darkened blade_ A fallen blade novel - Kelly McCullough Page 0,93

who. You have no need of more swords, and they have no need of you.”

17

I despise the ease with which the horrific can transform itself into the routine. Extraordinary ordeal becomes expected ritual. Ritual becomes practice. Practice becomes convention. And, all too soon, something that should never have happened in the first place becomes the way it has always been done.

Kumi claimed that having the swords come loose at her touch put her next in line to attempt the rite of attunement. A fair argument. Like Faran—and despite having witnessed exactly what she was getting into—Kumi chose the way of ordeal. She asked Faran to be her Sponsor and Kelos her Challenger. Roric came next and chose ordeal as well—I suspect because he didn’t want to be seen to have less courage than the pair that had gone before. Jax was his Sponsor with Faran as Challenger, and Siri and Kumi playing the roles of the Wardens of the East and West. Maryam chose Jax as well, with Roric applying the challenge.

And so it went, ordeal after ordeal after ordeal, with Jax playing the role of Sponsor most often. Challenger shifted quite a bit, as did the Wardens, but Kelos played no role after Kumi, while Faran, Siri, and I were only rarely called on. Not one of the students failed, though several passed out while hanging from the swords. Many screamed and swore or cried, and only a few had the same degree of miraculous healing that Faran had. But even in those cases, the Shades could taste the difference in the steel and verify that the rite had taken.

Would the gentler petition by entreaty have worked as well? I don’t know, and I doubt that I ever shall.

Every Blade that comes after this class will choose ordeal. Of that I have little doubt. Assuming that we are able to continue forward, those who take up their swords after the death of the goddess will see those wrist scars as much as a mark of passage as bonding with a Shade or being made a journeyman. An extreme event, designed in haste, and chosen out of expedience to suit the exceptional, will have become the customary because it will ever and always be the way these things are done.

If I survive as First Blade, I will certainly endeavor to find a means to gentle the thing, but my experience with my fellows does not leave me much room for hope on that front. We are, as a group, dedicated to the darkness of our calling as much as the light. The horrible romance of making a personal blood sacrifice to demonstrate devotion to the ideal of justice will have a powerful allure.

It took two nights of blood and magic and pain, but at the end of that time, the number of full Blades stood at twenty-one—excluding Kelos and the others who had betrayed the goddess. Nearly a tenfold increase from a week ago, but still only a tithe of our strength before the fall. I hoped that what we had begun here was a new era for justice, but feared it might amount to little more than putting a boot to the headsman on the way to the block.

Not that I intended to stop kicking one instant before the axe fell.

* * *

“I hate this!” snapped Jax.

“I know,” I answered her. “That doesn’t change my decision.”

The rituals were all done. We’d slept the sun from east to west. And we’d eaten as much of a celebratory banquet as we could manage. Now that I had done all that I could to ensure there would be an order to come back to, and despite the gravest sorts of misgivings, it was time for me to head for my long delayed appointment with the Son of Heaven.

But I had dealt Jax out of that play, and she didn’t like it one bit. Exhibiting wisdom earned the hard way in the years when Jax and I had been a couple, Triss and Sshayar had decided to let us work it out on our own, and simply vanished into the surrounding shadows.

I put my hands on Jax’s shoulders and spoke quietly. “You know as well as I do that there’s only one logical choice to leave in charge of this crew.” I inclined my head toward the place where most of the others were picking over the remains of our meager feast. “Siri is compromised by her divine infection. Kelos is Kelos. Faran