Chapter 16 #2
I’m grateful for his offer. Last time we did this, Dakari’s appearance only set Leo further on edge and led to him accusing me of sabotage. I don’t want to repeat that experience.
Galileo tugs his jumper over his head with easy movements, followed by his shirt, and Lambert’s expression falls as we both take in the way his ribs stand out starkly below the runeform on his pectoral.
“Leo, dude…”
“Don’t panic. Kyrith’s work is sound.” I’m sure Leo is deliberately misunderstanding his brother’s concern.
I can only hope that if this works—and it must work—he takes a few days to care for himself before we start work on the next layer of the ensorcellment. He needs it.
If it follows convention, beneath the first layer will be the link that connects the curse across the ó Rinn bloodline. Breaking that will save Leo’s children, should he have any, from the same fate.
The final layer is the trigger.
Unfortunately, Ammie was thorough in her vengeance.
A quick glance at the other pages of her grimoire shows she put just as much thought into those two layers as the shell protecting them.
The thought of working on the trigger alone sends a shiver running down my spine.
A wrong word in the incantation, a single degree of inaccuracy in the lines of the runeform…
Leo’s curse will activate, and the person messing with it will die. Painfully.
Magic. I can only pray the next layers haven’t changed much from the original. It’s a vain hope, given the age of the magic, but we could really use some good news.
He takes a seat in his favourite chair, shifting his right arm back so it’s not in my way as I drift closer. I can’t help but double-check the neat lines on the parchment as I pick it up, second-guessing the incantation I derived through hours of painstaking work last night.
“Kyrie,” Leo murmurs, dragging my attention back to him. “I have faith in you.”
He’s desperate and has no other options, I correct silently, smoothing the paper out on the side table that rises a few inches, tilting to become a lectern.
Last time, I didn’t dare touch him for fear of cracking further, but it will simplify the transfer of magic from my body to his and free up my mind to focus on the spell.
It’s a valid reason.
So why do I find it so hard to meet his eyes as my fingertips skim the line of his mark, tracing down to the centre of the glowing runeform?
He’s so warm, his muscles hard and unforgiving, the counterpoint to the cool, fragile paper beneath my other hand. He might be thin from neglect, but the lack of body fat has thrown his chest into sharply sculpted relief.
Maybe I pause a little too long, because he tilts his head, drawing my focus back to his face and the microscopic smirk tugging at his mouth.
“Briekshillri vielliu scarsi…” I murmur, pushing the embers of attraction from my mind and focusing on the nullification spell.
Magic flares. Power swells between my fingertips and seeps into his skin and the parchment, heating the point where we connect until I may as well have sunk both hands into lava.
I don’t pull away. Lambert hovers around us as the paper runeform starts to smoke, filling my nostrils with the scent of sulphur and burning.
Still, I don’t lift my hand away, even when numbness tingles at my fingertips and flames smoulder at the edges.
Leo isn’t much better. The runeform on his chest is searing.
Stubbornness alone keeps me upright as weakness settles in my limbs, dizziness swamping me. Magic surges as I utter the final syllables of the incantation on a gasped breath.
Done.
I stumble back as the red glow of Leo’s mark intensifies, then cuts out entirely. Only Lambert’s quick reactions keep me from falling. I’m too busy holding my breath to thank him, struggling to see past the blurry sunspots clouding my vision. The runeform on Leo’s chest fades away like mist.
Replaced with something…horrifying.
My knees sag, and Lambert’s hold on my waist grows firmer until he gives up on supporting me and sweeps me into his arms instead.
The move sends stinging pain racing from my fingers to my spine.
At some point, Leo must have passed out.
The lines of agony and tension are still entrenched in his features even in unconsciousness.
It’s probably for the best. It means he doesn’t hear Lambert’s soft curse or see my wince.
Because instead of being replaced by a single new runeform, as Ammie’s grimoire told us it would be, there are four. Three smaller glyphs are interlocked with a larger one in the centre.
“Boss?” Lambert ventures. “Are you okay?”
I try to nod, but my head seems to have been filled with lead. Surely it wasn’t this heavy a few minutes ago?
He lowers to a crouch, carefully depositing me on the floor so I’m leaning against Leo’s legs, and takes my hands in his one by one.
