Dran Z'vinn's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

The snuffer stood cornered against the far stone wall. Her crystal orb hovered on its stand between them, dark smoke turning inside. Dran raised his blade over it. He struck. Steel rang and slid off the crystal like ice off glass. The orb did not crack. A hairline split ran up his blade instead. He pulled back before it snapped. The orb was harder than his weapon. He could not break it by force. A cold voice cut the hollow. "Your steel is wrong for that." A woman came through the gap in the stone. Her lower half was serpent, thick coils sliding over wet rock. Jade armor plated her body, green and gold. A boy's sword hung untouched on her back. Dran knew her by reputation only. Shr'va Orvanos, once a guard of the Jade Throne. He did not know why she stood in a dead hollow at night. "You want the orb broken," she said. It was not a question. "You need to see what holds it whole." She lifted a monocle on a fine chain and held it out. Dark shapes drifted across its glass like feathers. "Look through this." Dran took it. He did not trust her. But his blade was cracked and the snuffer was still breathing. He fit the monocle to his eye and looked at the orb. Thin threads of shadow wrapped it, twisting from the smoke inside to the snuffer's own hands. The orb was not simply hard. Her will held it whole. Break her grip and the shell would fail. "Cut the threads, not the glass," Shr'va said. The snuffer saw his eye change and lunged for the stand. Dran moved first. He swung the cracked blade flat, not at the orb, but across the smoky threads between her hands and the crystal. The dark strands parted. The snuffer screamed and clutched her fingers. The orb's inner smoke spun loose and wild. Dran reversed the blade and drove the pommel down onto the crystal. This time it shattered. Shards burst across the stone. The trapped smoke poured out and rose into the night sky. Far off, across the whole Moonlit Stretch, lamps caught fire again one by one. Cold posts flickered gold. The eternal night pulled back. The snuffer sank against the wall, hands ruined, orb gone. She was no longer a threat. Dran lowered his broken blade and breathed. Shr'va slid forward and lifted one long crystal shard from the floor. She turned it in the lamplight. "This is your Sunburst Blade," she said. "Or the heart of it. The rest you must forge." She held it out. "But shards like this cannot be worked by any smith on the Stretch. Only one forge can shape a snuffed light back into steel. And I will not tell you where for free." Dran took the shard. The light was back. The blade was not.