Chapter 26
W e haven’t had sex in weeks. Not since meeting with Torin, but the days following our fight feel like an eternity all their own. Because now it feels personal .
The night Sin confessed his truth to me, it was evident he wanted to be intimate afterwards. That’s how Sin has always shown his love, pouring his emotions into his touch when words failed him. Turning him down, especially that night, was torturous. Not just because my body craved his intensely, but because I knew Sin would think it was because I was still angry with him. That I was harboring ill faith towards him despite saying otherwise, but it would be far too difficult to discern if he was suffering a migraine with my face buried in the pillows, or his expression corrupted from pleasure. Sin would perceive me turning down his advances as turning down him , and I’m certain that is gutting him more than he shows.
Because he hasn’t shown it. Not that night, or the several that followed. Surely, he knows I am running through a list of excuses. Some nights my head is aching, others my stomach, and sometimes I simply say I’m too exhausted. And night after night, he offers to massage my temples, send for more pillows, and call for tea, and not once with a huff of annoyance. Even on the nights he retires to our chambers, exhausted from a day of frequent headaches that plagued him more intensely that morning.
The Black Art isn’t dense. He knows I’m lying to him, but he doesn’t confront me. Which is so unlike him, and that’s what worries me the most. Sin opened up to me about his trauma, and I worry he fears I am pulling away from him because of it.
I need to kill this fucking seer.
I don’t know how I’m going to pull this off, but I know I need to be close to Torin to do it. I need that dagger.
I sigh heavily as I finish securing the final tie into my braid, frowning at the mess of sheets on our bed, hating that they are in disarray because of our fitful sleep and not the usual reason. If the seer taps into Sin’s mind while we’re in bed together, she won’t be able to see much in the dark. During the daytime hours though, I’ve been keeping as much distance as possible from my betrothed. I just wish I could tell him why.
I sling my satchel over my shoulder and leave the room. I’m meeting Aeverie in the conservatory this morning, and she instructed me to bring along three things—my dagger, one of my sisters, and an orange. She didn’t elaborate on any of them, nor why she wished to see me in the first place, but who am I to question the milky-eyed broad?
Cosmina is working, and Zorina was more than eager to join me today, curious as to what inspired the high priestess to send me a summons last evening. No—a request . The Black Art’s consort is never summoned .
I find Zorina waiting for me in the foyer, and after grabbing an orange from one of the kitchen’s ice boxes, we make our way to the conservatory, exchanging theories as to why the high priestess has called for us.
We find Aeverie sitting cross-legged in the outdoor area of the nursery, her white robes splayed out around her like a bed of snakes. Her brown hair is unbound today, and a silver circlet rests on her head, a singular large ruby at its center. Zorina and I walk to her, the summer squall rustling the wind chimes that hang from the metal framework drowning out our steps, but I’m certain her pointed ears hear us approach.
Still, we wait until she opens her eyes and addresses us before approaching further.
“Have you brought the other two items I requested?” she asks, forgoing a greeting.
“In my satchel,” I reply, slinging it off my arm and dropping it to the grass.
Aeverie looks pointedly at the satchel, and even without pupils, her expression clearly translates to, ‘Then why the fuck haven’t you taken them out of the bag yet?’
Retrieving both items, I say, “I doubt you’ve invited us here for orange juice, Madam Priestess.”
“The orange is for you. The knife is for her,” she says, nodding towards Zorina. “Sit down. Both of you.”
Exchanging a look, we do as she says, and I pass my athame to my sister.
“Last week could have been disastrous for us,” she continues. “Baelliarah is a mundane land warring against magicked leaders. They’ve been preparing to meet our power with their own. Except where our magic is rooted in the ground, theirs is rooted in iron and steel. I understand you were able to pull some sense together in the end and shroud one of our boats long enough for the elves to reach the warship. A tactic that would have saved many lives, and even more ships, had it been utilized sooner.”
