should have expected you to be curious enough to investigate what’s hidden inside. That, I do not fault you for.”

“Then what?” I asked.

“Do you remember what happened to you
after
you broke into the chest, Dagan?”

I thought back. “I… I touched the hilt of one of those white knives. And then, when my fingers brushed the blade…”

“You awoke the power latent in it,” he finished for me.

I stared at him. “What?”

“Look at your left shoulder.”

I turned my head away from him and looked. My eyes widened when I saw the scar on my collarbone. It pulsed a vile red, almost like a living thing. The skin around it was marred black with corruption.

“That is your body trying to fight.” Blackstone picked up a wrapped package off the floor. He set it down on the bed and carefully unrolled the cloth.

A single ivory knife lay inside.

I sucked in a breath that shot another jolt of pain through my head. The blade was
glowing
. A red aura surrounded it like a small, foggy haze.

“This is the knife you touched, Dagan,” Blackstone said. “Your body activated it, and you bound yourself to it the moment the connection was made.”

He put his hands beneath the cloth and offered the knife to me. “Take it. It is yours.”

I looked at him warily without moving. The last time I touched the knife, pain exploded at my shoulder and I passed out. Why would things be different now?

Blackstone saw my hesitation. “It won’t hurt you this time,” he said. He motioned to a small table beside the bed.

I turned my attention to it. There was a white, porcelain plate in the middle. It had a single sliver of white ivory on it, coated in blood.

I saw the operating tools beside it. An iron needle. A spool of thread. Tweezers.

I looked back at my shoulder, and saw the tiny stitches marching over my scar.

“I pulled that out of you,” Blackstone said, nodding to the bloody plate. “It’s a fragment of a knife like this one.”

I didn’t know why I had a fragment of a knife inside me. And I had no idea why Blackstone had to take it out. “What are they?” I asked.

“The white knives are blades inlaid with old magic. Once, they were aplenty in the world. Hundreds. Perhaps thousands. They were prized because they were light as a feather. They did not dull.

“In the dark years after Rel'ghar fell, knives like these became feared. All relics of magic were feared. They were gathered and destroyed. Kings paid ransoms for them quadruple their weight in gold. The goal was to restore mankind to normalcy by eliminating all traces of magic from the world.

“But some who owned the knives hoarded them. The unlucky ones were found and killed. Their families were burned at the stake for permitting evil to linger.

“Eventually, only twenty such knives remained. Two were given to each of the ten noble families for protection. The families vowed to keep them safe.”

“But you have
six
,” I marveled. “How?”

“I told you the Black Brotherhood is mostly a band of thieves,” Blackstone said. “They possess more magical remnants than any other group in the world. They are the only ones who practice magic openly, although they cannot do very much. I got the six from them.”

“You
stole
them,” I said.

“I did not steal them.” Blackstone looked down at me. “I retrieved them. Once they were in my possession, I had no need of the Black Brotherhood anymore.”

***

Blackstone explained to me that the moment I touched the ivory knife in his chest, the power in it clashed with the sliver that was in my shoulder. Each knife had a certain blend of magic. My body was rejecting the bit of it inside. That was why I passed out.

I found out I’d been asleep for seven days. Blackstone was not a healer. He hired an old woman to look after me until my fever broke. She left the day that happened. I awoke forty-eight hours later.

I wondered if she might have been Magda. I remembered the thing she told me when I first awoke in her hut: that she knew people who could teach me.

Was it just coincidence that I came under Blackstone’s protection? Or did
she
arrange it? Was that the reason she was gone when I tried to find her a year ago? To give me a clean break from her, so I could fully commit to training with Blackstone?

I did not know for sure. But I suspected the truth lay somewhere along those lines.

Blackstone resumed my training as soon as I could stand. After the accident, he expected twice as much from me to make up for the time I’d missed.

I am proud to say that I delivered.

The ivory knife never left my side. As soon as I gripped it on that bed, I felt a new power seep into me. It gave me strength. Blackstone said that was the bond forming between me and the weapon.

Apparently my body, through no effort of my own, was highly attuned to magic. So much so that even the remnants of the spell left on the knife energized me.

That
was my great gift. That was what my mother feared, and that was the reason she tried to kill me. That is why I could see the Black Brotherhood assassins when nobody else could.

Blackstone was not as gifted as I was. But he was trained by them. He knew Helosis’s power and teachings. That is how he fought invisible foes.

My ability did not seem like such an amazing thing to me at the time. With most of the world’s magic sealed away, there was little I could do with it.