Though Helmgard had eventually been able to forge a sheath for it, an ornate affair of enameled steel, even that skilled heroine’s finest work had not proved sufficient for full containment. The sheathed blade was being kept in a deep pool of ice cold water so that the power it constantly emanated would be dispersed, though to his practiced eyes it seemed like there would be need for more liquid: as matters stood, the surface of the pool subtly stirred as if touched by winds and the Hierophant believed that someone dipping a finger into the water was near certain to lose it.

...

The odds were at least six in ten that anyone drawing the blade would die, after all.

...

“Perhaps if we made a suit of armour,” Masego considered. “That allows one to withstand using it.”

Though in principle he supposed use would be ‘withstood’, if at the likely loss of limb and or head. It was all a matter of defining the acceptable boundaries of loss.

- Book 6, Interlude: Terms