I scoff. “I am well aware. Unfortunately, I found myself otherwise engaged for the first part of the attack.”
She makes a sound in the back of her throat, something almost animal, something elf . “The Black Art is a foolish man.”
“He can be.”
“He is. So long as he chooses to love you, you are his greatest weakness. A leader should never bear their vulnerabilities so openly, and Singard Kilbreth has flaunted his. I say again—he is a fool.
“But as it seems that mortal men have no sense to put the greater good before their own secular desires, duty is far better suited for their superiors—mortal women .” She winks one milky eye, and I think she intends the gesture to be playful, but her monotone delivery always makes it so challenging to tell. She continues before I have to make the decision to force a chuckle and risk her blowing me to fragments if my interpretation is ill-founded.
“Vox tells me you’ve shown great interest in both our histories. You’ve been expanding your mind with knowledge of your potential, but it is time you unlock more of what you can physically do. Knowledge encourages growth, practice ensures success.”
“Please speak clearly, priestess. I’ve grown tired of straining to hear words unspoken.”
She reaches for the staff at her side and lays it across her lap, moving one hand to finger the gems tethered to the end of it. “You have been coerced to believe blood mages are capable only of destruction, but there are far more types of magics. We see it in your transcendent friends with their proficiency of transmutation magic, we see it in studied mages with their illusive magic, healers with their nurturing magic…” she trails off pointedly. “You are capable of far more than flame and fury, blood mage.” She leans forward, meeting my stare when she says, “You are worth far more than that.”
“We know that,” Zorina snaps, seemingly not entertained with Aeverie’s convoluted tongue.
“Yes but does she?” the priestess responds sharply.
Her question stuns me, but I forbid my surprise from showing. Instead, I lift my chin just a little higher when I say, “I wield power, power does not wield me, Madam Priestess.”
Her stare is pure glacial when she answers, “Then this will be most simple for you.”
Just as I’m about to demand she stop speaking in circles, every hair on my body goes pin-straight as an ear-splitting shriek shatters the conservatory.
I’m on Zorina at once, my hands flying out to either side of her body in a desperate measure to assess what pains her, but very quickly, it becomes evident that it’s Zorina’s mind being tormented, not her body.
I whip towards Aeverie, a snarl already wet between my teeth. “Stop it.”
The priestess’s gaze does not yield, and she looks positively bored when she says, “Make me.”
My collective agitates, heat igniting in my forearms, and Aeverie clears her throat before I can channel it away from me. “Do not initiate a fight you cannot win, blood mage. You know this.”
That gives me pause—because I know she’s right. My magic is no match for the priestess’s, especially with her staff laying expectantly across her lap. I now wonder if she rested it there intentionally, a warning.
Zorina cries out again, her hands clutching either side of her head, her eyes now firmly squinted shut.
“Your talents reach beyond destruction,” Aeverie says again. “You cannot exterminate without first protecting your allyships.”
Her meaning sinks in. I was able to stretch a ward around our vessel to protect the elves and me from projectiles while we moved through the flaming sea to Torin’s warship. An exhaustive effort, but one the blood magic was able to make possible. With practice, I might be able to stretch that ward farther, say an entire brigade, an entire army .
Last week was a warning, a show of strength. Torin might have expected that ship would never return, but he was willing to sacrifice that crew and their supplies to give us a taste of their weaponry. Perhaps that’s why only some of them were equipped with iron, if the king expected everything aboard that ship to be lost to sea. Something tells me the crew wasn’t aware it was a one-way manifest.
As my sister lets out another whimper, I flex my collective with mental fingertips and push it away from me. I latch onto her immediately, swaddling her essence like a newborn babe, and her cries abruptly stop.
I release a breath, and Aeverie nods once. “Her misery would have ended a minute sooner had you reacted with your logic and not your passion.”
“Excuse me for not expecting you to accost my sister’s brain during our lunch break.”
