Page 65 of Bitten & Burned

Thirty-Four

PLANNING

Kravenspire, Sol, Verdune

The summons came less than eight hours later.

I woke up to Anton’s voice, soft in my ear. “Rowena? Darling, I’m sorry, Cassian needs us all in his study. If you’d like, I could do everything for you… dress you, carry you, hold you…”

I was confused for a moment because I could have sworn I’d fallen asleep with Quil. I looked in the bed next to me, only to find it mussed, but empty.

“Cassian needed Quil. He sent me in here to wake you up,” Anton murmured, kissing my cheek. “So… about that everything I was going to do for you…”

My eyes fluttered open. “Just because my magic is gone doesn’t mean I can’t walk, Anton.”

“So yes to the other things, then?”

I smiled and swatted at him playfully.

By the time we walked into Cassian’s study, everyone else was already there. Like always, the fire was roaring in the fireplace. The combined crackling and the dulcet tones of lowered voices made for an eerie scene indeed.

Quil was leaning against the wall across from me, looking at once as if he were part of the wood paneling and as if he didn’t belong.

His dark eyes caught mine, heat still smoldering from the night before.

My thighs ached, and my throat was sore.

I flushed at the memory of our night together, and the way he was looking at me now didn’t help.

I felt wanted and well-loved. It was a nice feeling to pile on top of all the uneasy ones I had in abundance.

Speaking of uneasy, Vael was sitting at the head of the table, his posture sharp and deliberate, looking over one of the maps and pointing something out to Cassian, standing just behind him, looking over his shoulder and nodding.

Dmitri was at Vael’s other shoulder, looking but not reacting to whatever he was saying.

Anton sprawled in a chair nearby as if it belonged to him; he lounged, but every one of his lines was sharp and taut. He pulled me into it with him.

As soon as all the others realized I’d entered, the entire room shifted around me, enfolding me into its action, mixing me in as if I were the ingredient that had been missing this whole time.

I wanted to simply listen in, hear what they were saying about this mission that was really just about me and my sigil woes.

Anton hooked his arm around my waist and hoisted me over into his lap. I folded into him as if it were the most obvious place for me to be. I wasn’t complaining; this was clearly the seat I’d been angling for.

His grip was firm, not decorative, his fingers tightening as if testing to be sure I was real and safe. Even though I’d been back for nearly two days, Anton’s anxiety had not subsided.

I could hear better from here. Vael and Cassian were arguing about some part of a plan. Some part that involved me.

Anton was listening as well; I could tell by the way his fingers flexed at certain parts, the parts where Cassian was talking about me. Where Vael talked about me as well. Anton kept me anchored against him; his weight felt protective and unyielding.

Vael glanced up to catch my eye, saw where I was sitting and what Anton was doing, and swallowed thickly, his gaze quickly moving away as Cassian began to speak again.

His gaze tended to do that lately, I’d noticed: when others were speaking, when I was speaking, when he was speaking—his gaze would flit around the room, but always back to me.

Always steady and grounded. It almost felt like it used to before all of this.

Before the bond and before everything had gone so spectacularly to shit with us. But now? Now it felt different.

Vael sat back in his chair, fingers steepled, lips pursed. He didn’t interrupt—just let the others speak, adding a word here and there in that calm tone he used to smooth rough edges. It made the conversation easier to navigate.

“I think you’re all underestimating how clever Silas is,” I said. “He was my professor. No matter what I can or can’t do, he’s been doing this longer. I can guess at his next move, but nothing concrete.” I shrugged. “And he could still pull something out of his back pocket that I’d never expect.”

“Rowena’s point is sound,” Vael said. His eyes flicked to mine—just for a breath—before turning back to the others. He didn’t push, didn’t prod, just let the words settle between us.

The talk circled back to Silas, to what he was capable of. And whenever the others deferred to me, Vael’s gaze would return. Each glance was a quiet pull through the bond, static against my skin.

Every look struck something deep. Not jealousy, not regret, but something heavier, harder to name. For the first time since the day he’d dropped me, Vael was giving me space. Giving me what I’d asked for.

“All of this is conjecture until we figure out how to get rid of the sigil,” Quil said, sounding cross and annoyed with the others. “The sigil is still bleeding; therefore, still calling. I can feel it; it’s no wonder that my kin could as well.”

“There has to be a way to stop it,” mused Cassian.

“If your blood didn’t help, I’m not sure what else we could—or should—try,” said Anton, his thumb stroking along my belly. “It’s blood magic. Your blood, especially, should help, at least a little. But it’s not.”

“That’s because Cassian’s blood is vampire blood,” Quil said. “Doesn’t matter if his blood heals normally. That brand on her is an anti-vampire sigil.”

“Anti-vampire sigil that’s keeping me from using my magic,” I reminded them, staring down at my hands.

“And you know as well as the rest of us that the anti-vampire part didn’t fucking work,” spat Anton. “Look at the one on your back and look at your fangs and tell me it worked.”

“Just because it isn’t stronger than the vampire curse in our blood doesn’t mean it doesn’t work at all,” countered Quil. “Her grasp on moon-magic’s gone.”

“Not entirely,” I admitted quietly. “But for all intents and purposes, yeah, it’s gone.”

“Wait… what do you mean ‘not entirely’?” Vael asked, sharp enough that all eyes shifted to me.

I swallowed. “I kind of…haven’t thought about it since it happened, but on the boat, when the Ashbornes first attacked, I felt something spark. Something pushed through. Half of magic is just intention anyway. My intention is still there. It’s the follow-through that I’m missing.”

The table went still. No one breathed for a moment, the weight of what I’d said settling over us.

