Chapter 36 Misbegotten Traditions
Misbegotten Traditions
ANNA
As the days lengthened, my mood only darkened.
Blake left Nightfall for the Realm, speaking only with Roslyn before his departure, with no word as to when he would return.
He was looking for Malakai.
According to Roslyn, he shouldn’t have been able to enter the rift to return to Nightfall—but somehow, he had.
I was no help solving that mystery and I couldn’t get my mind off that night.
I was drowning myself in books and scrolls in the library, reading anything with a scrap of information about the blood affinity Malakai spoke of.
Blake’s red flecked eyes were wildly different from the steel gray.
I couldn’t shake the image. It worried me at my core and the only coping mechanism was to try to understand what had happened and what had become of Malakai.
He was planning something—I could feel it. But what was it? Was someone going to disappear again? And for what? Was he using them for blood?
Roslyn was as critical of my obsessive research as she was worried, telling me I should be focusing on my studies.
I didn’t care. Blake left without saying goodbye, without telling me when he’d return, and without reassuring me that everything was going to be okay.
Did I even want him to reassure me? He had lied to me.
For so long. But it was complicated—I hadn’t known anything back then, so to tell me he was there the night my mother died, and that he had no real answers for my missing year probably would have made me hysterical.
My anger had come and gone quickly, though, replaced by one of the most confusing feelings I had from that night—the feeling of being safe in someone’s arms.
It had been him—Blake. I wanted things to get different, but if I had a choice in what I would change, Blake keeping this from me would be low on the priority list.
No—until I had a solution, I wouldn’t stop trying to fix whatever had torn him away from me—I was tired to everything being torn away.
So fucking tired—
“You are not looking in the right places,” a deep voice called over my shoulder.
I startled and found Everson behind me.
He was stoic and annoyed as usual, and I turned around to ignore him. I still largely held him responsible for Skylar and Cody being gone.
“It is the Aurkai leader’s library that you want,” he said.
I gaped, too shocked to turn around. “You mean Ezreal Kalmont’s library?”
Everson said nothing, but the moment I heard footsteps, I whipped around.
“Wait!”
He paused, never turning back.
Jaden Everson had never liked me. That had been clear since day one. If I hadn’t seen him with Corinya that one time, I would’ve thought that he didn’t like anyone.
“Why would you help me?” I asked, focusing on his stillness, his rigid stance, and his irrational display of disrespect.
Silence thickened between us, wrought with everi and distrust.
“We all made the choice to come here,” he said quietly. “We all knew the risks. Your path takes you to a dangerous place, should you choose to walk it. That risk is weighed against our desires and we all must make a choice. We shall see what yours is.”
“It was Corinya, wasn’t it,” I asked.
A flicker of surprise.
“She is why you are helping me,” I muttered.
He gave a low, annoyed grunt and left, leaving me there with useless scrolls scattered about and a hollow pit forming deep within me.
My hood hung low over my face as I reached for the door leading out of the dorm’s common area.
“And where do you think you’re going?”
I cringed at Roslyn’s ill-tempered voice.
Before I turned around, Isabella’s door popped open. “What are you two shouting about?”
I groaned, turning around and lowering my hood.
Roslyn stared at me hard, her arms crossed.
“Well, out with it?” she snapped.
I thought she might start tapping her foot for a moment and I lost all my steam.
“I was going to break into an office for a book,” I said sheepishly.
“An office?” Roslyn asked incredulously. “Whose office?”
I looked at my feet and muttered, “Kalmont’s.”
“Ezreal?” she nearly shrieked. “Anna, for the love of Sairyn, Blake asked me to keep an eye on you. Could you please make a tiny attempt not to seek out trouble?”
I glared at her before I started heading to my room when Roslyn motioned for me to join her.
I gave her a questioning look.
“I have a feeling I already know what book you were looking for,” she said quietly. “And I have already swiped it.”
