Page 20 of Ruin of Revenants

“You can’t be serious,” I scoffed. “We already went over this. I can’t perform necromancy.”

Archer tilted his head. “Phoenixes can raise themselves from the dead. Why not others?”

I crossed my arms. “Because that’s not how our magic works.”

“Not even if one of you tapped into the magic of Mortius himself?”

I shook my head adamantly. “I went to Solea's temple because my people are hurting—” My voice cracked, and I blinked at the tears forming in my eyes. Why was I trying to explain myself to the prince? If he had cursed us, he already knew our plight. If he hadn’t, I didn’t need to share that the people he hunted were also growing weak, becoming more vulnerable.

Archer was silent for a long moment, watching my expression carefully. At last, he turned away, looking out the window and the crimson sky. “A fire demon is attacking Emberglade with revenants. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

In your twisted mind, perhaps, I thought, but didn’t say aloud. “Have you considered Mortius himself would have the power to do such a thing?”

His mouth twisted and he didn’t meet my eyes. “It’s not him. Besides, the gods don’t interfere in our affairs anymore.”

My heart twinged at the proclamation. Maybe he was right, considering Solea, Sanvo, and Vithenna had all been silent to the phoenixes’ prayers.

“You claim you poked your head out of your hiding place to venture near the capital and worship your goddess. Was it also to attack my people?” Archer cocked a brow. “You death-lovers vowed to burn Emberglade.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I never made such a vow. And I know you’re dense and this might be hard for you to remember or comprehend, but I healed you. Does that seem like the act of someone who wanted to attack Emberglade?”

He sighed, sitting back in his chair. “You don’t make sense,” he muttered. “And where is your hiding place? The hole you crawled out of, where I assume more demons like you reside?”

It was the question I’d expected him to lead with, the one I’d dreaded. “Just because we’re bonded doesn’t mean you can force me to share that. And you can’t torture it out of me, either, unless you’re particularly masochistic.”

Archer smiled slowly, lazily, like a predator sure he’d trapped his prey. I hated that his eyes were clear and piercing, that the dying daylight gilded his hair, that every hard angle of his face was softened by his sullen mouth and long eyelashes. Monsters shouldn’t be beautiful. “A blood bond only forces us to share the pain we inflict upon each other,” he said. “I could have someone else torture you.”

“What would that look like, having your supposed betrothed interrogated and tortured?”

Archer shrugged. “It was fun to imagine. Pity we have to fool everyone we care about each other. Starting tonight.” He stood, as if he’d accepted that, for now, he wasn’t going to receive the answers he wanted from me.

“Tonight?” My voice wobbled.

“Tonight, I will have to present you to my father.”

“We can’t fool him.” My chest tightened. “He’ll read my mind.”

Archer shook his head and stood abruptly, crossing to his shelves on the opposite wall. He pulled down an aged book, flipping through the pages. “This book references ancient bonds. It says here that with a blood bond, outside magic views the two separate souls as a single magical entity, meaning that anyone else’s power, like my father’s, would react to both of us in the same way. As his blood relation, I was born immune to his mind-reading abilities and given mind magic of my own. If his magic doesn’t work on me, it can’t on you either.” He hesitated. “We also can’t use our magic to harm one another—so your magic would have no effect on me.”

I frowned. “And what does your magic do?”

“What a sheltered life you must live, to not have heard of my renowned magic.” He grinned haughtily.

When I realized he wasn’t going to share, I asked, “What else does the bond do?”

“Like I said” —Archer turned a few more pages, pointing to a passage as he read— “we cannot be more than a mile apart, or we begin to die. Prolonged time apart would kill us. And if one of us dies—at any being’s hand—we both die.” He glanced at me pointedly. “And I don’t know about your phoenix resurrection powers, but I’m not sure they work with a blood bond unless I am resurrected too. I don’t recommend trying anything.”

Inwardly, I shuddered. Phoenix resurrection was no easy feat, and could only be accomplished under specific circumstances, so it wasn’t something I’d considered, anyway.

Archer slammed his book shut. “Therefore, you live on, tainting the world with your deathly powers.”

I stifled my groan. The gods are mocking us, surely. “Again, I’m a healer—”

“With a relationship to death that no other fae has. The ability to defy it entirely.”

“Is there any way to break a blood bond?”

Archer pressed his lips together. “They’re formed by the gods themselves. Unless you can get a god to listen to you” -he snorted, like the idea of one heeding me, a supposed fire demon, was outrageous- “we’re out of luck.” He replaced the book, and I took note of its location. Though he didn’t have much of a reason to lie to me when I could check the book myself later, I still wanted to see it all with my own eyes.