There was a murmured assent of agreement from the other Mages and a few nods from Vessels.
“Because of that,” Rohak said, pointing to a tree.
“A tree?” Flek, an Earth Mage, rumbled from just ahead. “There are a lot of those, General.”
General d’Alvey shook his head. “Look harder at the tree, there’s a rune engraved on its trunk.”
I squinted, trying to find anything amiss on the bark. Sure enough, there was a rune carved into the trunk, what looked like fresh blood coating it. I shivered despite myself.
“What is it?” someone asked up front. The horses were starting to grow restless, either from feeling our anxiety, or from the magic of the place, I wasn’t sure. We all had to work on calming them down. I reached behind me, and my hand connected with Ilyas’. I sent a trickle of my power out toblanket the animals. The shock of pleasure to their systems quieted them and even some of the Mages took on a glassy-eyed look.
“Thank you, Lex, but not so much next time, okay? We need our heads on right now,” General d’Alvey grumbled.
I blushed and jerkily nodded my head, releasing Ilyas’ hand after giving it a squeeze in thanks.
“I believe it’s a Confusion Rune, though my understanding and knowledge of them is rudimentary at best,” Rohak begrudgingly admitted.
What the fuck?
“Confusion Runes, sir?” I asked as the line of horses stamped their feet nervously and whinnied, my blast of Pleasure already waning.
General d’Alvey gave a curt nod before gesturing to a few of the other trees and rocks nearby.
“There are runes engraved on almost every surface near the path, but the Confusion Rune is the only one I recognize. And, thankfully, it’s the only I’ve seen since we entered.”
I chewed my lip.
“Then what do we do, General?” The question came from the front of the line.
The General sighed before dismounting Balios and giving him a pat on his flank. The horse whickered in response and nipped at his hair. General d’Alvey patted him absently, his brow furrowed in thought.
“I believe they’re only written in blood. If we can . . . remove the rune, we should be able to continue out of the forest,” he mused almost to himself.
When no one said anything, the General nodded to himself and began to stride into the woods toward the marked tree. There were a few shouts of protest from our line, but the General ignored them as he approached the tree.
He stood for a moment in complete silence, his eyes raking over the image carved into the bark. Slowly, he started removing pieces of bark that created the rune.
We all collectively held our breath as we watched the General painstakingly remove various bits of bark full of blood.
After a few minutes of nothing happening, I began to relax my shoulders.A few minutes later the General was striding back to our group and mounting Balios.
“Why didn’t you use your magic?” I asked quietly.
General d’Alvey didn’t look at me but answered quietly, “Magic cannot destroy runes and can sometimes even strengthen them. You have to physically dismantle a rune for it to lose its power.”
I hummed in thought, curious as to how General d’Alvey knew so much about runes, even after admitting that his knowledge was “rudimentary.”
Is it his religious upbringing?My parents, what I remembered of them, weren’t religious and we rarely, if ever, attended temple. Then I was sold to Lord d’Refan and my education was singularly focused on using my magic.
General d’Alvey’s voice interrupted my thoughts before I could voice my question.
“I want to get out of here before these runes activate again.” If I didn’t know any better, I would say that the General was nervous, slightly off-kilter from the many runes that were scattered about the forest. Now that we knew they were there, they were easier to spot, and there were quite a lot of them.
The most unnerving aspect of all, though, was that each rune was traced in blood. Runes could only be activated by the innate magic that lived within our blood, which meant the blood was definitely human and not animal. I involuntarily shuddered at the thought and hoped some poor unsuspecting soul wasn’t used as some sort of sacrifice for a witch’s spells.
There is no way that one person could have activated all of these runes with their own blood . . .
I shuddered again and was incredibly thankful that General d’Alvey had picked up the pace. The woods started to thin after a short time, and streaks of moonlight dusted the forest floor as we plodded through.
