Page 109 of Flame and Sparrow

His green eyes were suddenly aglow with their strange, cursed brightness as he stared at the blade in question, looking like a starved man witnessing food for the first time in weeks. “It’s the weapon that’s going to change everything. One of several we’re working on, actually.”

“Change everything…?”

“When Kinnara and her group came to our home last month, before your capture and imprisonment, they actually brought a prototype of this with them. They told us we needed to change our tactics, remember? Well, it turns out they weren’t all talk. They were already working on a change of tactics themselves. Unfortunately, things got complicated for you—and us, by extension—before we could all sit down and discuss things further.”

“Complicatedis putting it mildly.”

He agreed with a wry grin. “Anyway, after you left, she stayed, and we spent the next weeks working on perfecting this knife. It’s infused with a special essence they’ve been working on in her region for some time now—a sort of anti-venom, if you will, derived from the venom itself. The venom being divine magic, in this case.” As he spoke, he uncovered the object on the table, revealing a smooth river stone beneath the cloth. A scent of salt and metal instantly assaulted my senses.

“There’s residual magic gathered in that stone, isn’t there?” My nose wrinkled. I’d spent weeks acclimating to a similar scent in the divine realm, but it was isolated here—the only rotten thing in our oasis of a courtyard—and that made it overpowering.

“Yes,” Cillian said. “It’s one of many similar materials I’ve collected from the Nightvale Forest, for testing purposes.”

I squirmed on the bench, wondering if he’d collected these materials from any of the same places I was secretly visiting to heal myself.

“Now,” he said, gesturing excitedly, “stab the blade into it and watch what happens.”

My hand shook. Whether from my own nerves, or from the blade’s power, I wasn’t sure—but somehow, I managed to steady my grip enough for a quick, accurate jab into the center of the stone. The tip of the blade stuck into the surface in a way that seemed impossible, more like a knife into butter than rock. It didn’t go all the way through, but it went deep enough to stick straight up and remain steady even after I pulled my hand away.

I watched as a dark, rotting energy unfurled from the blade, wrapping around the stone. Ribbons of the energy crisscrossed their way through—following the veins of magic within, I guessed—and soon the stone was shriveling before my eyes.

“This is…” I didn’t know what to say.

“A weapon with the potential to kill a god,” Cillian finished for me, so excited he couldn’t stay sitting down. He clambered to his feet and hovered around the table until the last threads of black energy dissipated, then he gathered up what remained of the stone and offered it to me.

I carefully cupped it in my hands. It had curled into a shape that vaguely resembled a small, crushed and withered heart.

A memory dropped into my head—the evening I’d spent with Dravyn in the room full of his glass creations. I’d been so surprised to feel the normal, mortal-like pulse of his heart that night…

Was this knife my allies had created really capable of putting an end to its beating?

“Well?” Cillian prompted. “What do you think?”

“I think,” I said quietly, “that it would take something much more powerful than this to kill a god.”

“Well, yes, of course—but this is the start of it. We’ve worked out the basic method, that’s the important thing. We just need more ‘venom’ to create a stronger anti-divine spell, and then to take that spell and infuse it into bigger, better weapons…and then the possibilities are endless.”

He settled once more onto the bench across from me, leaning forward in the eager, conspiratorial way he always did when we were getting to the most interesting parts of a plan. “And you’re going to be invaluable for the next part of this operation.”

“How so?”

“You’ve witnessed more magic than most of us could dream of at this point,” he said, his tone filled with wonder and maybe a touch of jealousy. “I know we can use at least some of all this information you’ve gathered. You’ve told us much of it, but is there anything else we might be able to use?”

An answer struck me almost right away, but I felt too conflicted to voice it immediately. I gripped the stone bench beneath me, my claws extending and digging in, as I tried to keep my balance amidst my warring thoughts. I wanted to keep this potential idea to myself—at least until I’d had time to think everything through—but I also didn’t want to let Cillian down.

“Karys?”

I couldn’t remain silent.

I’d gone to the divine realm with a mission, and this was the clear, obvious next part of making sure that mission succeeded.

“There are…towers,” I said. “I don’t think I really told you and Andrel about them before, did I?”

He shook his head.

“The Towers of Creation. One in each divine court that has magic capable of creating lesser divine creatures, and then a fourth that contains whatever it is that allows for the ascension of humans, for their transformation into full gods or spirits. And I think…I think if we could somehow harness the magic within these places, then whatever reverse poison you could derive from it would likely be able to inflict…” I took a deep, bracing breath “…catastrophic damage to a divine being. Because the reverse of creation…”

“Is destruction.” Cillian looked so excited by this idea I thought he might fall off the bench.

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