Of Blood and Bone (Chronicles of The One #2)(87)

She thought of the farm, her family, of riding Grace over the fields, of running through the woods. The hum of bees, the snap of laundry on the line. The years the light had protected her and those she loved.

She thought of Max Fallon, who’d sparked her life and given his own for it, and closed her hand over the symbols she wore that joined her fathers.

She thought of Mick and Twila and Thomas and all she’d come to know and care for.

She thought of great cities and deserted fields. Of the people in New Hope, and all like them who fought to survive and to build.

And she thought of Mallick, who’d given hundreds of years to bring her to where she stood.

Her choice, she thought, but they had all paved the way for it.

Bathed in brilliant light, she stared at the long trough of fire.

“Another leap. It’s faith. They have faith in me. I have faith in them, and in the light.”

She stepped to the flames.

Its heat bathed her skin; its light shined in her eyes.

She felt its breath.

“I make my choice, now hear my voice. In light and fire I make this vow, accepting what the gods endow. I am your daughter, child of wind and fire, of earth and water. With magicks bright I take up the fight. With this sword, with this shield, I will strike on battlefield.”

She reached through the flames, gripped hilt, gripped strap, lifted the sword and the shield.

“They’re mine,” she voiced. “As the book is mine, as the owl, the wolf, the horse are mine. And I’m theirs.”

She hefted the shield with its crest of the fivefold symbol, uniting the five elements with magicks. She thrust high the sword with the same symbol on its hilt.

It flashed, silver as Laoch’s wings, and the flame that ran from hilt to point burned white.

In light and fire rose The One.

Mallick waited for her. He knew the moment she’d reached into the flame by the strike of lighting, the flaming candles.

And from the change within him. Now, his clock would tick again, his life cycle would begin again. He would know age. And for that alone, he blessed her.

He fetched the sheath he’d made for her long before her birth, laid it beside the book.

When she stepped out, the light dimmed behind her. But it blazed on her face, he thought, in her eyes.

He dropped to one knee.

“What? Don’t!”

“I’ve waited hundreds of years for this moment. I will acknowledge it, so be quiet! I pledge my magicks, my sword, my life to you, Fallon Swift. I swear my allegiance to you, to The One.”

“Okay, but get up. It makes me feel weird.”

“Some things don’t change.” He got to his feet.

“You don’t have to pledge what I already know.” She glanced back at the cupboard, the softened light.

“The well, it’s amazing. The light, it’s really bright, but at the same time it’s soft—like water. I guess that’s why it’s the Well of Light. And the fire—I could see the sword and shield in the flames, shining gold in them. But silver when I took them out. And they felt like mine.”

“Because they are.”

“It’s just … Have you ever been there? In the Well of Light.”

“Once, long ago, to place the sword and shield for you.”

“You put them there,” she whispered.

“I kept this scabbard for you.”

“It’s beautiful.”

“Will you name your sword? It’s a tradition,” he said, “and one that adds power.”

“Solas. Light.”

“A good name. Will you let me mark it on the blade?”

She held it out to him and, touched by her faith, he laid a finger on the blade, engraved it with its name.

“Will you sit?”

“I feel like I could run ten miles.” She paced around the room, turning the sword so the blade caught the sun. “And then another ten.”

“Sit. Please.”

She sat, seemed to vibrate.

“There is no more I can teach you.”

She stopped admiring the sword to gape at him. “What?”

“You know more than I now. The knowledge is in you, and the power far beyond my own.”

“But … What do we do now?”

“The last part of your time here I’ll help you focus and hone what you have. We’ll sort out all you’ve been given today.”

“From the book, from the well.”

“Yes. But you’ve opened the book, you’ve taken the sword and shield. I can’t make you stay. I’m asking you to trust that I know you need the time we have left.”

It struck her like an arrow from a bow. “You’re saying I could go home now?”

“Yes. You’ve completed the quests, accepted your duties. You have the knowledge. You have skill.”

“But you’re saying, too, we still have work to do.”

“Yes.”

She rose again, wandered. “I want to go home. Sometimes I miss my family so much I can hardly breathe. I’ll conjure up the smell of my mom’s hair, or the way my dad’s hand feels when he takes mine, my brothers’ voices. Just to get through until I can breathe again. I want to go home so bad.”

“It is your choice now.”