For the space of a dozen heartbeats, Tanaros saw only blackness. He sheathed his sword, hands moving blindly. Slowly, his eyes adjusted to this new darkness, and when they did, he saw that traceries remained. The blue-white veins within the stony walls lingered, their light ebbing. When the marrow-fire. is quenched and Godslayer is freed …

A new spasm of fear seized him. “Godslayer,” Tanaros said aloud.

“URU-ALAT.”

The word seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, the World God’s name whispered in every corner of the Chamber, all at once a prayer, a plea, a promise. It carried the scent of water, overwhelming for a moment the sweet charnel reek of ichor.

In the center of the room, Satoris Third-Born lifted his mighty head.

“Now,” he said. “It is now.”

In the blink of an eye, the glittering Font vanished, plunging the Chamber into gloom. For the span of a breath, Godslayer seemed to hang in the darkling air above the hole where the Font had blazed, then it dropped, clattering off the stones that ringed the empty pit. There it lay, unharmed, its lucid crimson radiance beating vividly against the darkness.

An involuntary cry escaped Cerelinde’s lips. As swiftly as thought, she moved, darting toward the extinguished Font. All around her, shadows seethed. It seemed a penumbra of darkness gathered as the Shaper, too, moved forward. But if her mother was born to the House of Elterrion, her father was a scion of Numireth the Fleet, capable of outracing the darkness. Stooping, Cerelinde seized the rounded haft of the dagger.

Godslayer.

It throbbed against her palm, singing a wordless song of power that made the blood surge in her veins; a Shaper’s power, power she did not know how to use. It didn’t matter. It was a Shard of the Souma, and it had another purpose. Cerelinde straightened and whirled, prepared to fend off the Sunderer.

He had not moved.

“You see,” he murmured. “I kept my word.” He took a step toward her, turning his hands outward. “Finish your task.”

Although she could not have said for whom she wept, there were tears in her eyes, blurring her vision. Cerelinde tightened her grip on Godslayer’s haft. “Why?” she asked, her voice ragged with grief. “Why?”

The Shaper smiled. “All things must be as they must, little sister.”

He took another step forward and another, looming before her. The clean aroma of water had vanished, and the sweet, coppery scent of ichor filled her nostrils. A Shaper’s blood, spilled many Ages ago. An unhealing wound. Cerelinde raised the dagger between them. The Shard’s deadly edges glimmered with its own rubescent light. “Stay back!”

Satoris Third-Born shook his head. “One way or the other, you will give me what is mine.” He extended his hand as he had done once before, in the moon-garden. “How do you choose, daughter of Erilonde?”