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Tracing the Eternal Flame Chalice
(2027)(Book 12 in the Dame of the Midnight Relics series)
A novel by Brenda Trim
My daughter got into Duke on a Thursday morning. By that afternoon, I was looking at photographs of a bronze chalice with a fire that wouldn't go out, and I could feel it looking back at me through my phone screen.
I'm Nylah. I keep dangerous things locked away from people who would use them wrong. I'm also a wife, a mother of two, and a woman who burns eggs when she's distracted. These facts have never coexisted peacefully.
The Eternal Flame Chalice doesn't just grant immortality. It makes one person the sole arbiter of who lives past their appointed hour and who must expire on time. When it was extracted from a dig site in Greece, the fire killed most of the team. Then something emerged from the ashes and took the chalice for itself, tending it with the kind of patience that only things without bodies can afford to be patient.
I should be afraid of that. I am afraid of that.
What I'm more afraid of is the way the chalice felt when I opened the photograph. Like recognition. Like coming home to a house I've never been to.
I've touched a lot of relics. I know the difference between an artifact that knows you're there and an artifact that's been waiting for you specifically.
This one has been waiting a very long time.
My name is in this fire somewhere. I just have to survive long enough to find out what that means — and get back to the kitchen before everything burns.
Genre: Fantasy
I'm Nylah. I keep dangerous things locked away from people who would use them wrong. I'm also a wife, a mother of two, and a woman who burns eggs when she's distracted. These facts have never coexisted peacefully.
The Eternal Flame Chalice doesn't just grant immortality. It makes one person the sole arbiter of who lives past their appointed hour and who must expire on time. When it was extracted from a dig site in Greece, the fire killed most of the team. Then something emerged from the ashes and took the chalice for itself, tending it with the kind of patience that only things without bodies can afford to be patient.
I should be afraid of that. I am afraid of that.
What I'm more afraid of is the way the chalice felt when I opened the photograph. Like recognition. Like coming home to a house I've never been to.
I've touched a lot of relics. I know the difference between an artifact that knows you're there and an artifact that's been waiting for you specifically.
This one has been waiting a very long time.
My name is in this fire somewhere. I just have to survive long enough to find out what that means — and get back to the kitchen before everything burns.
Genre: Fantasy