Page 56 of Steeling Light
Until a supernaturally thin woman appears from the air so similarly to how the sylph in the Keep of Shadows had. Vesta. “Lady Ainslee,” she says with the slightest nod. “Maerlix told me you would know how to reach Queen Maeve.”
I let out a soft sigh. “Yes. Do you haveA History of Magic and Dragons?”
She reaches under a bolt of fabric, and when her hand comes back, it’s holding a black leather-bound book that looks heavy. “Yes.”
It’s done. I’ve found Vesta and her book, and now I can take her back to Stormhaven. I can go back to Darian, Cole, and Maeve again. I don’t know how much help this will be toward the war effort, but it’s what I was told to do.
“We leave at dark after I get Lorcan and Fiona out of the city.”
Chapter 30
There is nothing stopping a sylph, or any other Immortal, from enchanting, but my House is most suited to it. Sidon says we must be the most flexible. I believe we have been forced to use every advantage we can get to compete with the other Great Houses. Necessity breeds innovation.
~Daegon Rahn, personal journals
Rhion
I step onto the training ground, and immediately a younger soldier approaches me. “Thank Sidon, you’re back. The generals have been furious that they were going to have to wait an entire week to talk to you again.”
I frown at the girl whose name slips from my mind. She couldn’t have been part of my command for very long. I know I’ve spoken to her before, but I don’t remember her very well.
“Slow down. What’s your name, soldier?” I ask.
“Maris, sir.” She looks nervous. I’m a little surprised she’s the one who found me. I walked past numerous other soldiers, and all they did was give me a quick nod.
“Maris, why are you the one telling me this? Why not one of the officers I’ve passed?”
She stands up a little straighter. “Because I was onPrince Rhionduty. My job for the past week has been to watch for you. General Trystan gave me the order himself. He told me they need you to go to them directly if I saw you. It’s something to do with a gauntlet, though I don’t know why a gauntlet would concern you, Prince Rhion. I do my best not to question my orders, but it sounds a little… wasteful?”
A gauntlet? There’s only one gauntlet that my generals would care about. TheSteel Gauntlet. It’s the most powerful of all the relics we’ve been hunting for. The Burning Brand nullifies the power of Shadows, but the Steel Gauntlet nullifies weapons and Flames. It, along with the Burning Brand, will be impossible to defeat.
“Thank you, Maris. Go back to training. You’ve done your duty. War is brewing, and every minute you aren’t training is a minute that your enemies are becoming stronger than you.”
She bows to me and runs back to the training ground where soldiers are working on their formations. Dragons damn us all. If Trystan found the Gauntlet, we’ve already won the battle.
My father’s orders pound in my head.Find the relics. Do whatever you have to do to find them. I don’t care how many soldiers die or how many villages you have to burn. Find them and bring them to me.
I consider resisting the command. Pain shoots through me like hot metal, searing my mind with agony. Even contemplating refusing him is more than I think I can stomach. I have to choose my battles. If my generals have found the Steel Gauntlet, they’ll wait for me to test it, but if I refuse to bring it to my father, they’ll still bring it to him. Refusing this order won’t help. Not unless I can somehow figure out how to fight and kill all of my generals while it feels like I’m dying.
No, this is not the time to refuse him.
I go to the command room where all the generals sit and talk about defense plans. They know Cole is coming to the city soon. I catch the words “The Shade” in the conversation before they notice me. Then they all turn at once, smiles on their faces. They know what the Steel Gauntlet means. It means that while we may lose soldiers, we won’t lose the war.
“I’ve heard that you found the Steel Gauntlet.”
There’s silence among them for a moment, but then General Trystan stands up. “We haven’t found it, but we’re almost certain we know where it is. The only problem is that we can’t get it.”
I frown. “Speak plainly. I don’t have the energy for riddles.”
He sighs, but he’s still smiling. “You told us to hunt for the other relics. We have the Brand, and Cole Cyrus has the Cloak. That left the Choker and the Gauntlet. Everything tells us the House of Earth hid the Choker where only they could find it. So, I went searching through the old records of King Daegon, your grandfather. He was the last person to hold the Steel Gauntlet to our knowledge.”
He clears his throat, and I pick up some nervous energy from him. He’s proud of himself, but he’s trying to be humble. “Daegon Rahn was a meticulous record keeper. He states many times in his journals that he didn’t trust his mind. Sidon, whom he spoke to almost daily, struggled with lost memories, and Daegon did not want to forget anything important. So, he journaled every day. Most of these journals have been read by scholars many times over. It’s how we know about the world before your father’s rule.”
I’ve known about my grandfather’s journals for a long time, but did he really just write down the location of the Steel Gauntlet when all the Houses’ relics went missing?
“The scholars saw no mention of the Steel Gauntlet in those journals, but they also noticed that for a man as focused on record keeping, there were significant gaps.”
I sigh. “There are missing journals,” I finish, understanding at last. “Where were they hidden?”
