Page 26 of Of Blood and Banes (The Arterian #2)

I eye the forest around us, my skin prickling at the thought of closing my eyes if she actually heard something in the distance.

She hits the side of my leg with her staff, and a dull ache springs in my muscles at the contact.

I squeeze my eyes shut and am swallowed by darkness.

The breeze dies off, leaving an eerie stillness settling around us.

I listen hard, looking for whatever Marge was trying to hint at, but still, I find nothing.

I peek an eye open and Marge is still standing in front of me, staring.

“Focus!” she barks.

I squeeze my eye back shut, forcing myself not to shiver in the cold night air now that I’m motionless.

Marge murmurs, soft as if she might scare something off, “Listen…you’ve grown accustomed to its sound, because it’s become a second nature to you. You’ve tuned it out because it’s something you’ve heard your whole life, and it’s been right under your nose, all along.”

With my eyes still closed, I shiver in the bitter cold.

Still straining to listen for whatever delusion Marge has convinced herself is out here, in the middle of the night.

Perhaps I should be concerned for her mental stability if she’s pulling me from bed after midnight for…

a sound emerges from the trees. Sliding through the canopies, gliding along the wind, and whispering through the undergrowth.

A soft, subtle, hum. My jaw drops. The longer I focus on it—the louder it becomes.

The buzz surrounds us, echoing off the tree trunks.

“Yes…” Marge whispers, closer than she’d been moments before. Her body heat radiates near in proximity. “You hear it.”

Perplexed and curious, I nod, considering opening my eyes.

But something stops me, as if I know better.

As if once I open my eyes, my focus will slip, and the sound will disappear.

The deep humming relaxes every nerve ending in my body, singing in my bones, and slowing every rush of blood in my veins.

Marge’s hand softly rests on my shoulder. “Good…I want you to kneel down.”

My normal hesitation is swept away by an indescribable wave of enchantment. I lower myself to the ground, slowly and obediently, until my knee hits the cold dirt.

“Now…” she says, as soft as a breath. “Remove your gloves…put your hand to the ground. And feel it.”

I remove my gloves and toss them to the side.

Slowly, I bend forward, the humming growing louder as I reach my hand out to where I sense the ground is.

I hesitate before I touch it, hovering above the surface.

My skin grows rigid with goosebumps breaking out along my forearm, every microscopic hair on the back of my neck stands.

A magnetic gravity pulls my hand closer, and I fight against it momentarily, before I push through my hesitation and press my palm flat to the dirt.

A living, surging essence breathes beneath the surface.

It’s buzzing energy whispers out around and beneath me.

The black behind my eyelids glows with an incandescent burst of blue and white.

I’m fully drawn to it as if it could tear me through the layers of dirt to get to the core of this world.

It whispers to me—calling me. Tempting me.

Nearly pleading. I put my other hand on the dirt and draw closer to the ground?—

A pain flares in my shoulder, and I rip open my eyes. My sight takes a moment to adjust, the blurry shapes and lines around me forming a picture of Marge and the dark forest.

She’s pale. Her eyes are wide and voice shakes. “That’s enough for tonight.”

The rest of my senses wash back over me, despite the fact I hadn’t noticed they were missing before. The river bubbles in the distance, the whisper of a breeze snakes through the leaves, and the tapping of Marge’s staff on the ground grabs my attention.

“Katerina, are you alright?” she asks.

I nod slowly. An unknown heaviness swarms my head, and I grab my gloves before I push up to my feet, stumbling as I regain my balance. Smoke taints my nostrils. “What was that?”

She scans me head to toe in suspicion. “Magic.”

“Magic?” I nearly laugh.

“Had your mother never told you of the great magic?”

“No.” I don’t want to tell her my mother had been terribly ill and couldn’t get a coherent word out. I don’t need her pity, and part of me doesn’t want to simmer in such painful memories.

“The magic of our realm flows like a river. But those rivers are underneath the ground in what are called ley lines.” She drags her staff through the dirt to draw intersecting lines.

“The essence of dragons come from the ley lines, and it’s where their power to create elemental magic stems from.

Though, dragons are second in power next to the rings.

The rings are the one thing that can manipulate the magic however the bearer deems fit. ”

“Where do the ley lines come from?”

“We don’t know too much about the nature of them. Other than sometimes they shift, sway, and surge depending on the seasons or celestial events. Or sometimes it’s completely random. Only few have seen it surface, and those that have say it looks like a blue fire?—”

“I’ve seen it,” I mutter, recalling the night in Arterias where Daeja touched it, nearly tripled in size, and we were then able to speak telepathically.

She tilts her head, eyes studying me carefully. “You’ve…seen it?”

“Back at the outpost…near the lake. Daeja and I saw it. She touched it by accident.”

“How old is your dragon?”

“Umm…” I pause, attempting to piece together the timeframe when she had first hatched. “At least four months. Probably five?”

“Interesting…she’s quite young. You shouldn’t be able to communicate with her so soon.

Dragons don’t bond with humans until well into their adulthood when they’ve matured.

But if she touched it…” Marge trails off, staring off into the dark forest. “That could explain how she’s so big for her age.

And how you can communicate with her already. Did you touch it, too?”

“No.”

She turns her attention back to me, not masking a relieved sigh. “Good. If you see it again, you avoid it at all costs, do you understand? You touch nothing until you’ve mastered pulling.”

“Pulling?”

“Yes. Think of how you’d draw water out of a well.

The Blood Ring is the bucket that collects the water—the magic.

But you must know how deep to lower that bucket into the water, and how long to let it fill, before pulling it back up.

If you fill it too much, you won’t be able to draw it out.

And if you pull too quickly, you risk the chance of spilling it.

On the other hand, you pull too slowly and you will drain your strength. It’s all about balance.”

She glances around the clearing. “It’s getting late, and we don’t want those guards getting suspicious we’ve been gone too long. But every night, when everyone is asleep, you’ll meet me outside your door, and we’ll train you on how to pull.”