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Not if it caused him to turn dark like a gobbelin or poisoned me faster than I could win the Trials.
Still... if I were a Goddess, I certainly wouldn’t be so cruel as to put this kind of temptation before my subjects without a way out. Iaga had never been a cruel Goddess, either. Maybe there was a way out of this particular riddle that I just couldn’t see yet.
Just like with Nicolas in the mist, I had to keep my senses and my beliefs open for unexpected twists.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
KANA
Eventually the sun rose high enough in the sky that it felt wasteful to hide away under our ivy, no matter how much I wanted to spend the day there.
Rush insisted on stepping out first to scan the area, and I could sense the magic of his glamor as he made himself invisible, although I could still see him. Whatever it was about the connection between our magics hadn’t changed with the awakening of the gobbelin blood.
That alone made me think there was more to the prophecy than either of us had been told.
“It’s all clear. Come wash, love,” he said after a moment, using his earth fae magic to wither the ivy enclosure back into the ground, leaving no evidence of our night. I darted naked to the stream, bathing quickly in the icy water.
As I hurried to dress again in my filthy clothes, I wondered if I could learn enough control with my new ice spell to turn the water warmer without the scald of steam, or to suck the droplets from my body to dry myself or even clean my clothes.
I’d seen mer do similar things with their water magic, so maybe I just needed some time to practice.
“What is that scar on your stomach?” Rush asked, pulling up the edge of my tunic again. “I didn’t see it in the darkness.”
I chewed on my lip, trying to think of an easy way to explain the weirdness of carrying a magical book within your skin. Vampire skin almost never scarred, either, so he would know it wasn’t a normal injury.
But I didn’t have time to come up with anything, because suddenly, his eyes rolled back in his head and his body slumped down onto the ground like a marionette whose strings had been cut.
His limbs were spasming as I fell to my knees beside him, calling his name and trying to contain him so he didn’t bash his head on a rock. Just as suddenly, he went still and rigid, eyes wide and solid white. A voice echoed from his open mouth, but it was deeper and sounded much more ancient than his own voice.
“Weapons, three
To find the key
Open the dark
On bended knee.”
