Page 6 of Royal Lies

"Yes, yes, never mind that just grab one and help me skin them," Ignoring me like always Eli bent down reaching for one of the werehounds. Rolling my eyes I reluctantly did as he commanded. He was right we did need them for more meat.

What would be nice is if I could just use magic to store all these werehounds that way we wouldn't have to go hungry all the time. Plus, eating berries gets tiring, and they're not very filling.

Suddenly a white box appeared in front of me. Well, not technically a white box more like some portal thingy. I smiled already knowing what it was. Lately, my magic has been coming back to me rather quickly. I think it's because I'm closer to my other half, but whatever it is I'm just happy.

I smiled at the thought. So what do I do?

I boast about it in front of Eli.

Making sure to touch each werehound individually with my magic box. Dragging the process out as much as possible all the while staring directly at my chosen victim. I watch the simmering anger hidden behind his oh-so-annoyed cold cyan eyes. Also calling this magic box sounds a lot better than "the magic portal thingy". I mean who'd wanna call it the magic portal thingy?

I just hope the werehound meat stays fresh. I don't want my magic box to be stinking of rotten werehound corpses. Oh well, I'll find out sooner or later. What matters now is that Eli was glaring at me with green envy.

Mwah ha ha ha ha! I could make this magic box and you can't~

At least that’s what I wanted to say but I found myself unable to. No, like literally. I physically couldn't say anything. My mouth wouldn't move.

"Mmhwa?" I moaned behind my closed lips, glaring as I turned to a smirking Eli. It was as if my lips were glued shut. Eli shrugged as if to say, he could do magic too.

"You're not the only one with new abilities, darling. Maybe if you spent more time actually studying instead of drinking your life away, you would have discovered this little thing." Waving a book the size of a journal toward me Eli smirked. My gaze instantly honed in on the wrapped book like a fly to a beam of light.

He flung the worn leathered thing toward me. It stopped mere inches from my face before I clasped it between my palms.

Wait, never mind. This was not made of leather! I repeat it isnotmade of leather!!!

The pages were glued together in this nearly soft mushy texture of a book cover. It was cool yet warm to the touch almost like...

Holy shit! Was this made of skin and tissues?! Like the tissues of a body?! Not like the paper tissues made from trees. But like whoa. So cool! Whoever thought of this is a fucking psycho but also so fucking genius.

The wrapping of the skin/tissues was like how a regular leather-bound book would look like. Except of course the multiple spider web-like stitches connecting each chunk of flesh together to make the cover.

Again, so cool!! It was like a Frankenstein book! Hmm, wonder where that name came from? I feel like I've heard of Frankenstein somewhere but where? Oh well, I've got a new book to read! Also, I so don't drink. I mean the taste was just, yuck! Why would Eli even say something like that?

Opening the book I skimmed through a few of the notes. There were spells upon spells of ruins and scribbles until finally I spotted the hex for shutting one's lips,Aufer sonum unde venit. Labia signa a quo possidet.Growling, I turned my face towards a smirking Eli.

"You know, magic isn't always the be-all- end-all of this realm. You could just try being more humble. But whatever, Ishall forgive you this time. Here, you could try an undo seal on the spell I cast on you. Or-." Eli suggested as I turned back toward the front of the book.

Ya, I stopped listening to him as soon as he said magic isn't the 'be-all-end-all'. I mean seriously we live in the Fae Realm. Magic is the 'be-all-end-all' of this damn realm.

I skimmed through the ancient scripts and texts on the pages until something finally caught my eye.

Eeek!!

Yes, ruins!

Ruins you see are like spells but you'd need to physically draw symbols on some type of surface, flat or bumpy, doesn't matter. But spells on the other hand you could just chant out loud and it would be cast so long as your gift and affinity matches the type of spell. Ruins, however, are a lot stronger than a spell and thus require a lot more magic. Because the magic used to make the ruin can last for decades or even eons long. Whereas spells are only temporary depending on the spell you use. Say you wanted to cast a fire spell it will only last a few hours or minutes. But if you make a fire ruin you can have the fire go on for as long as you want without having to recast the spell or be there to recast the spell.

Essentially you would be embedding your magic onto another object living or nonliving. Which is why it's called a ruin because it's a magic-embedded symbol carved onto an object. In a sense, it ruins the original look of the object. Hence, ruin and not runes. But if you ask me I think runes make more sense.

Now back to my wonderful explanations. Ya, ya, ya I know it's a lot to take in but hey, information is the key to life in the Fae Realm.

A fae's body can only produce a certain amount of magic before it needs to replenish its supplies. To this day, many still do not know how. It’s believed we replenish it by taking fromthe magic in our environment then when we use magic we give it back to the environment.

Beaming, I stared down at the title, “Exponentia pro Tironibus I'”. The words seem to have been ironed into the skin. Like charcoal black letters tattooed against the rubbery brown tinted layer of flesh.

The odd thing, besides the whole fact that the cover was made of skin and tissues, was that the name of the author was scratched out. Thin lines almost like claw scratches swiped five indented lines until none of the letters were visible.

Hmm. How strange.

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