Page 179 of Ash and Feather

I took a deep breath and lifted my gaze to his.

“Wherever you plant this dagger will be a point of new life,” he explained. “It is potential power. It is potential peace. It is up to you what ultimately is allowed to flow from it, and over it, and who is allowed to take from its energy. It has the power to save the Velkyn, both from themselves and others, but it will need to be planted in the heart of their rebellion, as I told you—allowed to finish killing off that which must die to allow for new growth.”

“But the anti-divine runes, and all the poisons they’ve created…”

“The dagger’s power, once awakened through the proper ritual—and wielded properly by you—will render all they’ve created useless.”

“Useless?” I repeated, breathlessly, awestruck again by this tiny dagger and the apparently limitless power it contained.

The quiet voice in the back of my mind was back, telling me to be wary once more.

I no longer hated or feared the gods as I once did, but could I trust everything Malaphar was telling me—and the things he almost certainly wasn’t?

“It will also return to them some of the divine blessings they seek,” he said, again answering me as though I’d voiced my concerns aloud. “Not all they had before—which is why they will need a divine leader to look to. To guide them as they rebuild their lands into something different, something better. With you as their goddess and guide, the lands around the Antaeum’s Point will flourish. You have my word on that. And, if all goes well, we may see fit to establish other points like it.”

I could see it, almost—a world where my sister and the other elves had a true place to belong again, rather than merely a cursed hiding place. A world where they had power equal to the other mortal beings of Avalinth.

Would it be enough to calm the rebels and the rising tides of war?

“Can you do this?” Malaphar asked.

Goddess. Guide. Balance point.

The expectations were high.

But I had not come here expecting low ones.

So I managed to swallow down my doubt and give him a firm answer. “I can.”

He bowed his head in acknowledgment—an almost reverent gesture that seemed strange from one so much more powerful than myself.

I secured the dagger in its sheath and clutched it to my chest. Bracing myself, already, for the days ahead.

“One last thing: You may not speak of this gift to any other divine being. Not even to him.”

I didn’t have to ask who he meant.

But the thought of keeping such a secret from Dravyn made my stomach curl.

“This weapon will change the course of history in all realms. The Marr are better off not knowing about it, or the plans we have for it. Do you understand?”

I didn’t want to agree, but felt I had little choice. “Yes.”

“Good,” he said, gesturing toward a narrow wooden door on the opposite side of the room—one I knew forcertainhadn’t been there a moment ago.

I couldn’t help hesitating and looking back one last time before I went through it.

“You have more questions, Arbiter?”

I was almost afraid to ask them. But I couldn’t get myself to move while they were still in my heart, weighing me down. “If my power shifts into this different form, this different kind of goddess, what becomes of the God of Fire?”

What becomes of us if I step into this role? Of the magic he gave me? Of the home I found with him? Will we ever see each other again?

I didn’t ask these last questions out loud. I didn’t have to. This god before me was the keeper of all knowledge, which included every secret I might have tried to bury—reading minds and emotions was as effortless as breathing to him.

He turned away, his attention again on one of his raven’s, which was pecking out one of the loose feathers on the floor.

“Focus on the final trial I’ve given you,” he said, more to the bird than me, “and I trust you’ll know the path you must walk when you come to it.”

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