Chapter 30

CHAPTER THIRTY

I 'm frozen where I sit. "You think I absorbed…"

"Blacksmith magic." Halle nods. "From your mother's heart. From one of the two most powerful Blacksmiths to ever walk this Earth."

I squeeze my eyes closed, remembering what the echo said in Veritas.

"The magic in your mother's heart should have died with her. Instead, she passed it on to you. It is a magic so terrible that wars were fought to defeat it. Hundreds died. The soil was turned to ash and the sky to blood…"

"It is a power that can transform any living thing," Halle continues. "Like a human man into a beast. An animal into a monster. Sky to blood. Earth to ash. Living flesh to stone. It is limited only to the imagination of its wielder." She shudders, her charred half becoming dull and gray.

"Do I control that arcane power?" I ask, seeking complete clarity.

Halle's expression is grim, her half-living, half-dead appearance remaining firmly in place. "You tore through The Book of Dark Magic , which was created by Blacksmith magic. Your claws may be able to cut through many things, but only the strongest Blacksmith magic could destroy that book like you did."

Despite my need for answers and my determination to hear them, my hands start shaking.

There's a part of me that feels outside myself. It's a part that wants to run as far as I can away from everyone I care about.

Because… dark saints … I told a book of magic—one of the books of magic—to die. And it did.

What kind of terrible power is this?

No fucking wonder my mother wouldn't speak of it, and the keeper talked only in untruths and riddles.

If this is the sort of power that those two Blacksmiths controlled, then I really am a danger to everyone around me. Just like Jonah warned.

I find myself looking to him now because he also said he had faith in my mother, and she wanted me to live.

And that's the only reason I stay right where I am.

Because she believed in me.

So now… I will believe that I am supposed to be here, sitting next to the keeper, my hand pressed to his heart, in an environment that seems to be calming him, even though I don't understand how.

I speak carefully because I need to face a hard truth.

"If I absorbed this power from my mother's heart… but she needed her heart to live…"

Halle doesn't respond, her unliving eye becoming dull while her living eye becomes shadowed.

"I was draining her life," I say, trying to breathe past the pain in my chest. "Her heart failed because I… because…"

Anarchy reaches for me, but it's Jonah who makes a move, stepping from the shadows. "Remember what I told you, Veda," he says. "Your mother wanted you to live. She had lived for thousands of years and she did it with purpose. You were very important to her. You were her purpose."

I swallow hard and breathe out the pain, refocusing myself with all my might, moving past the sadness to the questions that come with it.

Because I can't get lost in my sadness now. I need all of the answers. "If I absorbed this power from my mother, then why didn't she control it herself?"

"I have been asking myself the same question," Halle says, more quietly now. "She never exhibited any signs of Blacksmith magic. Until you tore apart the book, I would never have even considered the possibility that the power could be passed on, or that you might control it."

"You must have theories?"

"I have two. The first is most likely. Her mechanical heart was given to her as a baby. It transformed her the same way that the arcane magic transformed the Vandawolf. He didn't control Blacksmith magic, either."

"Whereas I was exposed to it from the moment of conception," I say.

She nods.

"Your second theory?"

"More complicated. You see, Blacksmiths couldn't access their power without specially forged tools. Those tools were a crucial conduit, without which they may as well have been human. Even the two most powerful Blacksmiths couldn't access their power without their hammers."

"Hammer?"

She nods. "Black titanium hammers for House Ironmeld. Silver hammers for House Silverspun. Without their hammers, all Blacksmiths may as well have been completely powerless. If your mother did have the power, well… she didn't have a hammer. So her power may as well have not existed."

My forehead creases. "Then how did I access the power we think I absorbed?" I ask. "Even if your first theory is correct—my mother never had the power because she hadn't been born with it—I would need a hammer. I don't have one."

"Well…" she says, peering at my hands. "You have your claws."

My forehead creases again. "My claws?"

Halle nods. "Metal is part of your body," she says. "But to really understand it, I have more questions for you, if that's okay?"

Before answering her, I lift my hands off the keeper, and, far more carefully than I ever have before, I extend the claws of both hands, studying them. "Okay."

"Only one hand is powered," Halle says. "Which hand did you use on The Book of Dark Magic ?"

"My left."

"Then that is the hand with power."

It's also the hand I used to create the place with the cottage and orchard.

"When you struck The Book of Dark Magic , did you hit its core?" She hurries to explain. "Each book has a metallic core that would mimic the magic in a hammer."

My eyes widen. "When I broke through the book's surface, it felt like I was cutting iron. These two metallic forces—my claws and the book—they literally shrieked against each other."

I wince at the memory of the sound it made and the painful bolt of energy that traveled through my body and into my heart.