“You are not excused,” she tsks. “It only takes seconds for that magnitude of a mistake to generate irreversible consequences. But I did not bring you here to practice ward casting; you are well versed in such magics. I brought you here to begin practicing with your blood magic, to rein it in and bind it to your will. As you said, you are the wielder of power, not its oppressed. Now stand over there.” She points a slender finger towards the far edge of the courtyard. “And take the orange.”
Bidding Zorina a wary glance, I cross to the perimeter with the bumpy fruit and turn to face them again. The priestess doesn’t divert her attention from me when she says, “The blade, Zorina. Make use of it, and swiftly.”
I swivel my gaze to my sister and understanding sinks into both of us at the same time. I wet my lips and widen my stance, pressing the soles of boots firmly against the ground and locking my knees. Ignoring her warning to act swiftly, Zorina waits for me to consent, which I do with a slight nod of my head.
Without further delay, she swipes the dagger from the ground and runs it across her palm.
I scent her immediately, sweet and zesty like the gardenias of summer. I planted my feet into the ground as a precaution, but I have smelled my sister’s blood hundreds of times over the past decade. She does not stir my beast.
My magic does react to the blood though. No amount of willpower would be able to dam the rush of my collective—the opening to Source , as Aeverie once explained—that floods my hands, my arms, my core. Provoking it like a wolf that’s been forced into captivity, into an enclosure far too small to nurture its instinct to hunt. But still, my mind remains my own.
Control. A word I once feared, allowed to have dominion over me. I granted that word so much power , of what it would mean for me and everyone I ever loved if I were to lose it.
You are Wren. You are good. You can control it . Words Sin recited to me several months ago when he intentionally weakened his shield and allowed my magic to wound him. When I climbed into his lap and eyed his jugular like it was a fountain of liquid gold. I didn’t believe him then, but now…
I regard my creature with respect, but it is she who yields to me .
Ironic that it was Sin that believed in my strength first, given it was the kingdom’s law that sanctioned the death of my kind. But that was then, and this is now.
Zorina wails again, and I feel as Aeverie’s magic invades her mind, the walls of her collective rattling with the sudden incursion. Whereas my magic has always run hot, and Sin’s glacial, the priestess’s magic is something else entirely. It sweeps across my sister’s mind like a tornado, scattering her collective until her thoughts whip around her head like autumn leaves. And then, as Zorina’s mind quickly tires from the assault, the priestess finds her center, her root.
Wrapping her magic around it like cursed vines, she buries herself into the heart of my sister’s collective, causing Zorina’s head to fall back as she whimpers. No—Aeverie’s power isn’t the flaming fury of the bloodwitch, or the wintry storm of the warlord.
It’s a godsdamned maelstrom .
I tunnel after her, my own power a wolf on her heels, and I sink my claws into the priestess’s magic. Except… it isn’t solid like the collective is. My claws don’t create depressions into her walls, but rather her magic bends where I strike, as if I were swiping through vapor. Still, I feel as her grip on Zorina’s mind loosens, and inhaling my sister’s blood into my lungs, I allow her suffering to fuel my power, to spark the embers in the pit of my core. My veins hum with the swell of tormented power.
I always did love the feel of someone else’s blood in my veins.
The way it pools into every pocket between my flesh and joints, churning with my own juice until their suffering becomes my own. Becomes my flame .
I dig and dig and dig at the priestess’s hold, but her presence is a stronghold in Zorina’s mind—stubborn, vicious, and positively unyielding.
“You won’t overcome my power, blood mage. Foolish to exert your energy attempting to,” Aeverie says, her voice level and completely void of distress. “This is not a battle of strength; it is a battle of wills. Do not try to take control. Bite into the orange and push me out.”
Bite into the orange and push me out . Of course.
If I can’t wrest Zorina’s mind from the priestess’s grip, I need to shove Aeverie out of it. I drop my hold on the priestess’s magic, and it shifts instinctively from the sudden lapse in opposite pressure, but before she can react, I shove against her with the force of a tidal wave.
