darkened blade_ A fallen blade novel - Kelly McCullough Page 0,21

refuge that Jax and Loris built to gather in our surviving apprentices and journeymen on our way to Heaven’s Reach. I know we didn’t have anything as formal as a plan, but we all felt that with Jax being the only other surviving master who refused to go over to the Son of Heaven, it was necessary to bring her into the discussion of what happens next and to let her know what we have learned about the Son and his relationship to the risen.”

Siri raised an eyebrow. “I take it that’s not what we’re doing?”

I grinned as I started to find my footing. I might not believe I was up to the task, but that didn’t get me off the hook. Even if I failed, I would try to do what was right, both by the remnants of our order and the broader world.

“Oh no, that’s exactly what we’re doing, but now it’s official. It’s still on the way, and I want Jax on any future council I’m stuck leading. But more than that, we have a good dozen journeymen who ought to have been confirmed as Blades long ago. If we four are going to attempt to bring justice to the Son of Heaven, the chances are good that some or all of us will not come back. As First Blade it has become my responsibility to see that those who we leave behind are in the best possible position to carry on.”

“And?” asked Kelos.

“And, I had originally hoped to move on directly from Dalridia to Heaven’s Reach and the Son.”

“But not anymore,” he said.

“No. We’re going to the temple. We have to, if I am going to revive the order. When we get there, we are going to attempt to attune Parsi’s old swords to Faran and Ssithra. If we succeed, I will, under my authority as First Blade, invest her with all the duties and rights of a full member of our fallen order.”

Faran’s eyes had gone very wide, but she didn’t speak.

You realize that if this doesn’t work it will break her, sent Triss.

Yes, but it’s the only thing I can think of that has any chance of making her into what she was meant to be, and the order needs her.

What do you mean?

You were right about her loyalty being to me first. If she is going to become a true Blade, it has to be to justice. That means I have to give her something to live up to. And, if you can think of something greater to live up to than swords consecrated to her on the goddess’s own island, we should just make you First Blade and have done.

Point. We do it your way. Aloud, Triss added, “What about the other journeymen? You seem to have some ideas there as well.”

I turned. “I do. Malthiss, you said that there were over a hundred pairs of Namara’s swords that were inactive at the time of my investiture. The number would have been much the same at the fall of the temple only a few years later.”

Malthiss nodded. “Yes . . .”

“Where are they?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, neither do I, but I intend to find out. If the order is going to live on, it needs those swords and the masters we will make with them.”

5

Making a corpse of an enemy is infinitely simpler than trying to make a friend of one.

The Hand of Heaven had killed almost everyone I had ever cared about. They had done so without pity or remorse, and they had gone on to torture many of the survivors. Hell, Jax, whom I had loved and nearly married once upon a time, bore a network of fine scars that threaded her skin from head to toe from her time with them.

Later, these same sorcerer-priests had tried to blackmail her into setting me up for their nets. In the process of that confrontation they had been responsible for the death of one the four remaining free masters of my order, as well as the death or maiming of several of our onetime apprentices. During the fight I had been forced to take actions that led to the deaths of hundreds of souls who were innocent of anything but proximity. The guilt of that had nearly broken me, and I was a harder and colder man for the experience, one long step closer to the monsters. The deaths were accidental and I had done what I felt I had to do, but