That was when I experienced the dark impulses for the first time. The impulses telling me to take control and mold the world to my wishes.

"Then the book's core could have acted like your hammer," Halle says. "A conduit for the first time."

It would explain how I've used my claws many times before without accessing this power. Like trying to break through the magic that was sealing my prison. Even fighting Halle's brother, then my father. All the fights when my claws behaved simply like claws. Even if they are powerful ones.

I relax a little. "So without a hammer, I'm not going to accidentally kill someone?"

She nods. "You won't."

I slump with relief, but my thoughts splinter in many directions. One train of thought is incredibly relieved because I don't have a hammer, so I don't have to be afraid of this power that enables me to kill or transform a living creature at a mere whim. The other is that I still have questions about my mother, and I certainly don't have answers about the keeper.

"What about my mother's parents?" I ask, glancing at Jonah. He urged me to ask Halle about them. "Everything you've said is based on the foundation that she wasn't a Blacksmith herself, but you said that without a hammer, you wouldn't know."

"You're asking if she was the daughter of a Blacksmith?" Halle asks, a little too smoothly. "I never considered it. First, because I assumed she was like the Vandawolf—affected by Blacksmith power without controlling it. And second, because of her hair."

I tilt my head, curious. "What about her hair?"

"All Blacksmiths had hair resembling fine strands of metal. Depending on their parentage, the color often matched their House. Your mother didn't have that hair. Neither do you. Which is to say, neither of you was born to a Blacksmith."

It doesn't escape me that if a Blacksmith were capable of causing such a transformation as turning a human man into a beast, then they could change the color of a Blacksmith child's hair.

But I guess for now, it doesn't matter. I have this power now either way.

My burning need for answers about the keeper pushes me on.

"What about the keeper?" I ask. "Do you have any knowledge about who he was?"

Halle is quiet. Pensive. She takes much longer to answer this time. "I didn't witness the creation of the keepers. I don't know who they were. But there are some clues."

My head lifts a little as a spark of hope lights within me.

"One thing was common knowledge at the time," she continues. "Each of the other keepers volunteered."

"Each of the others ?"

"The old magic keeper, the elemental magic keeper, and the light magic keeper. They all volunteered."

"But what of the dark magic keeper?"

Now Halle shakes her head. "Nobody knew. There was no information about who he was or whether or not he had willingly given his life."

"How is that possible? How could nobody know?"

Halle contemplates the keeper for a moment before she continues. "Galeia spent years trying to find out who he was. She believed that the clues were in the absence of information." Halle appears to struggle to choose her next words. "That the silence around his identity was important."

That silence.

Always, it seems to come back to that awful silence.

I'm uncertain about why my mother would have been so intent on finding out his identity, but for now, the more important question is what she found out.

"Did she discover anything?" I ask, leaning forward.

Halle's lips purse. "Well, she had theories."

Damn. More theories. But I guess they'll be more than I had before.

"One was that a volunteer wasn't needed at all—that the arcane magic was so evil that the keeper sprang into existence from darkness itself," Halle says. "Another theory was that the dark creature who volunteered did so under strict secrecy. After all, a dark being choosing to do something so heroic? That might not go down so well with other dark creatures, and maybe they had a family to protect."

My forehead puckers, and without me saying anything, Halle nods.

"I agree. Neither of those rang true to Galeia or me. Which led Galeia to her final theory. A far worse one."

"What was it?"

"She believed that there could be no greater darkness than the corruption of pure goodness." Shadows grow in Halle's eyes, and, for a moment, her deathly side seems to spread across her living face. "How truly evil would it be to take an innocent being and force it into darkness against its will? Such a cruel act would create a force powerful enough to tether dark magic for millennia."

Suddenly, all I can hear is the echo that sounded in Veritas.

"My life was stolen."

"I paid the price for crimes that were not my own."

"What greater darkness could there be?"

"If you're right, then the keeper was—" The words stick so hard in my throat that I can barely utter them. "The keeper was a good person."

"A truly good, innocent being." Halle nods. "A being without malice or cruelty or spite. That was your mother's belief."

The shadows in Halle's eyes only deepen as she continues. "But there's more."

I'm struggling to process what I've just learned means, let alone that there could be more.

There is such a chaos of emotions within me now: disbelief, sadness, and, ultimately, rage.

Rage, because I am a dark creature who was also imprisoned for no crime at all.

The keeper wasn't even born into darkness, but he, too, was cast into it without reason or justification.

Oh, the vengeance I would demand if I were him.

A thousand times more furious than the vengeance I already want for myself.

Trying to control the fury in my voice, I ask, "What more could there be?"