Page 11

Blood Magic

Rumi

Rumi’s head hung heavy on her shoulders, her hair a curtain of knots and tangles drawn over her face that reminded her of bramble bushes.

A sharp sting drew her eye to a line of blood welling on her arm.

A new slash of crimson, parallel to all the others, like soldiers marching in neat rows across her forearm.

HazelEyes refused to meet her eyes as the blood pooled and then dribbled over her raw, bony wrists and into the glass container he held to catch it.

Rumi watched, transfixed as the garnet beads gathered until their weight pulled them down with a soft plunk into the container.

Her life force infused in each tiny drop.

Sullivan observed from above on a platform they’d installed behind a railing, just for his viewing pleasure.

As always, he carried himself with a dispassionate air, like this was just a normal sunny afternoon for him, in the stands, watching the warriors brawl.

Time was painted with a monotonous grey palette.

She barely registered the world around her, escaping the pain by absconding deep into her mind and memories.

HazelEyes was gentle as he kept her arm wrapped in gauze until it began to heal.

Did they notice her healing had slowed? She still had weeping wounds on the other arm that refused to get better.

Probably infected.

And maybe it was for the best to be poisoned from within and liberated from this nightmare and delivered into the arms of her ancestors.

Rumi shook her head.

No.

She would escape.

Her time was coming.

Sullivan took the glass jar from HazelEyes and held it to the light, giving it a quality inspection, as if it might be dirty.

Filthy.

Like all the names he had called her.

“Got us a decent batch this time, but we need more.”

Then he waved his hand to continue, but HazelEyes did not move.

“Sir?”

he asked, confusion written on his face.

“We need another sample from the specimen.

Fetch it, lieutenant.”

HazelEyes gulped, his lips pressed together in a slight grimace, and he rubbed at the back of his neck as he glanced between her and his commanding officer.

HawkNose, as Rumi had deemed the nasty guard who had been standing behind her, snickered under his breath as he took a step around to face her, a knife glinting into existence as he drew closer.

“It’d be my pleasure.”

His whiny voice grated on her ears, his foul breath discernible from where he stood.

Rumi peered up at HazelEyes and he gave her an almost imperceptible nod.

They were almost allies, rebelling against Sullivan whenever they could. Sort of.

“I got it,”

HazelEyes grunted and stepped between Rumi and HawkNose.

His eyes held an apology as he made another cut just below the gauze.

She did not wince.

All she could do was challenge Sullivan with a look from over HazelEyes’ shoulder.

“This could all be over if you’d just answer my questions,”

Sullivan said, leaning over the railing, the vessel of her blood hanging by its round handle from two fingers.

With her eyes she said, I’ll never tell you.

HazelEyes’ gentle fingers were a balm over her bruised flesh as he wrapped the new wound and gave Sullivan the second vessel.

“Tell me what I want to know and you could be in a nice, cushy bed eating three delicious meals a day by tomorrow night.

It’s as simple as you giving me what I want.”

Except she did not want a “cushy”

human bed or their tasteless food.

She longed for her treetop cities and their woven bridges, the fields of wildflowers that made the air so sweet you didn’t need to eat dessert, the rainbow birds that met her at her windowsill each day to sing her good morning.

It was all a lie anyway.

She knew what would happen to her once she was no longer useful.

Not that she had been much use to Sullivan thus far, though he still seemed to think he could get something out of her.

“Your Arryvian blood supposedly has magic.

Show me.

Just tell me how you use it and this all goes away.”

He said nearly the same thing every day.

He did not understand that Ti’la could not be bottled and wielded like a weapon.

It was a sacred bond and extension of oneself.

A divine magic in the soul.

A brute of a man like this would never know its beauty.

When she did not respond, he tipped his head, analyzing her.

HazelEyes gasped in surprise as Sullivan dumped the contents of one of the jars, spilling her life blood all over the dirt floor.

That was new.

Shame.

She did not have much of that left—at least that is how it felt.

When she looked up at him, he did not say a word—just watched, waiting for a reaction.

Perhaps, hoping for one.

Between the cracks in the packed-dirt floor, tiny buds of green sprouted from beneath the blood, bearing the thick crimson color like heavy fruit as they stretched upward on mighty little stems.

Rumi watched the buds struggle beneath their weighty burden, brought into a cruel world and trying to bloom amid the violence.

Sullivan hopped down from the platform, crushing them beneath his boot and splashing red drops on his pants.

“Now, get me more, Captain,”

Sullivan demanded, his eyes glinting, his face stoic.

He was winning—they both knew it.

This was his new game.

Bleed her dry.

“Sir, with all due respect, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

His objection was sweet, but Rumi knew it would not do any good.

She quietly offered him her arm once more.