The night of the gala was a tense thing, but the blade’s travails started the previous evening. That was when Evelyn snuck out in the night and wedged both its scabbard as well as the clothing she planned to change into above the axles of the carriage they would be taking the following evening. Then, the blade was forced to linger there the whole day, completely exposed for anyone to find.

After their near miss with the thieving footman, it was nerve-wracking enough that the Ebon Blade would have rather faced down an opposing army. Still, that was not an option. All it could do was lay there and wait to be drawn in anger at the right moment.

Though it had a good view of the courtyard and could freely taste the servants that came and went, offsetting its losses and building its strength, that did little to pass the time of the fear that someone might notice it. All it would take was one teamster who was just a little too devoted to his task to undo everything; fortunately, there didn’t seem to be any of those found in this household’s employ.

+39 Life Force.

Still, even when horses were harnessed and Evelyn, her older sister, and the woman’s husband finally boarded the carriage, the blade’s concerns were far from over. Evelyn might look serene in the black gown she’d chosen for the event, but its anxieties would continue to mount until she held it once more.

It had worried that it might be found during the day and that it might be found at the gate, but the idea that it might simply fall from where its wielder had lashed it in place did not occur to it until the carriage started clattering over cobblestones, and it started to wiggle ever so slightly.

The weapon had charged heavy cavalry in the fragile body of a goatman with less anxiety than it faced that short ride across town. By the time they arrived at the gate, it was still more afraid of simply falling on the ground than being found by the cursory exam that the guards gave the carriage and its occupants once they supplied their invitation.

The Ebon Blade watched her go without a look back at the carriage as she went inside, then the coachman pulled the carriage off to one side with all of the other conveyances that had delivered their noble occupants, and then the driver went off to smoke with the other teamsters, leaving it alone.

Of course, with the range of its hunger and its improved senses, the blade was never truly alone. It lingered at the edges of those conversations, nibbling at the souls of those servants as it listened to their rumors and gripes and studied the castle that rose up around it in all directions.

+61 Life Force.

The curtain wall of Altbarstein was a huge and imposing thing that would have been unbreachable by any orc, save perhaps one who wielded it. It seemed larger than it had in the fragments of memories it could recall. The lower palace that it surrounded seemed to have expanded over the centuries as well. The inner keep that towered above the rest, though, that was unchanged.

The blade wouldn’t need to breach those defenses, though, not if Evelyn was correct. She was certain that her father was where he would always be, on the throne of the kingdom, preserving his life for as long as he could like a rapacious parasite. At most, she expected the man to walk over to the balcony and perhaps wave down to the revelers in the garden at some auspicious moment, but that would be the most that anyone could expect from him.

In theory, that way was practically clear now that they were inside the giant ironwood gates, but still, the blade worried, and even as it nibbled on the souls of the teamsters and servants that wandered in reach and studied the layout it considered asking its final mage soul more information about this.

Only the furtive movements weaving between the carts stop it, making it refocus. The blade had not noticed the man because he was hiding under a cloak of invisibility. That hadn’t fooled the horses, though, and they stirred visibly enough for the blade to find him.

No, not invisibility,

it realized. The man is wrapped in shadows.

It had been nearly dark when they’d arrived, but such things did not bother the Ebon Blade. This did, though. Mages rarely lurked without reason, and the fact that this one seemed to be peering intently at carriages and not robbing them indicated that he wasn’t a thief.

As the mage drew ever closer, the blade became more and more concerned, but it wasn’t until he muttered, “It has to be somewhere over here. I can see the life drain, but not the blade I…”

The mage stopped as the blade stopped siphoning the Life Force of a random carriage driver with Aura of Hunger in that moment. It had been trying to build up as much energy as possible, but it hadn’t realized anyone could see that. It should have, though. In retrospect, given all that it had learned from Aethersight and Aethershroud, the decision had been a grave error on its part.

Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

The mage noticed that the effect stopped, but instead of fleeing as he should have done, he merely cursed and started searching the nearby wagons one at a time as they grew ever closer to the weapon’s hiding place.

