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Speak to the others.

Admit I’m a curse breaker.

Arabeth’s heartstone. Why?

There’s a way to break curses. I know this.

Letters, mushrooms, and something hidden.What?

In truth, it was less a list of action steps and more a list of wonderings.

I rose from the table, desperate to clear my mind. Inside the sparring room, pegs jutted from the wall. Each pair held a different blade—knives and switchblades, bearded axes and daggers. Next to the weapons, Kage had stacks of war-time elixirs, poisons, and powders already prepared.

I unlaced a leather pouch and sniffed, coughing against the peppery burn in the back of my throat. One glance inside, and I recognized the slate powders that looked like someone had shaved hundreds of lead tips off pencils.

“Good hell, Kage. Why would you keep fleshbane out in the open?”

With care, I returned the powder back to the shelf. Should such a thing burst, it would cause necrosis of any exposed skin. Forbidden to be used by anyone other than a Soturi, and even then, it was a battle powder.

I gripped a knife, not entirely realizing how swiftly the uses and scent of a potion came to my mind, and rolled the leather hilt in my palm. Memories were there—sparring, fighting, embracing my Soturi nature.

I glanced at the different targets and props arranged throughout the sparring room wall. Breath blew over my lips, calm and steady. I reeled my arm back, then let the knife fly. A heavythunkfollowed when the blade impaled in the round belly of a wooden dummy in the corner.

I chuckled, but my ears pricked at a sound—steel over leather.

Upon the first whisper of a blade cutting through the air, I spun around, palm out. From somewhere deep in my core, vengeful heat rose in a wave to my head, and erupted from my hand.

Crimson light, no thicker than sea mist, swallowed a knife reeling toward my chest, and in my mind I chanted,destroy it.

Whatever magic had slipped free wasn’t mist anymore, it was . . . blood. Dark pools of blood surrounded the knife, mid-air, and shredded the particles of the blade to insignificant pieces. Until nothing but the clank of a bladeless hilt landed in a heap on the floorboards.

A slow, building applause came from the doorway. Gwyn, one shoulder braced on the frame, clapped her hands together, beaming. “Well done. Nowthatis what I’d expect from a blood mage.”

“What was that?”

“That, my friend, was your Soturi mingling with your natural talent to summon blood.” Gwyn’s eyes sparkled in the morning light. “I knew the moment I saw you with those blades, something had shifted.” She gathered her worthless hilt. “Thought I’d test out my theory.”

I shoved her shoulder. “By throwing a knife at me?”

“Oh, hush. You destroyed it.”