Seventy-Two Deaths #2
I debated responding. I wasn’t angry anymore, at least not at him.
There were always casualties in war on both sides, and I supposed this was the beginning of a war.
But what had kept me from speaking to him was my internal struggle with the rebellion’s cause.
I was still unsure whether I wanted to stay or leave, and this wasn’t helping my decision.
Of course, I wanted Caedryn dead and to prevent the purge, but could I really be a part of something also responsible for so many mortal deaths?
He eventually walked away after waiting for a response that never came, and I turned my thoughts back to the dark book in my lap.
I finished Nox Incineram shortly after, so I would finally return to Sevrin tomorrow, ready to begin working on the shadow magic dampener. I wasn’t exactly thrilled to see him, but it was vital that I create this.
The key things I’d learned from the combined books were that 1) It would take a lot of trial and error for my specific magic to create glythyrs the way I want to.
Still, I had the basis of one that leveraged raw magic for protection that, in theory, could be modified to use my shadow magic and dampen it instead of protecting from it.
2) Shadow magic was believed to be placated by expending it, so I needed to figure out how to safely let the beast out sometimes to prevent all-out explosions, possibly.
And 3) Tattooing glythyrs was taboo, but I might just be the perfect test case to tattoo certain…
protections onto my skin. On this last point, I wasn’t sure how Sevrin would react.
As for deciphering and undoing glythyrs, I’d learned next to nothing, since this power seemed unique to me. But one passage had stood out to me from the glythyr book, and I thought it was important.
Of all the magics around glythyrs that have been studied extensively throughout history, none is more intriguing and plagued by mere hypotheses than the study of reading them.
Believed to be achievable only by gods from whom our raw magic stems, some scholars believe that if the ancient language of the gods’ magic could be deciphered, then one with exceptional wells of magic could, in theory, learn to read or interpret glythyrs of others.
None of this has ever been proven, despite many attempts.
I didn’t know how this would be useful, but it was the only thing we had to go on if Sevrin was even right about my weird, glowy left-eye vision.
I sighed as I closed Nox Incineram, rubbing a temple at the sheer volume of things in my brain. Outside, the sun was setting and giving way to evening, so I decided that a glass of bubbly wine was a just reward for pushing through these massive books.
And it was time to speak to Drayce, finally.
I found the living room empty, so I poured the wine and set to work in the kitchen, beginning to prepare dinner. We had made a deal after all…and he didn’t deserve the cold shoulder I’d been giving him. I just needed space to think without his honey-brown eyes begging me to feel a certain way.
Despite my attempts not to acknowledge it, I was nervous about finally cooking for Drayce. I thought I was a decent cook, but what if he hated it? And on top of that, it felt oddly…intimate to make dinner for a male.
As I was working, I heard the front door open and close and turned to find an exhausted-looking Drayce putting his bag down on the couch, pausing at finding me out of my room. His room. Whatever.
“This is definitely the first time since I’ve inhabited this house that there has been the smell of fresh cooking,” he said with a hopeful smile.
“You never cook?”
“I don’t. Orrin usually sets my meals aside in a private office near the mess hall.”
“So you eat in an office alone?”
“Pretty much.”
Well, that was depressing. But if he never cooked, why was his kitchen so full of food and things to cook with?
I set two plates full of meat, potatoes, vegetables, and a savory sauce I’d made down on the table as he came to sit down, first pulling the second chair out from under the table for me.
“So he’s a gentleman,” I said with a smirk.
He inclined his head. “A certain female in my life long ago taught me to treat every female as if she could one day be my mate.”
I fought an eye roll and wondered if it was my mother or his who taught him that. A wave of sadness settled over my heart as he picked up a book from the table.
My mother’s journal. I’d made a habit of carrying it around with me from room to room and had left it here.
“Did she mention me?” he asked, swallowing and laying a palm over the cover but not opening it.
I had plenty of sarcastic, joking answers ready at the surface, but suddenly, his golden glow dimmed, and an overwhelming sense of sadness radiated from him.
“I believe she did. Not by name, but the description made me think it was you. Described you as broody and menacing.” I nudged his arm with a sympathetic smile on my face.
The comment earned me a small smile in return as he dipped his head.
“She said she trusted you and that you trusted her. That she gave you a purpose, thought you were the future of the rebellion. And she absolutely said you were very not strong. Super weak.”
This made him let loose a laugh, lifting his eyes to mine. “Sounds like Keryth, actually.”
In that moment, I realized he’d known her and cared about her.
I also felt like maybe I could trust him, too, if she had.
“She…didn’t seem right. She seemed to be in a constant struggle between her obsession with the rebellion and her desire to come back home to me.
Said she was foggy and confused about why.
Even tried to come back a couple of times but always returned to base.
Drayce, I think…I think she was being forced or influenced. Did you ever notice?”
He contemplated for a few moments, the corners of his mouth turning down before he answered.
“Sometimes I wondered how she stayed away when she talked so much of you and your father. But she always said the same thing, that she was here to create a better world for you, so I believed she just missed you.”
We both took small, tentative bites of our dinner. It was objectively delicious, but the heaviness of the conversation and the words left unsaid overshadowed it.
I swallowed. “I was angry at first because I couldn’t understand it either. But I think I do now. There was something greater than her or me, or Cassius, at play. And I…I don’t blame her.”
I thought for the briefest moment that his eyes glistened with the beginning of tears, but he blinked, and when he met my eyes again, they were clear.
“Thank you,” he said. “For sharing part of her with me.” He slid the closed journal across the table to me.
“Both the journal and…her. And dinner is truly exquisite, Naci.”
I felt he was being genuine, but I also got the impression from the way he was looking at me that the food wasn’t what he really thought was exquisite. It made my heart beat faster.
I watched him for gods knew how long, getting lost in the honey-brown eyes and the hidden emotion I could see so clearly behind them.
“You loved her.” It wasn’t a question. I knew it.
“I did,” he said, the sadness in his voice making my heart squeeze.
“She found me at my weakest point. I had been wandering from town to town in Calyxmoor for years, decades maybe, I don’t really know.
After the accident, I didn’t know who or how to be.
I was so young to lose my parents, my whole family, and she filled the void without even trying.
She cared, and that meant more to me than the entire world’s worth of magic. I don’t mind saying I owe her my life.”
I blinked back my own tears. Everything seemed to make sense suddenly. I wasn’t sure I believed in fate, but he had needed her more than I did. Even if there was foul play to blame, fate put her where she needed to be.
I reached across the table and gripped his fist, which was clenched next to his plate, and for a moment, we just looked into each other’s eyes. Not heat in my core or flushing of my cheeks, but a different warmth built within me. In my heart.
Gods, I needed to be absolutely sure this pull wasn’t because of our shared ties to my mother. So with a tight smile, I released his hand and went back to my plate.
“She mentioned Aerie, too, I think, she said—”
“What do you want, Naci? From this, from here?”