The polished black blade blurred. I blinked away the sudden wetness and swallowed, but the messy knot still clogged my throat. The emotion had nothing to do with the shadowstone. It didn’t even have to do with who I knew must have given it to me. It was just… I’d never been gifted anything in my life. Not on the Rites when gifts were often exchanged among family and friends. Not on my birthday. But I had been given a gift now—a beautiful, useful, and wholly unexpected one. And it had been a god who’d given it to me. Ash.
Aaaaaaah
