But fate had intervened, casting aside his shackles once and for all. And from here, he would serve by choice, not coercion.

The forge was not far. From the doorway, a soft glow of orange light washed out into the corridor. Steam issued, swirling. And there too the heavy thumping of the Hammer of Tukor.

He reached the threshold and stepped inside, passing through steam. The air cleared before him. “My lord. You asked for me.”

“I did.” Ilith stood at his anvil. He wore simple raiment, the garb of a blacksmith; scuffed leather vest, stained brown breeches, sweat across his brow and glistening upon his bare, sinewy shoulders. To call him Ilith was perhaps a disservice to the body he inhabited, yet Jonik could not help it. He had never met Tyrith, had never even seen him, yet knew he shared a strong likeness to his ancient ancestor, as his mother had once told him. Ilith continued to claim that his heir remained a part of them, that they were ‘both at once’, ‘one and the same’, but if they were truly sharing the same consciousness, what did Tyrith have to contribute? He had lived for twenty five years, all of them a captive. Ilith had lived for thousands, and built the modern world. Perhaps Harden had put it best when he’d said, “If that mind they share’s an ocean, the heir’s contribution is no more than a pail. The demigod’s all the rest.” And so indeed it seemed.

“Come in, Jaycob. Did you have a nice discussion with your cousin?”

Nice would not be the word he would use. “She is still in shock,” he said. “It’s a lot to process…all of this.”

“I quite understand. I am still processing it myself, in truth.” He tapped his forehead, plastered in strands of golden, sweat-stained hair. There was a luminous quality to his skin, a radiance reserved for divinity. “Though I have Tyrith to help guide me. We are working through it all together, he and I.”

There was a helm on the anvil, simple, smooth-crested, black and misting shadow. Ilith picked it up and turned, stepping over to his battered workbench. He placed the helm down, and beside it the Hammer of Tukor, resting it upon the wood with a deep, resounding thump. It was a simple thing, really. Not so large as depicted in statues and books, and plain of design as well, it could easily be mistaken for a regular blacksmith’s hammer. Except for those markings and glyphs, Jonik thought. Those were etched into the head, leaking light, a sign of its godly power.

Another ancient artefact lay on the workbench as well, another gift of a fallen god. It had been removed from its scabbard, a length of steel, black as death and fuming. Jonik frowned. He hadn’t expected to see it here. “I thought you were to store the Nightblade away, my lord?”

“I will. When I am done with it.” Ilith took a moment to study Jonik’s grey eyes. “How do you feel when near it, Jaycob? The voices are gone, I hope?”

A dip of the chin to confirm. To Jonik the Nightblade was just a sword now; wondrous, yes, powerful, there was no doubt, yet lost of its addictive appeal. In Ilith’s presence, the blade’s sentience was subdued. Like a dog on his master’s leash, he thought. “What did you mean by ‘done with it’, my lord?”

“I have been working with it overnight,” Ilith explained, gesturing to a suit of armour dressed upon a mannequin across the workshop. “Were you aware that Tyrith had been designing a suit of armour for you, Jaycob?”

His answer was no. Though… “I saw it,” he remembered. “The black armour. Two days ago, when we came here looking for my mother. Harden suggested it would fit me well.”

“It should. The suit was made to your precise proportions. Tyrith says that it was a gift for you…for the kindness your mother showed him. To help you in your onward quest. It is a fine suit, is it not? Sleek, seamless, supple.”

Jonik did not disagree. “It is a work of art, truly.” He paused, long enough to show his doubt. “Only…”

“Only black is no longer your colour?”

Ilith always seemed to know, as Hamlyn had before him. “It is associated with this order, with darkness,” Jonik said. “If I go out there wearing black…” He was thinking of his father, his brother, all the others who might scorn him. He could imagine how Elyon would look at him and sneer, ‘Once a Shadowknight, always a Shadowknight’. He sighed and shook his head. The last thing he wanted was to sound ungrateful, and yet… “If I’m to be your herald, to help them understand, then…”

“Then a brighter silver or grey would be better?” Ilith finished for him. “Yes, I quite agree. That is why I have added my own modifications, to lend light to the suit as needed.” He stepped toward the mannequin, beckoning Jonik to join him. A hand waved up and down in presentation. “By day the metal will drink the light, but by night it will expel it, at your will. You are well versed in how to move unseen, I know. With this suit, you needn’t abandon that instinct entirely.”