I spent hours ignoring Roslyn and Isabella chatting through the night as I read the tome Roslyn gave me. We were in her room and I sat in the window seat, soaking in as much information as I could, relaying the essential facts for Roslyn to weigh in on as needed.
After exhaustion was starting to take me, Isabella was nearly bouncing as she paced, having had far too much of Roslyn’s special tea.
“Okay,” Isabella said. “Let’s recap: The Falls is the only kingdom to openly have blood mages in their ranks, where they are honored for their power, but Celestia is also rumored to have an elite faction of blood mages.”
She flicked her index finger out as she paced and continued.
“Blood mages are not immortal but they can live far longer than the average mage, which is still longer than the average human,” she said, flicking out another finger.
“It is possible for a blood affinity awakened mage, or a ‘blood mage,’ to stop drinking blood, but they will be like a lifelong alcoholic trying to abstain from alcohol, which can sometimes be a train wreck. What am I missing? You’ve been prattling on, Anna. ”
“It’s hard for them to give up blood, much like an alcoholic struggling to give up alcohol, because it gives them such additional strength. When their everi binds with the life force in someone else’s blood, it becomes exponentially more powerful,” I said. “It’s hard to give up this kind of power.”
Isabella frowned and crossed her arms. “They sound like vampi—”
“They’re not,” I snapped. “Their hearts beat like any mage’s.”
“Okay, okay,” Isabella said, holding up her hands defensively.
I grunted, unsure why I was defending them against a factiously mythical creature.
“So, if I attacked you and started drinking your blood, would I be a blood mage?” Isabella asked, baring her teeth at me.
I shook my head. “It doesn’t sound that simple, but I still don’t understand it.”
Roslyn was sitting on her bed; her knees pulled to her chest, far less enthused by this conversation than Isabella was.
“What is it, Ros?” I asked.
She shook her head as if she were somewhere else in her mind. “I should have taken it more seriously in the beginning.”
“Taken what more seriously?” Isabella asked, pausing at Roslyn’s serious tone.
“When you and Saryna were attacked, everyone knew what Malakai was doing,” she said. “It is called blood play—a lot of idiotic mages do it in The Falls with no real intention of ever awakening the affinity for blood. But we underestimated Malakai.”
“I don’t understand,” I asked, shifting on the cushion of the window seat. “He did it? He awakened the blood affinity?”
Roslyn nodded, looking more pale than usual.
“But how? I don’t get it,” I said.
“First, you must understand the appeal—drinking blood gives a mage a high, especially blood with high spiritual energy. Some humans have more than others, and mages are far higher and coveted by blood mages. Drinking blood gives them incredible power, especially a mage’s blood, but it comes at a price.
Mages from the Falls see how powerful blood mages become, but they are enslaved to their power, and their power is controlled by the crown through the Mandate of Alnir.
It keeps the power structure under control.
“Still, impressionable mages enjoy dabbling in blood play, such as Malakai and his idiotic friends,” she said. “That is what we thought he was doing. None of us would have suspected he had real intent to become a blood mage.”
I frowned. “Why is that so hard to believe?”
“Blood mages are powerful and usually bound somehow and used to do another’s bidding. Freedom is sacrificed when this path is taken,” she said. “Malakai is a lord’s son. He had a life of luxury. But there is something else.”
“What?” Isabella whispered.
“The further your bloodline is from the God of Fire, Daemon, the harder it is to awaken the blood affinity. Anyone outside of the royal line would have to awaken a long-dormant gene within them,” she said.
“To do that, he would have to consume an enormous amount of blood. The cost of that much blood would be paid in lives—by the dozens.”
I stared at her, my jaw slack and my throat tight.
“But what does that mean for the royal line?” I whispered. “Why are they different?”
Roslyn frowned. “For someone closely descended from Alnir, the son of Daemon, the gene is far from dormant. It would not take nearly as much for them to awaken the blood affinity.”
I bit my lip as my heart started thundering in my chest.
“How much, Roslyn?” I whispered.
“But a sip,” she said, casting me a grim look.
Discomfort hit me like a harsh wind.
Blake.