Eric De Bie - Shadowbane

Kalen shook his head. “I loved her after a fashion. As much as she wanted.”

Myrin wasn’t sure what to make of that, but she accepted it all the same. Kalen Dren was not an easy man to understand.

“Kalen, I share your grief, but we need to move on. There are things-”

“No,” Kalen said. “This is not grief, but anger. ”

“Oh.” Myrin felt her fingers turn cold. “You know Sithe’s death was not your fault.”

“ Sithe’s was not my fault, no,” Kalen said. “She left this world as she willed-destroying her enemy. But Rhett …”

“Rhett.” Myrin looked down at her hands.

Silence stretched between them. She joined him at the crenellations between the roof and open space. The Drowned Rat overlooked the bay, whose black waters seemed remarkably calm this dawn-almost like glass. Almost like Vindicator.

Myrin looked down at the sword, which lay on the edge of the roof. With the slightest push, it would dance through the air and scythe into the bay, to be lost forever. Would their lives be lessened or improved by such an accident?

The blade, now cleansed of blood, no longer glowed as it had in Kalen’s hand. The growing sunlight, however, danced off it in a particular way. She reached out and could feel the power in the sword-the source of such power she had not even dreamed of.

“Will you take the sword?” she asked. “I mean, wherever you go next?”

“If I never touch that blade again,” Kalen said, “it will be too soon.”

“Now that is royally stupid,” Myrin said sharply. Kalen looked over at her. “That sword has chosen you, whether you like it or not. You cannot simply ignore it.”

“Don’t I know it,” Kalen said.

Words trailed off again between them and they listened to the gulls ringing in the dawn. Myrin turned, her arms crossed, and leaned back against the wall, looking toward the east. There, outside the city, the Waterdhavians would be hearing that the plague had ended and they would lift the quarantine.

“Looks like Luskan survives another plague summer,” Myrin observed.

“More’s the pity,” Kalen replied, stepping away.

Finally, frustrated, Myrin seized Vindicator by the hilt-awkwardly, since it was too heavy for her-and rounded on Kalen. “Is that all?” she asked. “You’ll just give up? And-”

She stopped, seeing Kalen standing near the packs, fully dressed in his gray-black travel clothes. “We’re not giving up. At least-assuming you’re with me.” He leaned Sithe’s axe against his shoulder. “Ready to go?”

Myrin blinked, startled. Then she smiled.

Something deep inside her kindled and burned with blue fire.

Several blocks away, in a forgotten graveyard called Yewblood, a block off Aldever’s, a small, cloaked figure sought shelter from the burning sun as it rose over the eastern mountains.

“Feh, death,” he said. “But at least it be but temporary.”

He looked down at his wound, which gaped but did not bleed. The flesh had turned to thick purple crystal laced with silvery veins and golden flecks. Flesh that was not that of a halfling. He thought that with enough blood, it would heal entirely.

Time to feed.

A rat scurried past his feet. Quick as a snake, he caught it in his crystal-coated hand. “A new power be rising in Luskan-town, no?” he said to his captive audience. “And we best be about that. But first-” His crystalline eyes twinkled. “Feed.”

He sank his fangs into the rat and sighed contentedly.

At least he had his morningfeast.