“Where is it,” he muttered, looking in and undercarriages. “It has to be—”

Fortunately, that was when its wielder walked down the lane between the parked carriages, close enough for her gown to brush by him as she moved past. The man staggered back, seemingly more frightened that he’d almost been caught than anything.

More than anything, in that moment, the blade wanted to warn her, but it couldn’t. This is why we should not separate, it complained silently. Not as she moved to the carriage nor as she stooped to retrieve it. It couldn’t tell her that she was being followed, nor that the man was drawing a dagger as his cloak of shadows fell away from his body and condensed around the steel in his hand.

He moved to strike at the same moment that her hand gripped its hilt. In that moment, it didn’t even bother to warn Evelyn. As soon as she reached down and held it in its grasp, it whirled her around like a puppet without resistance. Then, it ran itself right through the stealthy mage that had been following her, pinning him to the opposing carriage with a single thrust through the chest like a butterfly.

His blow had missed. However, instead of even trying to strike again, his weapon fell to the gravel with a metallic clatter.

“Why… didn’t I see…” he gasped as he died. “Why can’t I see you…”

+32 Life Force.

+1 Human soul.

The blade didn’t bother to answer his question, or Evelyn’s, as she demanded to know what was going on. Instead, it barked, be quick. Someone will have noticed his death. We must move.

Then, as she wiggled out of her skirts and dressed in the riding leathers she’d brought along for what came next, it ripped apart the soul of the mage who had been spying on them. Tell me everything! Its voice boomed, making the slight thing evaporate. Tell me why you were looking, what you hoped to find, and who will know that you’ve died!

The answer was not what it had expected. The blade had thought that the man would have been part of the castle staff or even a member of the royal guard, but he wasn’t. Lydoceous Vex was a shadowmancer of the Aethearchy, and he’d been here because of a prophecy, not a threat to the king.

Sadly, he hadn’t been given that prophecy, but he’d been told to investigate by his superior just the same. “There is every reason to believe that the Black Blade will yet find some way to cleave the throne despite every measure we’ve taken,” Magister Tychee told him. “It has not yet been found, and though I cannot say this will be the celebration that ends in tears, it is possible, so go and seek it out.”

“What can I hope to accomplish in the face of the thing,” the mage had sniveled. “It's a menace! Not even dragon’s blood can melt it!”

“Nothing,” the older mage snapped. “When you find it, you are to yell for the guards at the top of your lungs and keep everyone well clear of it. It's quite helpless when it lacks a wielder. We have specialists just waiting on standby to deal with it once someone finds it. You send a whisper, and we will do the rest.”

“But… how will I find it?” Lydoceous asked again. “Surely it—”

“An artifact of that power will glow plainly,” the archmage sighed. “The divinations say that it will sneak into the palace amidst a celebration, unwielded, and beneath a shroud. All we have to do is find it when it is separated from its wielder, and all will be good.”

“But what if it isn’t this celebration?” the younger mage asked.

“Then you will stay and investigate every celebration until you find the correct one,” the older man snapped. The vision began to fade then, but even so, the blade got the impression that Lydoceous Vex was about to receive a dressing down for his impertinence.

It was clear to the blade that the man had no love for the assignment, but it turned out that the celebration they were attending now hadn’t even been the one they were discussing. He’d been here for a month, attending every festival and feast in his search for the Ebon Blade, and now that he’d finally found it, it had been the end of him.

The vision troubled the blade. They knew I was coming. They have at least a month head start on me somehow. It knew that it should be annoyed at Evelyn for causing the delay, but it couldn’t. Her plan had been a good one, spreading the search for it across a wide and indistinct area, but if the Aetherarchy knew where it would be eventually, however imperfectly, then that was all for naught.

Worse, though, it had hoped this soul would shed some light on the castle’s defenses, and it had not done that. What it had done, though, was attract attention. Even as Evelyn finished getting dressed and belted it to her back, it could see several guard patrols with lanterns spreading out through the parked carriages.

In the hours leading up to this moment it had seen less than five guards on this whole side of the courtyard. Now, there were nearly thirty, and they were converging on their location.

We have to move, it whispered to its wielder. Now, before they sound the alarm and, the ripples of this man’s death spread any further than they already have.