Page 16 of At the Mercy of Midnight
Which was a very real possibility.
Everything she knew of working directly with Monolith shards was that the magic was too potent to be handled by mortals. Every attempt in their history had failed with catastrophic outcome.
Yet, Amelia felt relatively normal, beyond the initial surge of magic she had felt. The wound had throbbed unusually once or twice, but otherwise it looked like any normal cut on her hand.
A shuffle of movement at the entrance to her tent had her eyes finally raising, finding Silas standing there, holding a flap open and looking at her.
Amelia turned her hand over and folded them into her lap.
“How are you feeling?” he asked in a low voice.
She shrugged one shoulder. “I haven’t noticed much. You?”
“Same,” Silas said, dropping the door shut and stepping inside.
He pulled his pack from his shoulders and knelt at the foot of her bedroll, opening it. He pulled out two small, wrapped bundles and lay them between where Amelia and Silas sat.
They both stared down at the daggers hidden by layers of fabric.
“I was thinking about what you said,” Amelia started slowly, “about what might happen if the wrong people become aware of these.”
Silas glanced up at her. “Yeah?”
“And I think we should keep them hidden, somewhere safe while we research them.”
He nodded. “Agreed, and I’ve also been thinking—”
“Well, that’s dangerous,” she said before she could help herself.
Silas paused to stare at her, unimpressed. Amelia bit at the inside of her lip and smiled with a semblance of apology.
“I was considering that they might be more threatening to us if kept together. I think we should keep them separate from one another.”
Amelia reared back slightly at the suggestion. “What? We don’t even know what they do yet. Keeping them apart might bemoredangerous.”
“Or we could be preventing something disastrous. Not to mention if someone tries to steal one, at least they wouldn’t have both.”
Amelia considered his words before responding. “The impact of separating them could be worse. I don’t think we can make any decisions on that until we find out more.”
“Well, who’s supposed to keep both hidden, hm?” Silas asked. “You or me? You would really trust me with both blades?”
She tilted her head to the side with a cynical look. “Am I supposed to thinkyouwould trustmewith both?”
He smirked at her. “Not the point.”
Amelia huffed and stood, stretching out her legs before she moved over to her small table with the few books she had on hand. Every one of the books she knew well and had never come across anything like the daggers. She would need to schedule time in the library of the Lux Spire. If anywhere had the answers,it was in the enormous library nestled in the bowels of the prestigious university.
She heard Silas shifting and then he was standing next to her, hands coming into view as he placed the wrapped daggers on the table in front of her small pile of books.
“We don’t yet understand what we’re dealing with,” he said, “and I believe that splitting them is the safest option, one with you, and one with me.”
“The safest option?” Amelia gritted out. “I think the safest option would have been to not bloody touch them in the first place, but we clearly failed at that.”
“Yes, well, there’s no changing that,” Silas said before he picked up one of the daggers and held it carefully, “but we can be meticulous in how we choose to deal with it from here forwards.”
Amelia turned her body to face him, her eyes falling to the dagger in his hand, wrapped in his shirt. “Yet you still handle it like it’s not radiating ancient magic.”
He shrugged. “It doesn’t seem to be anymore.”
