Page 42 of Steeling Light
My mother’s Light shines even brighter than mine, and while the mist is thick, it doesn’t turn into a blinding reflection like normal fog would. Everywhere the brightness touches seems to give way, letting us see through it.
I can see everything in the Labyrinth under us, the stone overhangs that have stopped so many Steel soldiers from trying to get to the center. Without the Light we’re projecting, we would have to approach so slowly, and we’d never know if we were on the right or wrong path. There are so many branches, so many places to lose our way.
The Labyrinth is enormous, the size of a large human village, but from our vantage point, all the paths seem to lead toward the center even though some start and stop abruptly. All of them still point toward the darkness still hidden from us.
Already, I can feel a sense of dread washing over me. Morvael’s influence. Vellith had talked about how his enemies would fall to the ground, dead purely from fear. She said that his influence wouldn’t be that strong now, but that we should be sure that we didn’t let that fear take hold because it was his most dangerous weapon.
“I can see him,” Rhion says quietly, and I know he feels the same fear rising inside him I do. He always has a smile or a joke, even in the most serious situations. Now, though, he seems nervous.
There’s a flicker of darkness moving in the circle of stone a quarter mile in front of us. Our wings don’t slow, but I hesitate at the sight of him. He’s huge. At least four times as tall as a man. Larger than Darian has ever grown.
At first, I want to say he’s made of shadows, but that’s not right. Shadows have shades of darkness. There’s almost a bit of substance to them. Thisgodseems to absorb the light that shines his way. He’s not so muchsomethingas a lack of something.
“Dragons take me,” my mother whimpers from below Rhion, and I know exactly how she feels.
“What’s the plan?” I ask.
“I… I don’t know,” Rhion says. “I don’t think I can fight it. I’ll try. I have a Nightforged sword, somaybeit will do something. I can probably stall it if nothing else.”
No, that won’t work. Not at all. “Is there some kind of enchanting you can do? Do you have anything…”
His eyes light up, and he stares at me with what seems like hope in his eyes. “I know exactly how we fight it.”
We stand just outside the doorway to the center of the Labyrinth. The fog is so viscous you have to work to move through it. Like a cold soup that has thickened. Rhion lays out the twenty empty spellstones he has and passes five to me and five to my mother. Then he picks up ten for himself.
“These spellstones will draw in power. It won’t be enough to hold something that large at first, but if Vellith was explaining correctly, we need to get him to hide from your Light. He’ll be forced to shed his power to do so. Once that happens, we need to find him and arrange the spellstones around him. Then, we keep doing that until he’s not strong enough to hold his power away from them.”
I frown. “There’s no way it’ll be that easy. This isn’t a High Fae, Rhion. This is a literal god who could destroy the world if he ever broke out of his cage. Not even Calyr could fight him. I think we’re going to need to do more than shine a light and suck him into spellstones.”
Rhion grins at me. “He’s not able to be around light, so just… shine really brightly. Cole basically destroyed the entire House of Shadows doing exactly that. And Morvael is only that dangerous if he’s at full power. He’s not. He’s… wounded.”
A sense of dread runs through me as more of the God of Nightmare’s influence seems to take hold of me. “Rhion, we need more of a plan than that.”
“So what are you thinking?”
I can’t think clearly. The fear that’s doing everything in its power to boil up and take hold inside me is making me foggy. “I don’t know…”
I squint. “Wait. Can enchanting hold power in something? Can you make something glow even for an hour?”
Rhion pauses, his head cocking to the side as he thinks. “Not my sword. I’d need Grimnar to help if I were even going to try that.” He’s not talking to me. He’s working through his thoughts. “I could probably do a quick binding of your power to something like a stick. It would be a terrible enchantment that’d break down by the end of the day, but it might be useful.”
He looks past me to the stone wall and says, “Yes, that’d work just fine.” He moves to the wall and rips off a gnarled piece of vine that’s longer than his arm. Long dead without a touch of green, he seems pleased. Without saying another word, he digs into his little enchanting pouch and draws out what looks like a needle.
Then he sits down and says, “When I tell you to, I need you to make this glow as brightly as you can.” I sit down beside him and get ready.
He holds the needle between his index finger and thumb just like he was about to stitch up a pair of holey socks. “Now,” he says, and I pour light into the vine. It shines so brightly that I have a hard time looking at it. Rhion doesn’t seem to notice. Just like he was stitching a sock, he slides the needle over the vine. Then he whispers, and the scent of freshly forged metal leaves a metallic tang in the air. There’s no hint of wildflowers like when he kissed me. It’s the purest House of Steel scent I’ve ever experienced.
And I feel a loss of control. I try to make the light brighter, but it doesn’t act like it should. Instead, it stays constant. It’s not my light anymore. Minutes pass, and Rhion continues to whisper to the vine and stitch the air above it. Each stitch pulls the power further from me.
“You can stop now,” he says as he looks up, and the light coming from the stick creates a halo effect around him.
I stop trying to create light, and the stick stays exactly as it is, a gleaming torch. A roar sounds from inside the center chamber of the Labyrinth, and I shudder. Rhion stands up and says, “I’ve never fought with a vine before, but I haven’t fought a god before either. It’s quite a month for firsts.”
I chuckle, and as his words wash over me, I feel stronger, less influenced by the darkness we’re about to fight. “This feels better,” I say, and Rhion nods. Then I turn to my mother, who looks like she’s barely hanging onto her sanity.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
She nods, but I can see her shaking. “I’m terrified, Ainslee, but I’m not letting it win. I want you to be proud of me. I want to…”