My palms and fingertips are red raw and blistered, which explains the pain when he picked me up. They’re healing, thanks to the Arcanaeum, but it will still be a few minutes until my skin is completely back to normal.
The paper that hosted the runeform I was using has been reduced to a pile of black ash. At least I made copies before I cast anything, so my work isn’t lost, but still. I covered that thing with so many fortifying runeforms. It shouldn’t have been this bad.
That it was speaks to the strength of Leo’s curse.
“I really need to find my grimoire,” I mumble, twisting to keep my eyes on Leo, as the beams above us let out a mournful creak.
Ordinarily, it doesn’t matter. It’s rare that I need a spell that hasn’t been written in one of the grimoires in the Vault. But if I’m going to continue creating new powerful spells, having my own is the only way to avoid burns.
“Did that happen because you haven’t got one?” Lambert queries.
“Grimoires which have been properly attuned to their owners are more efficient. If I’d had mine, and I’d been using it for long enough, the magical energy wouldn’t have been lost as heat when casting the spell. Or at least, not to the same degree.”
Occasionally, more costly or complex magic will release wasted energy as light, but overall, grimoires do not catch fire like scraps, even when under duress from incredibly powerful spells. Transmutation experts, like Lambert, can summon from their runeform tattoos with no wasted energy whatsoever.
If only I hadn’t placed the binding rune on the cover before my death. I could’ve simply chosen a new grimoire. I theoretically still could, but the second grimoire would never bond to me as deeply, never be as efficient, and the problem would remain.
And so long as the first still exists, it remains connected to me. More unscrupulous arcanists could use it against me.
By the time I was well-read enough to be concerned about such things, the few arcanists who even knew I’d possessed a grimoire were dead. I really ought to ask one of the collectors to search for it. It never seemed worthwhile before, but with Mathias still alive, that might’ve been an oversight.
Surely if he had it, he would’ve used it against me by now?
Leo groans quietly as he starts to stir, disrupting my train of thought. Unfortunately, the movement brings my gaze back to the warped runeform on his chest. It’s so much bigger than the previous one, and so different from Ammie’s original design.
Worse, I’ve seen its likeness before.
“Runeform degeneration.” I gather the strength to push up onto my knees, examining it properly. “It’s more common in—”
“Transmutationists,” Lambert finishes for me. “When their runeforms go too long without being used, and they split.”
I shouldn’t be shocked that he knows that. It makes sense. At least he got the tattoos on his body knowing what might happen to them one day.
“Leo is twenty-six.” I sigh. “And who knows how many generations removed from the original victim of the ensorcellment? That’s a long time for magic to exist in a body.”
If anything, we’re lucky that the anti-tamper mechanism wasn’t similarly affected. Sure, it had changed, but it hadn’t split into four different runeforms.
The books arcanists use as grimoires are made of old-style paper—handmade using linen fibres—and reinforced with preservative magic. Thus, there are grimoires in the vault that are hundreds of years old and still perfectly usable.
Unlike paper, the cells of a living being shed, mutate, and age.
Telomeres shorten. The dermis is renewed monthly—faster still in children.
All of these changes make the body an unreliable binding medium for magic.
Unless spells inked into the skin are used regularly, the runeform can become warped by the natural process of ageing.
The Arcanaeum isn’t frozen like I am. It conjures a pen and paper, beginning a detailed sketch of the four interconnected red glyphs. Good. I have a horrible feeling Leo will not react well to this news. At least if I have a copy, I can work on it while he comes to terms with this.
“Did it work?” he slurs.
I fall back onto my heels, not wanting to be caught with my face inches from his chest.
“Yeah.” Lambert tries for an upbeat expression and mostly succeeds. Only the faint worry lines around his eyes and the tremble at the end of the word give him away.
Leo doesn’t notice. Even though his eyes are still blinking open, his whole body eases at the news.
Magic. He’s smiling, and it’s a true smile, the kind that lights him up and turns him from attractive into devastatingly handsome. It’s the exact mirror of the grin that graces his brother’s face daily. Stunning, and yet heartbreakingly ephemeral.
Because, of course, the first thing he does is look down at his chest, and turn to stone.