Page 48

“Am I?” He sounded pleased.

“Don’t pretend you’re surprised.”

When we were finished, he stripped his shirt off and began to sew the hole closed. I found myself staring at the look of him, sleek muscles shifting in the firelight.

Kalcedon glanced up, saw me looking, and stared back. My cheeks burned. I turned to face the fire instead.

“I’m done,” he told me after a few minutes, breaking off the thread.

“Good,” I said weakly.

“Are we sharing the bed again?”

“It’s sensible.”

“Then are you coming?”

My eyes widened. I glanced his way. Kalcedon was still shirtless, the mended fabric bunched in one hand. He leaned back against the foot of the bed, one knee bent, and watched me closely with his dark eyes.

Doubtlessly my mind had gone where his had not. He was in mourning, and had just been shot. It was only the firelight that made me think such thoughts.

“I’m not tired,” I whispered.

“Suit yourself.”

I pulled out my journal as he stood and stripped out of his trousers, down to his drawers. Tarelay’s Ward was the only distraction strong enough to keep me from staring. Though I cannot truthfully claim I did not glance, a little, out of the corner of my eye.

When Kalcedon climbed into the bed I exhaled hard, lay across the floor, and forced myself to study the shapes of the enchantment once more. Somewhere in here were the seeds to the Ward’s destruction, whether it had been pulled apart by time or calculated malice.

It only took a few minutes before I was lost in the spell again.

I could not say how many hours passed as I ran my eyes over and over the spell, copying phrases and attempting isolated translations to pick apart the meaning of the whole. I had to add sticks to the fire twice, though I did not like it to grow too big.

It was a far larger spell than the one I’d written into the room, and yet, at its heart, any shield was the same. It provided protection; created a barrier. The spell on this room would stop anyone entering, but the Ward didn’t stop people from crossing. It just drained any heat that touched it.

It cannibalized spells, I realized with twin horror and delight. It didn’t just eat the raw power that grew in our veins if we touched it—it tore spells apart the moment they came into contact with the ward, shredded them, and fed on the power. That was how it had survived for so long. Self-sustaining: not quite. Self-feeding.

I stared into the flickering, dying fire of the hearth, where I had burned the gory cloth and arrow to keep Kalcedon safe from blood magic, and wondered if I could learn to do the same; to build a shield that would be strengthened by any attack.

The flames were red. Devouring. I thought again of the arrow that had pierced Kalcedon; thought of the way the women of Nis-Illous washed their blood-rags in the sea or burned them, even now, when there were so few witches around.

There was power in blood. Power in life; power in death. I blinked at the bright burn of the fire, and slowly bent my head back down to the journal in front of me. And there it was, the key. Swimming up into my vision like it had peeled itself out of Tarelay Sorrowsworn’s tangles, clear as day, unmistakable and obvious in its truth.

Tied to life.

Seven stones, for seven kingdoms. Well, six now, after Doregall’s fall. But the same way I had written fire into my spell… I scrambled up and threw myself onto the bed, clambering to Kalcedon.

“Kalcedon!”

He didn’t answer. I prodded him, crawling half-over him with my arms braced on either side of his face.

“Wake up. I figured it out.”

“Who’s what?” he mumbled.

“Bloodlines! It’s bloodlines! I, the spell, it came to me…”

“...Sleeping,” he protested, as I began to explain.