The Gembound: The Price of Keeping Chapter 9: Chapter 8 — The Bargain and Scion

Read chapter 9 of The Gembound: The Price of Keeping by Taliorn on NovelPedia.

Chapter 8 — The Bargain and Scion She had told herself there was only one reason to come this far: save the city. The cultists had been trying to pull something out of that fissure. Whatever it was, it was still in there. That made the decision to try to stop it simple. The vines climbing from the altar were no longer just sigils; they were roots, absorbing sustenance. If the light continued to spread, it would eventually engulf the pillars, the plaza, and the streets where life remained. Stop this, and perhaps Runewick could recover. Fail, and the hill would consume it completely. "For the city," she said, to make the reason solid in her mouth. She set her feet shoulder-wide, lifted her hand, and drew the cold up from where it lived now beneath the ribs, behind the heart. First strike. A narrow, clean bolt. Center mass. Her bolt struck true, but it vanished instantly, pulled in, and was gone. The fissure widened just a sliver. Around the torn marble edge, melted glass pooled and slumped. The hum responded with something like pleasure. "Again." Second strike. She spread the power wide this time, less a strike than a blanket meant to starve the light. Recoil rattled her shoulder. Green glazed the altar edge and disappeared. The light beneath answered with a deeper pulse. Heat rose through the temple without warmth. Ash whispered down from the skeletal ceiling. "Fine," she hissed. "If I can't drown you, I'll break you." She slung the spear from her back, gripping it low with hands apart. The shaft felt drained, the wood gone dry and dead. The iron tip was notched but straight from previous use. She stepped onto the dais until her boots touched the crack's edge. Third strike. She drove the point straight down into the glow, both hands on the shaft. Iron met light and screamed. For a heartbeat, the spear held. Then, as wood shuddered and her shoulders locked, the tip sagged. The iron gave, the tip bent and drooped. The fissure began to devour the spear. Green crept up its length in a slow, consuming line. Heat soaked the haft and bit her palms. She wrenched back, swore, and slammed the butt against the marble to break the metal free. A lump of iron, warped and weeping glass, clung to the point. It fell and shattered into black ruined beads, skittering across the floor. The fissure yawned a hair wider, pleased. She stared at the ruined tip, breath tight. Everything she put against it, force or weight or iron, went to the same place. Food. "This is why the streets are thinning," she said, voice low and steadier for being spoken. "It isn't just light. It's hunger." She stepped back once, then again, until her calves pressed against the dais, preventing her retreat. The shield brushed her skin gently. She clenched her grip on the half-melted spear. She breathed. The light breathed back. She could leave. She could say she'd tried, and let the hill dim on its own once the fire burned out. But she already saw the vines in the merchant quarter, their veins pulsing with life. The city would not forgive her for pretending. "Runewick is being eaten," she told the empty air, because saying it out loud made her next thought less likely to get away. "If I can't kill it…" She took out the key. Black iron. A cracked red gem in its bow, pulsing faint and steady. When the brute had attacked, she had begged for help, the power had come cold and vast and humbling, and it had obeyed. She had kept walking because the voice kept answering. That made something between them, whether she'd meant it to or not. "If this is you," she said to the light, to the hum, to the pressure sitting behind her ribs. "If this is what's been speaking, then killing you was never the price, was it?" The taste of iron sharpened on her tongue. A whisper slid along the edge of her thoughts, pleased, unreadable. Protect yourself. "I am," she said. "But the city…" The pulse didn't change. It had all the time in the world and knew it. She stared at the key. She could leave. Fix wh