Page 153 of Brambles and Bellflowers
“I…” I bit my lip, trying to focus, but it wasn’t easy with the ringing in my ears.
“You have a sword.” Damen crossed his arms, voice dry. “And you just bitch-slapped a dragon with it.”
The statement was so absurd it managed to pull me back to reality.
“What?” I frowned at him. “Why would you…”
I paused as my right hand tightened over a smooth, handle-like object. I didn’thaveto look to know what it was—this feeling wasn’t entirely unfamiliar—but I did anyway.
The sounds of fighting faded as I stared at the object in my hand. The curved, crimson blade was eerily familiar yet hauntingly sad, and my attention wandered along the golden, floral engravings etched into the surface.
Tentatively, I touched it, and the metal seemed to hum under my fingertips.
Finally, something I could work with!
It was about time.
“That’s your sword,” Julian told me. “You named itSoulbringer.”
“Amongst other things,” Damen grumbled.
I rested my palm over the thickest part of the etchings. I didn’t remember, but the others were watching me, expecting a reaction, but I didn’t know what they wanted. It was mine, but it wasn’t. How could I even begin to explain?
“Okay.” Miles stumbled beside us. He was leaning heavily on the walking stick. All the fighting must have adjusted his wounded leg. “Enough time wasted; are you ready to get rid of it now?”
“If we knewhow,” Julian intoned, “it’d be dead already.”
“I’m talking to Bianca.” Miles frowned at me.
“What are you talking about?” Damen asked. “Bianca doesn’t know how to—”
Miles ignored him and covered my hands with his own. “It’syourmagic,” he told me. “Somehow Kathleen could tap into it, but you created it. Only you can make it go away.”
I looked at him as nervousness settled past the numbness. “But—”
“You can do it,” he told me, and I could feel the truth in his words. He believed in me the same way I’d believed in him when I’d asked him to trap a ghost. “You’ve given me all sorts of gifts—let me give you one in return.”
“W-what?” I asked. My skin grew hot, and my pulse roared in my ears.
“Spellslayer,” Miles breathed between us, and a tingle moved through my fingers. As I watched, the engravings on the blade seemed to grow brighter and the handle even hotter.
And then it was over. Miles stepped back. In the meantime, Damen was frowning at the object in my hands.
“What did you do?” the onmyoji asked. “It’s already obnoxious enough as it is.”
I frowned at him. What did he have against my sword?
Titus’s white scales flashed as he slammed into the Snallygaster, his tail whipping through the air in a blur. The beast staggered under the impact but recovered too quickly, its jagged claws sinking into the ground as it twisted toward me again.
Even with Titus keeping it occupied, it kept turning toward me, like I was the only thing it saw.
Miles shifted beside me. “Don’t be nervous.”
I blinked, turning my head just enough to see him watching me.
“I’ll bind it so it can’t get away,” he told me. “Then you can go.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Go… where?”