“You mean…” Jonik looked over the Nightblade, resting upon the workbench. “You used it, to enhance the armour? You’ve transferred some of its power into the steel?”

Ilith smiled. “Of a sort. Though it is less a transfer of power, and more a mimicry of it. There are, of course, techniques in metallurgy and magic that you will not be privy to. I used one such technique, most difficult to master, to harness the unique properties of the Nightblade, reproduce them, and instil them into the armour. The magic is lesser, of course, an echo of what you once wielded, yet still of use when properly deployed. I thought you might appreciate it, Jaycob, as a reward for your service. Would you like to put it on?”

Jonik hesitated, even after that. Armour had never been his preference. He was bred to the shadows and the shadows didn’t wear plate. Not until he journeyed to Varinar to participate in the Song of the First Blade had he garbed himself in godsteel from head to heel, and ever since then…no. Not even when we came here, he thought. He preferred gloves to gauntlets, and a hood to a helm, though the world was different now. A thousand perils had erupted from the earth and this suit would help protect him.

So he gave a nod, at last, and stepped toward the mannequin. “I would be honoured, my lord.”

His concerns were swiftly cast aside. The suit was as supple as lambskin leather, as light as air, and the segments seemed to fuse together as they touched, the fit perfect. Under the Worldbuilder’s watchful gaze, he wrapped the cuisses around his legs, and the greaves, slipped his feet into the sabatons. The breastplate followed, and the pauldrons for the shoulders, and the plackart and the vambraces and the gauntlets that might as well have been gloves.

When he was done, he moved about the workshop, waiting for a pinch here, or a prod there, of a design flaw that Tyrith had not considered. There were none. The armour was an extension of him, beyond anything he’d ever worn. And as he strode, and stretched, and shifted, it drank in the light of the fire, brightening to a smooth and striking silver. A gallant colour, favoured by so many great men. Yet at night he could still be at one with the darkness. I can still embrace the man I once was…

Ilith was observing him with that famous little grin of his. “Impressive,” he said, approving. “You altered the hue of the metal without visible effort.”

“My training with the Nightblade,” Jonik said. Drinking and expelling light from godsteel was greatly more simple than turning invisible. It had taken Jonik years to master that art. Evidently, the skill was transferable.

Ilith returned to his workbench. The last element of armour remained to be worn. “You will need this as well.” He lifted the helm. “Much darkness and danger await you.”

Darkness and danger. Those I know well. Jonik took the helm, brought it down upon his head, let it click and fuse into place upon the gorget. Then he twisted his neck to test the fit, left, right, up, down. Perfect. No hood had ever been so pliant. He took a moment to draw in light, expel it, lightening and darkening the suit at his will. Satisfied, he drew the helm up and away, shook out his long black hair, and placed it aside. Upon a work table along one wall, he saw scrolls, letters, notes. “Is there any more news from the south?” he asked.

Ilith glanced over. “Little that you do not already know.”

And that was little enough. Scant scraps of news brought on the tongues of the men who had come here with Amilia. Jonik had once thought that these mages had some magical means of knowing all of what was happening beyond their borders, but that wasn’t so. They gathered news like anyone else, for the most part, through rider and wing, voice and ink and scroll. There were some sorceries they could turn to, at the edge of need, to help enlighten them, but of late their focus had been the transference and the magic could not be spared.

“You will learn more when you reach Ilithor,” Ilith, who had built the city, said. “From there, you must choose which way you will go. You have your instruction. Go forth from here as my herald, and my voice, and help steer the course of the other four blades to this refuge. There is no task more critical, no man better suited to it than you. I trust you to find your way.”

