“Please don’t do that,” he requested, and I froze for a heartbeat and then straightened. “My name is Ector.”
I opened my mouth—
“I don’t care what your name is,” he interrupted, and I snapped my mouth shut. I was going to say hello. “You’re probably wondering why I’m here.”
I was.
“If so, we have that in common,” he continued, tilting his head. Several locks of blond curls slid over his forehead. “I’m also wondering that, but I know better than to ask questions and to simply do as I’m told.”
My brows lifted in confusion.
Ector gave the horse one last scratch and then turned fully toward me. I saw then that he held something in his other hand. A narrow, wooden box made of pale birch. “I was ordered to give you this.”
I stared at the box. “By whom?”
“I think you missed the part about knowing better than to ask questions. You should know better.” He offered the box. “Take it.”
I took the box, only because…what else was I supposed to do? Glancing down at it, I turned it slowly in my hands and then looked up. The god called Ector had already walked off toward the street.
Okay, then.
Curious and a bit wary, I stepped into the shadows of the building next door. I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t a little afraid of what could be in a box given to me by some random god. I found the seam of the lid and lifted it.
I gasped as a tremor of shock rippled through me. The box wobbled in my hand. I steadied myself, unable to believe what I was looking at.
Nestled against cream velvet was a dagger. Not just any dagger, though.
The corners of my lips tipped up, and a smile stretched across my face as I freed the blade from its soft nest. The dagger was…it was a magnificent creation. A piece of art. The hilt was made of some kind of smooth, white, surprisingly lightweight material. Perhaps stone of some sort? The pommel of the hilt was carved into the shape of a crescent moon. I gripped the hilt and pulled the dagger free. The dagger…gods, it was delicate yet strong.
Beautiful and powerful.
The blade itself was at least seven inches long and shaped like a thin hourglass—deadly sharp on both sides. Someone had etched an elaborate design into the dagger—a spiked tail on the blade, and the muscular, scaled body and head of a dragon carved into the hilt, its powerful jaws open and breathing fire.
The dagger was made of shadowstone.
The polished black blade blurred. I blinked away the sudden wetness and swallowed, but the messy knot still clogged my throat. The emotion had nothing to do with the shadowstone. It didn’t even have to do with who I knew must have given it to me. It was just…
I’d never been gifted anything in my life.
Not on the Rites when gifts were often exchanged among family and friends. Not on my birthday.
But I had been given a gift now—a beautiful, useful, and wholly unexpected one. And it had been a god who’d given it to me.
Ash.
Chapter 17
Odetta passed into the Vale in the early morning hours of the following day.
I’d only learned this because when I went to check on her before training with Sir Holland, I had discovered a servant in her chamber, stripping the linens from the bed.
And I knew what had happened before I even spoke—before I asked where she was. The sudden tightening in my chest and the knot in my throat told me that the moment Odetta had warned was approaching had come and gone.
I hadn’t gone to the tower. Instead, I’d traveled to Stonehill, where I knew she had family who still lived, arriving just as the services began. I wondered if that was why I often found myself in this district and spent time at the Temple of Phanos—if I thought of Odetta as family, and that was why it drew me.
I stayed near the back of the small cluster of mourners, surprised when I felt the presence of others coming to stand beside me. It was Sir Holland and Ezra. Neither said anything as the pyre Odetta had been laid upon was raised, the slender linen-wrapped body coming into view. They stood quietly beside me, their presence lessening some of the pressure in my chest.
I didn’t cry as torches were carried forward and placed on the oil-soaked wood. Not because I couldn’t, but because I knew that Odetta wouldn’t have wanted me to. She’d told me that I had to be ready. So, I was as ready as I could ever be as the flames slowly crawled over the wood, stirred by the salty breeze coming off the sea until I could no longer see the pale linens behind the fire.