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Kas gave up his fight all at once, slumping down into my arms with a sob.
“Ren,” he heaved. “I owe him this much, Kana.”
“Wewillhelp them, I promise. I just... I just have to learn more. We can keep them alive, Kas. When I get the Ancient Magic, I can heal them. I know it. But we have to wait - we can’tsubvert the rules of the Trial.” I was rambling, and he was barely listening, lost in his own grief and guilt.
I hated the words falling out of my mouth, too. Why would the mist give me a taste of the magic, but withhold the necessary pieces to truly help people? All I’d learned was more ways to kill. Surely our Ancient Magic could heal as well as destroy.
If the vampires’ only true power was destruction, I didn’t want it back in Saori Sang.
Like the spring after winter, only after destruction can the rebirth begin, a sinuous female voice echoed in my mind. Khione.
Clutching Kas to my chest while he raged through his emotions, I called to the Goddess living in my veins. She’d been silent too long.
Can you help us? Surely, not everything must be destroyed all the way to death. Haven’t these slaves already been destroyed enough? Where’s their rebirth? Don’t they deserve that, at least?
I knew my own rage was filtering into my words, and I hoped Khione wasn’t the type to exact vengeance on the very person who was hosting her. We needed to work together, just like the mist and I had.
Better, actually.
The mist only gave me the answers it wanted to, regardless of how many questions I asked.
Khione? Please. Help us, I begged her in my mind. Kas’s rage had begun to quiet, and he buried his face deeper against my neck, seeking quiet comfort now.
Go read the book again. I will try,the Goddess promised after a moment of silence. And for once, her voice wasn’t filled with daggers of solid ice.
CHAPTER NINE
KANA
I tried to coax more from theBook of Icefor hours.
Rush had commandeered Kas to help him care for more of the palace’s newest residents, keeping him distracted. Valanga and Blaise had reported no further gobbelin activity since the last fight. The mist hadn’t been active enough to notice its presence, and I’d heard nothing from Nicolas, or from Luca and Vento.
So I took advantage of the reprieve and holed myself up in my room - the new one - and flipped the pages of that infernal spell book forward and backward, willing more words to appear with every scrap of hope I had left and every bit of magic I knew.
“Fucking empty!” I yelled after I’d been at it for hours, slamming the book closed and barely resisting throwing it across the room. Even Khione was silent in my head.
I was beginning to fear that even if I gained more spells, maybe the ice magic simply wasn’t made to counter the blood magic Merden wielded. I knew even less about the power she’d discovered. It had been forbidden and forgotten longer than anyone I knew had been alive, and there were no books on blood magic in the palace - we’d searched all the likely places. Merden’s and Girard’s rooms had been cleaned out, and the lab and libraries held nothing suspicious.
The only clues we had were the vast collection of different blood types in the lab, and the state of the unconscious slaves.
Ice magic could certainly destroy a mind and even force an action if the vampire was strong enough, but I’d never known it to hold a mind endlessly captive the way the blood slaves seemedto be, locked away from the world and whatever was happening to them. A mage’s potion could keep them this way, but I’d never known one to last so long. It had to be the blood magic.
Part of me knew it was a blessing that the slaves might not be aware of how they’d been treated, but now that they were safe, this was no way to live.
Just as I’d gotten to my feet to begin pacing again, grumbling to myself, my bedroom door opened.
“I can feel your mind spinning from the hallway,” Kas said, raising his eyebrows at me as he stepped inside, master of his emotions again. Rush was right behind him, and something in me steadied at the sight of them both.
“Nothing is working,” I grumbled, gesturing to the closed book on the bed.
“Your energy is nearly depleted, love. As your prophet, I must predict that if you don’t replenish, horrible things might happen.” Rush grinned to show me he was teasing, but there was a glint in his eyes that told me he was also serious about the suggestion.
“Yeah, take a break, princess. Things are somehow under control and stable right now - take advantage of it before something else goes wrong,” Kas said.
I snorted a laugh. “Optimism at its best. But maybe you’re both right. The new moon isn’t for three days - the mist won’t call the final Trial before then. We have eyes on everything we can, right?” I asked, and they both nodded.
“Valanga is superb, and Blaise has agreed to watch the blood slaves for a while,” Rush added. “Besides... I may have taken a bit of time to explore the palace earlier and put my special stamp on your home.”
