Page 95 of The Incendiary
I frowned at the thought, though it was likely true.
“I’ll take some back with me to read more deeply, but so far, there’s nothing promising,” I answered. “Other than the mention of that tome, I don’t think there’s magic in any one of these.”
Words on pages bled together as my eyes strained in the dimly lit space. I couldn’t help but feel like I was failing him. He had waited four hundred years, and I couldn’t find a way to break him free of the deal he made just to see me again. I thought I’d stumbled across secret, helpful information about dark magic, but I should have tempered my expectations. I stared at the stack of books to my right until the dull silence grew louder. I expected a quick response from Shera, but I hadn’t gotten one.
“Shera, where did you—”
“I think you should keep looking.”
Her voice was louder than usual. Surprisingly sure. That demand was easy for her to give from her cozy den.
“Okay.” I rubbed my eyes, too tired to argue. A part of me agreed. “Yes. You’re right. One more look at The Book of the Selvaren won’t hurt me.” I slid the heavy tome toward me and opened it to the very front. The book nearly slipped from my lap at the name scribbled in the bottom left corner of the first page.
In my handwriting.
Aryella Jay Whitlock
“What?” I breathed, carefully flipping through the pages. If this was once mine, what was it doing here?
On the bottom of Nyxar’s last page, before the final blank pages, was the most elegant script I had ever seen. So perfect that it almost didn’t look real. Something inexplicably warm tugged in my chest, toward the script and toward the book. I read the words multiple times before processing what I was reading.
That which commands life can break an oath written in blood.
“What the hell?” I smoothed my fingers over the page. Throat tight, I looked around the tiny room, feeling like whoever had written these words would jump out at any moment. Like this was a trap.
Why else would the answer I needed be written in a book with my name in it?
There were few people who could have accessed this book in the past. I already knew Simeon’s handwriting, Gavin’s, and my own. The only people left were my real parents. Or rather, my mother, since Molochai killed my father when I was a baby.
The prophecy was a lie, but Christabel had been clairvoyant. Could she have known what Gavin would do? Was this her helping me from over four hundred years ago? Could she really have known that I would be here in this fortress, at this exact time?
Was I staring at my real mother’s handwriting?
I could curse Simeon a million times for taking away my memories. It wouldn’t be enough.
“That which commands life,” I whispered, refocusing. “Commands life.” Where had I heard that before?
My eyes dropped to my hands. Once small and weak, now capable of things that months ago, I never would have imagined. Bluish-green veins ran beneath pale skin. My blood. Damond. Bedridden in Brinnea after rising from the dead.
He saw it with his own eyes. Your blood pooled around you, the ground tasted it, knew it was you, and then you breathed as if your blood commanded life itself.
I sucked in a tattered breath. My blood? Could it really be that simple? It was a stretch. But if true, the power to help him was in my grasp. I had to try.
“Shera?” I leapt to my feet. “Are you still there?”
“The rabbits around here are simply decadent,” she answered. Despite being mind-to-mind, she managed to sound like her mouth was full. “Did you find something?”
“Meet me. The ravine.”
“If you insist.”
A plan was forming in my mind. Now all I needed was a vial. And some sort of collar…
I cut the straps on my knapsack with my blade then headed for the infirmary.
I knocked before my nerves could stop me. The physician inside didn’t make me wait long. The door swung open to reveal a young man standing there in a set of tan sleepwear.
He was tall, thin, and lanky with round spectacles like Damond’s, cleanly cropped black hair, bronze skin, and dark eyes offering genuine kindness only true healers were capable of.