“Do you think…” Vael began, but his voice was careful now, measured. “Do you think you might be able to get it back?”

“I mean, yeah. Maybe… but I’d rather just get the sigil removed, and I wouldn’t have to worry about accessing my magic,” I said. “Not the point I was trying to make, though. The point was, magic is just intention.”

Cassian leaned forward, eyes narrowing. “So what you’re saying is, half of magic is just intent. If you were able to make sparks happen because you wanted them to happen, think of what the Ashbornes’ sigil magic could do.”

“Exactly,” I said. “The Ashbornes act like it works. They truly believe it works, and so, it does…at least some of the way. I have no way of knowing if a deity grants them actual magic.”

Quil snorted. “Nope.”

“So they’re drug-addled hunters with no divine intervention, who bastardized several runes to brand what they view as theirs,” Anton snapped. “And you’re telling me their backwoods way of making magic is working because they believe it works?”

“I’m telling you that backwoods magic is often the kind that works the best. Because the practitioners aren’t muddied by science, research, and reality. In the world they live in, this magic works. And therefore all signs point to it working.”

“So what, we make them stop believing in the sigil, and it’ll go away?” Anton asked, clearly not in sincerity, but there was a kernel of truth in his cynicism.

“Or we make them think the one who activated it has no power over it,” Vael suggested.

“How do we do that?” asked Anton. “Kill him?” He looked a little too excited about that idea.

“He might know how to get rid of Rowena’s sigil,” Quil reminded everyone. “So if we kill him, it can’t be right away.”

“Remove him,” Dmitri stated. “Remove him from where he is, take him out of the picture, give them the thing they really want—the land—and they’ll cast him off like a burning coal.”

“So what, we go to Dun Drummond, waltz in through the front door, and just take him?” Anton asked, sounding more and more annoyed as we went on.

“If worst comes to worst, I could always be the bait,” I offered.

“Absolutely not,” Anton hissed, his arm tightening around me. “No way are you going back to that monster again.”

“I wouldn’t have to, necessarily,” I said.

“I could just make it look like I am. Use me to get closer to him, and then overtake him. He’s a cursebreaker, not trained in hand-to-hand combat.

If you can get close enough, you can do it.

Don’t kill him there, but take him. Once the Ashbornes get what they want and the sigil dies down, we get him to tell us how to get rid of it entirely. ”

Everyone was quiet for a moment, and then Vael and Cassian hunched over the map in front of them, turning it this way and that.

“We could do this if we all split up,” Cassian mused. “I don’t relish the idea, but I believe with a strong enough plan, we’d be victorious that way. Keeping a group of six together is more difficult than keeping three groups of two.”

“Cassian, you and I could come in from this treeline, here,” Dmitri said, bending his massive frame over the map and pointing. “Draw them out of their hovels.”

Quil was peering at the map now. “Anton and I could take up each flank? Slashing and dicing them as we go? Thin out the ranks.”

Vael nodded. “And Rowena and I will walk up the main driveway, which will split their ranks even further, causing them to make mistakes and run off alone.”

“You can’t use her as bait, Vael,” Anton said pointedly.

“Why not?” I asked, turning to look at Anton, whose eyes were dark and focused, his jaw set.

“Because you’re not bait. You’re a person, and there are too many variables for this to be a good plan,” he insisted.

“I have to be involved in this for it to work,” I whispered. “They’ll know where I am no matter what, anyway. I’m like a lark in a snare waiting here on my own. Wherever you go, I go. I won’t be alone. Vael will be there.”

Anton slowly nodded, though reluctantly, his hand loosening on my waist.

The rest of the plan came out smoothly. We’d get Silas, bring him back here, and Vael would get the information we needed out of him. After that…

Well, I suppose they’d kill him. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. Not yet.

The meeting came to an end shortly after, with Cassian and Dmitri still talking tactics and Quil joining in when necessary. Anton was at my side, rising with me, and guiding me to the door with a steady hand on my back.

Vael was still watching, his expression unreadable. The bond was humming in my body, strange and tight, but before I could figure out exactly why, Vael turned away.

“Darling, why don’t we take you to rest again?” Anton murmured. “I’ll bring you something sweet and feed it to you; you won’t have to move for anything.”

I felt a smile tugging at my lips, and I nodded. “That sounds perfect, Anton.”

And, even though Vael wasn’t looking at me anymore, I could still feel the weight of his presence long after Anton and I had left the study and made our way back to my room.

He was silent at first before speaking up. “I still don’t think you should do this with only Vael. He’s a scholar, not a fighter.”

“Which is why his best place would be at my side. He can’t do what the rest of you can.”

“I’d feel better if you had a way to defend yourself,” Anton murmured, his hand coming to rest on the small of my back.

“Hm…” I said softly, remembering those books I’d borrowed from Blackthorn’s library. Thalia had sent them back with Vael, along with instructions to send a Pulse if I needed anything at all.

“Is there a way to send a Pulse from up here on the spire?” I asked, looking at Anton.

He frowned. “Down in the village, there’s a Pulse Receptacle at the letter office. Why?”

“I might need to send one later… but I need to look at those books Vael has.”

“Does this have anything to do with you defending yourself against drug-addled hunters?”

I nodded. “Indeed, it does.”

“Then, I will tell Vael to bring you your books. As long as you stay in bed and don’t get out while reading them.”

I smiled, bumping my shoulder against him. “Fine. That sounds fair.”

“I thought it might,” Anton said with a smile. “Let’s get you tucked in, and I will send for him.”

I couldn’t be completely certain, but so long as what I was remembering was in fact true, I might have the designs for a weapon and an enchantment to enhance it as well.

Anton was right. I needed something to defend myself. And I was going to use every tool in my arsenal.