side in the improvised sheath that didn’t fit it very well.
“Well, he is immortal,” Isa said. “People like that have a tendency toward, you know, not dying.”
This upended everything. He hadn’t won. He’d failed .
“I need to find a way to make the Infinity Blade function,” Siris explained. “It . . .” He stopped. Telling her that the God King had planned to make it work by killing Siris didn’t seem particularly wise. In fact, telling her anything didn’t seem particularly wise.
But he was alone, ignorant, and running low on options. Isa seemed to know it, for she was watching him with a sly smile.
Siris took a deep breath. “You said you know how to get everywhere. So . . .”
“‘Making the Infinity Blade work’ isn’t a place, whiskers.”
“I need to find someone to help me. Maybe someone to take the sword off my hands. Can you find the Worker of Secrets?”
Isa froze, and he felt a sliver of satisfaction—through the anxiety—at having finally said something that surprised her. “The Worker of Secrets is a myth,” she said. “Pure fabrication. Nobody fights back against the Deathless. Nobody.”
“I did. You seem to have been intending to, in some way.”
Isa didn’t respond.
“The Worker made the Infinity Blade,” Siris said, though he had gotten that information from Kuuth. Could he trust anything that troll had told him?
The God King told him to answer my questions. Why?
“Yes, it’s said the blade is the Worker’s creation,” Isa replied, which shocked him. She did know about it. Or was she playing along?
Terrors, he thought. What am I doing? I can’t handle this. All I know how to do is kill people . It appeared he couldn’t even do that properly.
“The Worker of Secrets,” Isa said thoughtfully. “Ancient enemy of the Deathless, trapped in a prison where time does not pass—his punishment for making a forbidden weapon.”
“What do you know, Isa?” he said, pointing at her. “What do you really know about all of this?”
“Not as much as it seems,” she said lightly. “And certainly not where the Worker is imprisoned, if he even exists.”
“You said you can take me anywhere.”
“Anyplace not mythical, whiskers,” she said skeptically, folding her arms. “I think the Worker is probably a rumor spread among the Deathless to cover up the true origins of the Infinity Blade.”
“Well, we have to go somewhere,” Siris said, looking back at the castle. It seemed hollow and empty. A throne without a king. “Let’s get moving, for now. I’ll . . . I’ll think about what to do.”
Isa shrugged, then started down the path. He followed, hoping he didn’t look as uncertain as he felt.
I’m a child, Siris thought. A child playing at games only the adults understand.
He trudged along the road, his armor heavy in his pack. Isa, it turned out, had a horse—a luxury that nobody in Drem’s Maw had been able to afford. She clomped along the road behind him, humming a tune softly to herself, wearing a narrow hat with a wide brim to keep off the sun.
He’d always wanted to ride a horse. What would it be like? He shook his head, trying to force his thoughts away from that path. The world was crumbling. What did horses matter?
And yet, a piece of him still struggled to discover itself. He wanted to live, to thrive . He wanted to know things, be things, experience things. He’d always denied himself the slightest bit of pleasure, worried that if he tasted the life of a real person, he’d develop a hunger for it.
He’d been right. He’d tasted it now. He was ruined.
And he was happy for it.
Perhaps Isa would help him achieve that; perhaps not. It seemed terribly convenient that she would arrive, decide not to kill him, and now offer to take him wherever he wanted to go. There had been no discussion of price. Probably because they both knew her leading him was merely an excuse for her to stay near the Infinity Blade, and perhaps get
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