Item from Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson
Literally the heart torn from an alien god's body — whoever holds it holds the Crippled God's fate, and the Bonehunters carried it across a continent to give it back.
The Crippled God's heart was torn from Kaminsod's body when he was pulled from his own world and chained to this one. The act of chaining him required distributing his power across multiple anchor points, and his heart — the core of his divine identity — was separated and hidden. Possessing the heart meant possessing leverage over a god: it could be used to bind him further, destroy him entirely, or heal him. The Bonehunters chose to heal. Adjunct Tavore led her army across Kolanse carrying the heart, fighting through the Forkrul Assail and every other power that wanted the god destroyed or enslaved, to return it to him. The act of returning a god's heart — of showing compassion to a being every other power in the world had agreed deserved its suffering — was the moral fulcrum of the entire series. The heart was not a weapon. It was a test, and the Bonehunters passed it.
A blackened, desiccated organ wrapped in chains and preserved through divine suffering. It pulses — not with blood but with a rhythm of agony that has persisted for millennia. The chains binding it are corroded and ancient. Proximity causes feelings of profound sorrow and an awareness of pain on a scale that transcends individual experience.
Also known as: The Crippled God's Heart, Kaminsod's heart, the heart