Chapter 27 · The Shard Remembers

"Take your hand off the Shard, Sera. Now."

Kael's voice hit me a second before his hand did.

His fingers locked around my wrist and yanked me backward. My shoulder slammed into his chest. The broken sword under his ribs jerked with him, its blackened edge scraping across the stone floor.

The Shard sat inside the old evidence vault, buried in a metal cradle and wrapped in three layers of silver wire. It was no bigger than my palm. Pale glass. Hairline cracks. A tiny light pulsing behind them.

It had been dead when we entered.

Now it was beating.

"Let go," I snapped.

"You touched it."

"Brilliant observation."

"Your eyes are changing."

I twisted hard. Kael's grip tightened. Heat from his palm spread through my skin, right over the black mark our pact had burned into my wrist. The mark answered him with a sharp pulse.

My vision flashed white.

For one ugly second, the vault vanished.

I stood above a city of neon towers. Thousands of people knelt below me. Their faces blurred together. Their hands were raised. Their voices scraped through my skull.

Saint. Saint.