Chapter 8: The Anchor

I sat up in the bed.

The blanket slid off my shoulders, and the cold of the room hit my skin.

"Your mother," I said.

Ilsabet pulled the sheet to her chin and sat up beside me.

She did not look away.

"My mother. She was a mage, the best in Aurel. She lived in a cottage by the Thornfield gate when I was a girl."

"And she sealed me."

"The night you were left in the basket. I was six, and I stood on a stool and watched."

"Why?"

"A baby with half a locket and a pale glow in his sleep. She knew what you were as soon as she touched you."

"What was I?"

She looked at the feather mark on my palm.

"The Seraph. A vessel. If the Duke had known, you would have been taken to the Pit before you could walk."

My breath went short.

"So she hid it."

"With a seal. A black glass stone, one drop of her blood and one thread of your light."

"She wore it round her neck and told no one."

"Mother died when I was nine."

She said it flatly.

"The Duke's steward cleared our cottage and took the stone off her neck as a curio."

"He locked it in the strongroom and never knew what it was."

"A seal like that needs a living anchor. When she died, it passed to the nearest of her blood."

I stared at her.

"You."

"Me. The stone is tied to my life. As long as I live and it stays whole, your power stays asleep."

"And if it breaks?"

"Your light comes out. And every time it does, it tears something from me."

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