“If you heard that, then you’ll also know that the minute a hand touches that sword, darkness will be called.”

“Darkness has already been called, if I’m any judge,” Maran growled. “So get on with it or I’ll goddamn make you.”

I stared at her for a minute, then stepped up the chest. “I need a knife.”

Vincentia snorted. “As if either of us is stupid enough to hand you a weapon. Hold out your hand.”

I did so. Vincentia caught it and pulled my fingers back to expose my palm more. Maran pulled a knife from a sheath strapped to her side and quickly stabbed it into my hand.

I cursed her and tried to jerk it back, but Vincentia’s grip prevented me. As blood welled, she twisted my hand around and let the blood drip onto the chest.

One drop splashed.

A single beat in response.

Two drops.

The faintest fracture ran around the edge of the chest.

Three.

A rumble began, a distant thunder that grew stronger and stronger until it was all I could hear and all I could feel, both in my heart and in my body. It was almost as if the sword that lay within judged us, weighing us for worthiness. Then dark purple light ran around the fractured edge of the chest, and the lid clicked open a centimeter.

Shadows crept like skeletal fingers over the chest’s rim and crawled down toward the floor.

Vincentia and I stepped away from them.

Maran did not.

My gaze snapped toward her. A smile touched her lips, and her eyes held a glow that was both triumphant and hungry.

The sword might have tested us all, but it had chosen her.

Fuck.

With a flick of her fingers, she spelled the lid away, then stepped forward. I lunged past Vincentia, trying to stop Maran, but those shadowy fingers wrapped around my ankles, making me stumble, pulling me down.

Maran reached into the chest and pulled free the sword. It flamed to life as it left the chest, the fire the same unearthly color that had run around the chest on the third drop of blood. It leapt up the fuller, wrapped around Maran’s hand, and then disappeared into her skin.

My breath caught, but for several seconds, nothing happened.

Then Maran screamed, and everything went to hell

Chapter Fourteen

As her earsplitting sound of utter agony filled the darkness, the darkness moved, becoming creatures with thick yellow talons and claws that scraped across the stone as they flowed toward us.

I raised a hand and cast the wind in front of them, forming a howling barrier of air that would slow them down but not, in the end, stop them.

“Vincentia,” I yelled, “give me the gun or fucking use it yourself. You have to stop her—now! Before the sword totally controls her.”

Her gaze snapped toward mine. Her face was pale, her eyes wide. I was guessing she’d never seen the Annwfyn before.

“Gun!” I repeated. “Now!”