“It was my grandmother’s,” Helena said as she opened the lowest drawer of her jewelry box. It was an old jewelry box, carved of beautiful polished wood, and older than Helena herself. A gift from her father, back before her human life ended and her vampiric one began. The item she was looking for lived at the bottom, tucked in among jewelry that, if she ever sold it, would each bring thousands at auction for their age alone. Seven hundred years was a long time, after all, and her grandmother lived to a ripe old age even then. “Careful. It’s sharp.”
It was a fine-edged dagger. Forged of steel, it bore runes in silver, gold, cold iron, and copper. The sheath was a single piece of carved crystal that fit the blade like a second skin. More runes marked the crystal, and the whole blade smelled heavily of magic.
Helena had been very, very careful never to draw it since she became a vampire. She knew when a blade was made to kill the inhuman. All the same, she kept it all these years out of fondness for the woman who, long, long ago, taught her to spin.
Owen took the little dagger when she offered it to him. It looked odd in his hands, more a women’s weapon, designed to hide in a sleeve, or down a bodice. All the same, it wasn’t so small as to be unusable.
Helena took a cautious step back when he eased the knife out of the sheath for the first time in centuries. Owen would never dream of using the ancient weapon on her, but the magic on it was overpowering.
“It’s beautiful,” he said after getting a feel for the weapon. “Wait, your grandmother’s? I can feel the magic in this. Who was your grandmother?”
“She never spoke of her younger years,” Helena admitted, and took a seat on the white leather cushion that dominated most of her perfectly-organized closet. Ranks of expensive shoes filled one wall, and displays of jewelry, new and old, glimmered on another. “I was… I suppose I would have been about fifteen when she died. I always thought she must have been a sailor, or something like. She told us stories of the world, when my sisters and I were young. The writing is Arabic, but I’ve never had a knack for the Middle Eastern languages.”
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“This was designed to kill just about everything,” he told her, and studied the runes carefully. “It’s not Faerie magic. I’ve seen that on some of Gramma’s older things, and it’s not like my axe, either.”
“It is a last-chance weapon. One I cannot use,” Helena said, and risked taking the blade back to sheath it. It buzzed in her hand, an angry hornet caught in a too-small jar. “And as you said, it will kill anything. With the threat to our city being what it is, I cannot, in good faith, send you to fight without a weapon that will protect you from not only your enemies, but from our allies.”
“You have concerns about our allies?”
“I think after the betrayals we have already suffered, I cannot say we will not suffer another.”
The memory of he fellow Elder, Wilhelm, turning on them, was still fresh. Not that he and Helena were ever friends, or even allies, but his loss was still a blow to their already fragile defenses.
Owen looked between her and the little knife, no longer than his hand, and rolled up his sleeve. He always wore a holster there, with spell-inscribed pins in half a dozen different metals. Standard, for any monster-hunter. The dagger fit beneath the holster nicely, and Helena smiled when he rolled his sleeve back down, hiding the weapon completely. When he was done, he sat beside her and looked out over the wide courtyard below. Her Coven was there, preparing for the coming war. Her Coven was entirely made up of vampires, of course, but she encouraged relationships with the magical community. Many of her vampires had lovers and spouses who had come to the Covenhold for safety. A few even had children, either those of their partners or adopted.
Helena reached for Owen’s hand and curled her fingers into his as she looked over her Coven, heart heavy. There would be deaths in the coming war, and she was not like the other Vampire Elders of the city. Her Coven was small compared to many, and she was close with every member. Each death would be sorely felt.
“There is a battle coming,” she said, thinking of past wars fought and won, or fought and lost, in her lifetime. This one would be smaller, a battle for this single city, but it felt bigger. A storm on the horizon that she couldn’t yet see. “If my long years have taught me anything, it is that this will change us, for better or worse.”
“I know,” Owen murmured and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. She leaned into him and listened to the steady thump of his heartbeat as he pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “It’s going to be a fight for our lives, and for the lives of this city.”