As soon as I have her strong-armed, I bite into the fruit. My teeth sink into its soft flesh, and juice bursts across my tongue, my lips, my cheeks, its sweet flavor bright in my mouth. My magic writhes in my forearms, and—suddenly, I understand. The orange is to simulate human flesh , to provoke the bloodwitch out of her cave with the mouthfeel of juice. Not blood, but a sensory trick to help call forth my beast while not dropping its leash.
I don’t use my flame against the priestess. Instead, with a swish of citrus in my mouth, I reshape my magic into a monsoon and fucking blow the elven bitch out of my sister’s mind.
A gasp slips past Aeverie’s lips. It’s the first time I’ve ever heard an involuntary sound from her. For a moment so fleeting I would have missed it had I not been looking at her, she regards me with a look of… uncertainty . Rarely does the priestess wear her true thoughts in her expression, but it’s there, in the narrowing of her eyes and the slight space between her lips.
Zorina rights her head, blowing out a long exhale and opening her eyes. “Fucking hell. I understand I’m the motivation here, but did you have to be so godsdamned brutal in there?” She heals the incision on her palm, then threads both hands through her hair as if she could soften the hurt in her head.
“You are far better acquainted with her than me, but even I know that nothing less would have motivated the blood mage to produce such a potent display.” She smiles as she says it, but her lips are tight, her mouth obviously forced into such an expression. A chill slips down my back. I much prefer the priestess when she’s outright blunt and stoic. With this smile , she looks more like a viper that just molted and shed its skin for a human one.
“Well Slaine’s mercy that my sister is not without her talents,” Zorina says, climbing to her feet and taking a few steps away from Aeverie. As if the added distance would provide any resistance to the priestess’s power if she wanted to breach her mind again.
“I think my sister is ready to retire from being bait,” I say, dropping the orange and walking to Zorina’s side. “And I should check in with the others to see if they need last-minute help setting up for tonight.”
“A bold decision for the Black Art to entertain the Harvest Festival in the capital this year, given recent events. The residents will be most wary of my kind, as well as the transcendents, and of you. A blood mage traversing the streets without a glimmer of iron to be seen… these are unsettling times for them.”
“I think it is wise of him. The festival is a sound opportunity for our kinds to mingle. All of us, including the residents. Could ease tensions greatly, and it provides everyone an excuse to ingest far more alcohol than any person should. A little secret about humans, Madam Priestess—I have found nothing motivates us quite the same as the promise of fresh mead and hot food.”
Every Autumn Equinox, the capital city becomes a beacon in the night, alight with fires and lanterns alike. A celebration of the land that was sowed in the hot season, and appreciation for the harvest that is soon to come. The flora and fauna have been flourishing everywhere since restoring the elves’ connection to Source, not just in the Vale, and the reason for it has been spreading across the isle. The city’s residents may be wary, but they are not without their curiosities of the strange, pointy-eared creatures that now breathe the same air as them and walk the same cobblestone streets. The priestess is right that entertaining the festival is not without its risks. But with great risks come the potential for great rewards.
“I did not voice that I thought it was a poor decision, merely a bold one. I do not hide that I am captious of many of the Black Art’s choices, but he isn’t a coward, and for that, I can admit a strength when I observe one,” she says.
I nod and turn to take my leave, my sister at my side. We’re nearly at the door when the priestess calls, “Blood mage.”
I pause, glancing over my shoulder to where she still sits cross-legged in the inner courtyard. “Your shield is strong. When you’ve been around for as long as I, it is not without many taking their opportunity to try to usurp you. I’ve taken many shows of power, but never did one seize the breath from my lungs. Until today.”
I hold her stare for an extended beat, then with a subtle incline of my chin, I give her my back and leave the conservatory. After all, I have a festival to prepare for, and a warlord to avoid.