Jonik thought for a short while, wondering on which way that might be. The blades were scattered, and in some cases their whereabouts were unknown. A part of him had hoped that Ilith would give him guidance, but it appeared that would not be so. He wants to give me agency. To be my own man. To forge my own path. He nodded and asked no further questions.

“Good,” Ilith said. “But beware, Jaycob. What you learn one day may be different the next, and the blades may yet change hands. They will strive to remain apart, and grow increasingly corruptive. Use your words to convince, use the wisdom of your experience, but know that they may not be enough. There may come a time when trickery is needed, even force. You must be prepared to use them.”

A ripple of dread moved in Jonik’s heart. But he nodded. “I will do what I must.”

There was nothing else to say.

Ilith stepped toward the door, where a cloak hung on a peg. He drew it over his sweaty bare shoulders, and ran a hand across his forehead, moving aside strands of hair. Jonik donned his cloak as well, fixing it at the neck with a simple steel pin. He pulled on his leather boots, drew on his gloves, covering the armour, softening his tread.

They walked together to the portal door, moving quietly through the refuge. Ilith looked around as he went, observing the tall statues and fine carved cornices, the wide pillars and ribbed columns, the arched doorways and sculpted lintels through which they passed, chamber after chamber. Once or twice he walked to the wall and ran his hand upon the stone, feeling its age, or diverted his path so he might walk through a lance of daylight filtering down through a high window or ceiling shaft above. Motes of dust glittered, dancing, and he watched them for a moment as though seeing something Jonik did not. He seemed a man still awakening, coming out of a long undying dream. His memory of the world returning.

“Do you recall the days here, my lord? Building these halls?”

“A shadowed recollection,” Ilith said, smiling, still looking around. “It is as a gloomy sky, Jaycob, though the clouds are breaking up. The sun is coming through in shafts. Every day I remember more.”

But not how to reforge the Heart, Jonik knew. That secret still eluded him.

They came to the portal door a short while later, where the others were awaiting them. The chamber was plain stone, white-walled but for that door. Nothing had ever been so empty, so black, so unnerving to observe as that void.

Jonik scanned his companions, glad to see that Amilia had made it through the maze. “My lady,” he said, observing courtesy with a bow. Gerrin and Harden stood to either side of her in their armour, like a pair of old grizzled knights about to step forth into battle. Cabel less so. The young sellsword wore leathers and fur, his eyes glassy and blinking, skin as pale as milk, dark hair dishevelled and wisps of beard hanging off his cheeks and chin. He still wore a bandage on his head from where Borrus Kanabar had cracked his skull, an assault that had rendered the youth abed ever since, in and out of consciousness. He would go no further than Ilithor, Jonik knew. My company, my army…reduced to just two. “Is everything prepared?” he asked.

Gerrin answered with a nod. “Just waiting for you, Jonik.”

“Took your time.” Harden peered through Jonik’s woollen cloak, saw the jet black armour clinging to his skin. Recognition dawned. “That plate…”

“Later.” Jonik moved his eyes to what he had been trying not to look at. His mother, wrapped in white linen, lying on a wooden stretcher behind them. He drew a deep breath, closing his heart, his bridge to emotion drawn up. “I’ll carry her myself,” he said. “Harden, take Cabel. Gerrin, accompany the princess. When you reach the other side, stay in the tunnel. Don’t go wandering off.”

“And if we’re spat out into a wall of rock?” Harden squinted at the void like it had insulted his mother. “Lady Cecilia said the tunnels through there are unstable. Said they might have come down. The whole place might be caved in, then what?”

“Then we turn around and come back.”

“And if we can’t? If we get stuck?”

“We won’t.” Jonik didn’t want to hear it. The negativity and doubt. He had spoken to Ilith about this already, and been assured that the passage was safe. The part of him that was Tyrith had passed through the portal, after all. It had been an unpleasant experience for him. He had muttered of the things he’d seen in there, the floating shadows and glimpses of dead faces, the strange sounds that rang out through his head. But it was momentary only, a passing nightmare. My men are stronger than that. And Amilia…her as well.

“Enough talk,” Jonik said. “Gerrin, you take Cabel through. Leave him there and come back. Harden needs to know it’s safe.”