Page 156 of Death of a Mortal

“Mortals are dying because of your missions?” I asked, crazed. “How many have died, Drayce? How many, including my sister and all the servants in Ashthorn, have died because of your raids? Look me in the eye, Drayce Rhyven, and tell me how many you’ve killed!”

“Naci, I…”

“Give me a number!” I shot a shadow tendril at him that collided with his chest and sent him stumbling back onto the couch. This time, I wasn’t sure if it was actually my anger controlling the shadows, or if it was the shadow magic’s influence.

His face fell. Despite my boiling anger, I could tell how much this tore him apart.

“Since I became the rebellion’s leader…” He swallowed. “Seventy-two.”

“Seven…seventy-two?!”

“Yes, Naci, and I carry that with me every day. I see their faces, hear their pleading or their crying. Some have died taking up arms by my soldiers’ sides and fighting their persecutors. Some have died from rogue magic. Others…hostages when the fae realize who we are. We do everything to protect them, Naci, but we can’t protect them all.”

The look on his face was begging me to understand, but in that moment, I couldn’t. I turned toward the bedroom and shut the door, leaving a dejected Drayce in my wake.

He didn’t follow.

I hadn’t wanted him to.

* * *

For two days,I avoided Drayce—I still had questions, but I didn’t want to have dinner in order to ask them. I left each morning for my workout without a word, and when I returned to his house in the afternoon, I shut myself in the room and read Sevrin’s books.

It wasn’t until the third day after his return that he attempted to speak to me.

He knocked on my door, causing me to look up fromNox Incineram.

“Naci?”

I debated responding. I wasn’t angry anymore, at least not at him.There were always casualties in war on both sides, and I supposed this was the beginning of a war. But what had kept me from speaking to him was my internal struggle with the rebellion’s cause. I was still unsure whether I wanted to stay or leave, and this wasn’t helping my decision. Of course, I wanted Caedryn dead and to prevent the purge, but could I really be a part of something also responsible for so many mortal deaths?

He eventually walked away after waiting for a response that never came, and I turned my thoughts back to the dark book in my lap.

I finishedNox Incineramshortly after, so I would finally return to Sevrin tomorrow, ready to begin working on the shadow magic dampener. I wasn’t exactly thrilled to see him, but it was vital that I create this.

The key things I’d learned from the combined books were that 1) It would take a lot of trial and error for my specific magic to create glythyrs the way I want to. Still, I had the basis of one that leveraged raw magic for protection that, in theory, could be modified to use my shadow magic and dampen it instead of protecting from it. 2) Shadow magic was believed to be placated by expending it, so I needed to figure out how to safely let the beast out sometimes to prevent all-out explosions, possibly. And 3) Tattooing glythyrs was taboo, but I might just be the perfect test case to tattoo certain…protections onto my skin. On this last point, I wasn’t sure how Sevrin would react.

As for deciphering and undoing glythyrs, I’d learned next to nothing, since this power seemed unique to me. But one passage had stood out to me from the glythyr book, and I thought it was important.

Of all the magics around glythyrs that have been studied extensively throughout history, none is more intriguing and plagued by mere hypotheses than the study of reading them. Believed to be achievable only by gods from whom our raw magic stems, some scholars believe that if the ancient language of the gods’ magic could be deciphered, then one with exceptionalwells of magic could, in theory, learn to read or interpret glythyrs of others. None of this has ever been proven, despite many attempts.

I didn’t know how this would be useful, but it was the only thing we had to go on if Sevrin was even right about my weird, glowy left-eye vision.

I sighed as I closedNox Incineram, rubbing a temple at the sheer volume ofthingsin my brain. Outside, the sun was setting and giving way to evening, so I decided that a glass of bubbly wine was a just reward for pushing through these massive books.

And it was time to speak to Drayce, finally.

I found the living room empty, so I poured the wine and set to work in the kitchen, beginning to prepare dinner. We had made a deal after all…and he didn’t deserve the cold shoulder I’d been giving him. I just needed space to think without his honey-brown eyes begging me to feel a certain way.

Despite my attempts not to acknowledge it, I was nervous about finally cooking for Drayce. I thought I was a decent cook, but what if he hated it? And on top of that, it felt oddly…intimate to make dinner for a male.

As I was working, I heard the front door open and close and turned to find an exhausted-looking Drayce putting his bag down on the couch, pausing at finding me out of my room. His room. Whatever.

“This is definitely the first time since I’ve inhabited this house that there has been the smell of fresh cooking,” he said with a hopeful smile.

“You never cook?”

“I don’t. Orrin usually sets my meals aside in a private office near the mess hall.”