Blade of Glass: Chapter 58

Geneve’s eyes snapped open, breath dragging through her chest. Her body felt raw, her mind bloody.

Memory after memory snicked into place, pieces of a puzzle, fragments of a person, held apart from the rest of her for thirteen years. Each one hit with the force of a punch.

Israel is my father.

Vertiline knew.

My mother sold me.

She stood on weary legs. The witch Nicolette faced Meriwether. He held Geneve’s borrowed steel with trembling arms. She could see the fear in him, burning like a bonfire. Terrible, and wonderful, that he would bring his beautiful, fragile self between her and a demon.

Geneve stepped to his side as she’d been taught. Cophine’s third stanza, for closing distance. She took the sword from Meriwether, feeling a gentle strength in her hands. A feeling she’d never had before because she’d always been imperfect. Broken. But it hadn’t been her.

She’d had a piece missing. A terrible, frightening part. Her father, the murderer. Her friend, the accomplice. They were her broken, bitter family, and she loved them. “You came.”

“Hah. I mean, sure.”

Geneve looked into Meriwether’s face, seeing his pain, his fear, and his anguish she would die. “You stood when all else didn’t. Step back, Meri. I’ve got this.”

“But … the Storm,” he said. “You should run. Get away, while you can.”

The Storm. Geneve knew what it felt like now. Her steps were always perfect. She’d been right for so long, it was a part of her, waiting for the rest to return. Geneve swung her sword, welcoming the gods with each swing. Cophine, Ikmae, and Khiton’s colors lit the steel. “Oh, Meri. I didn’t believe Sight of Day. But he saw it, from the first day.”

“Saw what?”

She faced Nicolette. Geneve saw behind the dead mask at what lay behind it. A corruption. This was no Champion. Nicolette was impure. She’d welcomed a demon into her soul. “I’m a daughter of the Three, and there’s a Storm inside me.”

* * *

Neither of them held glass. For the first time Geneve could finally use a Tresward blade, she didn’t have one, and Nicolette’s were broken by Israel.

Oh, Iz. Father.

Nicolette held a short steel knife, blade against her forearm. Geneve held her blade in Scorpion’s Guard, sword above her head, other hand forward in a knife edge. The circled like dogs. The sound from outside as wizards fought an army of the dead sounded far away, like a battle happening on another world.

Meri crept back, looking for anything to help, but he couldn’t help her here. She was a Knight of the Tresward, and the Three put her here, at this point at time, to kill a demon.

//DROP. YOUR. SWORD.// Nicolette spoke with Sway, the command in the words begging Geneve to lower her blade.

Instead, she laughed. “I don’t think so, witch. Let’s finish this with steel. No glass. No tricks.”

“A Champion against an Adept.”

Geneve nodded. “Or a demon against a Knight.”

“You can see it? Israel couldn’t.” Nicolette stopped moving left, returning to the right. Her blade danced, trying to catch stray light, but the skies above were the gray of Ikmae’s cloak. No sun came inside.

“Demons aren’t real,” Meri said, like he wanted to believe it.

Nicolette smiled wider. “They’re as real as sinners. Now.” //BE. QUIET.// “I’ll get to you in a minute.”

Meri’s lips snapped shut, and he clasped his mouth with both hands, denying any noise.

Don’t look. It’s the distraction she wants. 

Or, look. Distract her.

Geneve glanced to Meri, and Nicolette leaped forward. Her blade cut light from the air, a short swath of brilliant gold. Geneve stepped aside, her own sword slicing heaven’s door. She’d trained for perfection when perfection never answered. Pattern after pattern, time after time. She’d worn a blindfold as often as her eyes were open. Never before had the Storm answered.

It came now.

Her sword cut Nicolette’s blade in half. No chime of metal, no ring of an angel’s cry. One moment Nicolette held steel, then nothing but the haft of a dagger. Geneve swung again, and Nicolette danced back.

The Storm followed Geneve’s strike, a roaring wall of force tearing the floor apart. A shower of stone blasted Nicolette, and the Champion tumbled back as if Khiton himself tossed her aside.

Geneve knew moves in the patterns that had no purpose without the Storm behind them. Now she felt the Three’s power in her arm and used it to break the witch knight. She swung overhand. Nicolette caught her blade against her armor, but the strike was too good.

The blade sheared through Nicolette’s arm. The wave of force following Geneve’s swing crushed the Champion to the ground, flattening her to a crumpled mess. Geneve swung again, then once more. Both blows rang with the tone of a massive bell, peals ringing out, calling for all to bear witness as a fallen Champion was cast down.

Smoke. Dust raining from the ceiling, then rain, wet and cold, as the roof collapsed. Silence, broken only after three heaving breaths. Geneve ran to Israel, sank to her knees beside the dead Valiant, and wept.

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