Page 39 of Forged in Blood

“Is it my fault that you choose to hide out in these old university buildings rather than face the real world?”

Annoyance prickles at my skin. “Not hiding out. Securing the future of our species, Giorgios.”

“And that would be admirable, brother, if you ever permitted yourself to leave these grounds. If you experienced any of what life has to offer.”

I run a hand over my beard and sigh. “I am over two thousand years old. I figure I have experienced enough of this thing called life to last me an eternity.”

His laugh brings back too many bittersweet memories. Even without our bond, he must sense my sorrow because he changes the subject. “So, tell me why you asked me here. I cannot recall the last time you needed my help. Or at leastadmittedthat you needed my help.”

I glance around the almost-empty library. Built into the bedrock of the mountain, it is reserved for faculty and is rarely used. The library is protected by demon magic and is impenetrable. Even a bond cannot be felt in here. The secrets of millennia have been shared and kept within these walls, and I trust nobody else in the world with what I am about to discuss with my brother.

“I need you to tell me that I am not crazy.”

His blue eyes narrow. “You are the least crazy man I know, Alexandros.”

I scrub a hand through my hair and rest my forehead on the table for a few seconds before looking into his reassuring face. “So tell me why I am having such ludicrous notions.”

He edges closer, his forearms resting on the table between us, hands clasped tightly. “What kind of notions?”

“There is a girl. No, a woman.” I shake my head, recalling her sitting in the front row of my class today. How drawn I always am to her. How her essence calls to my soul like no other ever has before.

“Alexandros, are you falling in love?” He grins at me.

I roll my eyes. “Please, brother. Refrain from such absurdity.”

He looks visibly surprised by my refutal, like he actually thought I dragged him halfway across the world to tell him that I am in love. “But I thought I felt a little…” He clears his throat. “Passion?”

I have been thinking abouthera lot. The only woman I have ever chosen to bond with, and therefore the only one I will ever be capable of loving. Perhaps that is what he felt. But passion would not be a word that I would associate with what I felt for her. Our love was tamer than that. Gentler. “This is about something else.”

“The girl?”

“Yes. The girl. She…” I run my tongue over my teeth. Saying this aloud makes my ridiculous notion somehow more likely to be real, and I am unsure that I feel ready for that. But I would be surprised if I ever felt ready, and he is the one man I can share this with. He is also brutally honest. Our father taught us well. “My boys brought her home one night. Her scent—” The memory of that first encounter is as fresh in my mind as the day it happened. “She smelled familiar. She smelled like… like one of them, Giorgios.”

He frowns.

“It rains when she feels sad.”

His Adam’s apple bobs. He opens his mouth, but I continue before he can speak.

“She started a fire that burned down an entire building. No trace of accelerants was found, and she walked out without a mark on her skin.”

“Alexandros.” He drops his voice to a whisper and leans as close as he can with the table between us. “Are you really saying that you think she is one of them?”

“No.” I shake my head, adamant. “No, that is impossible. Their entire line was erased from existence.”

Giorgios pinches the spot between his brows. “If an elementai had been born, then we would know. Our father would know. There would be no hiding that kind of power. Not from him.”

I take a breath before I tell him my other suspicion. “I think someone bound her powers.”

He recoils. “What? That practice died out so long ago, and with good reason. Why would you think that?”

“Because whatever or whoever she is, she has power, Giorgios. I can sense it. I can smell it like lightning in a storm cloud. But she has no idea.”

He shakes his head, his jaw slack as he digests the insanity of what I am suggesting. “But there are so few capable of binding powers. Nobody but the Danraath witches, and they are healers.”

“I know, brother. It makes no sense.” The Danraath all but died out with the elementai. Those who remained retreated to Europe, and their line has lived in near solitude since.

Giorgios leans back in his chair, his blue eyes twinkling with unsuppressed excitement while he works through what I just told him in his usual methodical way. I might be the one hiding myself away within the walls of this ancient university, but my brother is the scholar. He looks so much like our mother, who with mastery over air and water, was one of the most powerful elementai who ever lived. Still, even she was not strong enough to withstand the armies of witches, warlocks, and wolves that came for her. The elementai never stood a chance. Grief threatens to drown me, but I hold it back, closing the dam in my mind before it can take hold. Now is not the time for sentiment or emotion.

---