Page 82 of Still the Sun

“There isn’t much of it,” I add. “It’s a rare substance. I was studying it, doing some experimental metallurgy with heat and aluminum chromate. Look.”

I stick my hand right into the silver.

“Pell!” Cas’raneah grabs my wrist and pulls it out. Arthen laughs.

“It’s only warm,” I assure her, watching the bright, silvery liquid drip off my hand and back into the pot. And it’s only warm because of the burner. Otherwise, I can’t even tell my hand was wet, that’s how low its density is. “Look how thin it is, and you can’t see through it. It’s reflective. I wonder if we can’t utilize this somehow. Privacy, camouflage—”

Cas’raneah pokes a bead of silver as it runs down my forearm, then gasps and whips her hand away. For a moment, I think she’s joking—trying to get back at me for scaring her with the pot. But she cradles her hand. Burns swell over her radiant, godly skin. A blister starts to form on her fingertip.

Arthen and I both stare. I’ve never seen a wounded god before. I don’t think he has, either.

“C-Cas.” I check my hand for silver residue before reaching out. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know—”

“What is this made of, again?” she asks, a wince still pinching the corners of her eyes as she studies the wound.

“A handful of things. I can get you a list.”

“How much can you make?”

I hesitate.

Arthen draws a hand down his golden beard, which is even longer than Cas’raneah’s hair. “You want it as a weapon.”

She nods. “If it can hurt me, it can hurt it.”

Ruin, she means.

“Not a lot.” I hate dampening her budding hope, but I have to be honest. “The brine silver is rare, hard to find.”

“How much?” Cas presses.

I glance at Arthen. “If we dig outallthe salt pots ... seven, maybe eight thousand liters.”

Cas’raneah curls her finger into her fist, hiding it from us. “The amaranthine won’t be enough.”

I catch where she’s leading. Amaranthine is a strange substance the gods alone can create. It’s pale pink in color, almost like glass inits smoothness, but harder than tempered steel. Unbreakable, as far as I know. And incredibly difficult to make. It takes a lot out of the immortals, taxes them like little else does, but it also replicates their power, their essence. It would make a fantastic battery, if I can ever convince any of them to give me some.

They’re building Ruin’s prison out of it.

“You want to flood the prison with this ... silver.” I’m going to need a better name for it.

She claps her hands. “Flood it, line it, whatever you can give me. Another line of defense.”

“It won’t be enough,” Arthen comments, eyes unfocused. “We’ll need more.”

Cas’raneah peers into the vat. “We’ll need more. But this is a start.”

“I know how to do it.”

My eagerness to get to the stump-table in Arthen’s forge alerts the others—Maglon, Salki, and Cas’raneah. With chalk and a slate, I draw a giant circle, then a smaller one within, scribbling in a diagram I’m sure only I can read.

“Cas had a point. This world is new. Tampere’s Serpent hasn’t moved on yet.” I stab chalk into the smaller circle. The first World Serpent was made by the Well of Creation, but its children continue to populate the heavens, expanding the universe and life within. One of those children is adding its last touches to Tampere. I sketch a great fork cutting through the first circle to the second. “So what if we trapped it here?”

Salki pushes long red hair from her face. “Come again?”

“I don’t understand,” Cas’raneah says. She hovers a foot off the ground to better see my diagram.

“Becausethis.” I draw a sun symbol to the left of the diagram and circle it three times. “The planet turns with the motions of the Serpent. Ruin is, above all else, a void god. A creature created from lack, the inversion of the Well. It draws its powersfromlack.” I turn to the goddess. “You said the prison wouldn’t be enough, even with the amaranthine and the acetic silver. This would be enough.”

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