Page 67 of An Honored Vow

“There’s never been blood like the Halflings’ before.” I turned to Feron. “That day in the Rift, my mother said she didn’t know why Halfling blood had turned amber. I never cared to ask then, but before their sacrifice, Halflings bled red, didn’t they?”

Feron paused. “I cannot be sure. Halflings were not unheard of before the Blood Purges, but they were very rare—and all were born to our eastern kin where the Mortals had landed and settled. There was not much time between those years and the start of Aemon’s Purges. And by then, almost all the Halflings who had been born were slain or died protecting their people. I do not think I learned of amber blood until after the Treaty was signed.”

“What if the reason I can turn Halflings into Amber Fae isn’t because I have the power to give them gifts, but the power toawakenthem?”

Feron blinked. “Their blood is already—”

“Imbued with magic. A living capsule of the Light Fae’s magic in the only people who had the hope of surviving Aemon’s plot to kill the Elves and Fae entirely.”

“That doesn’t answer the question though,” Vrail interrupted, not showing any interest in the discovery we had just made. She only had eyes for the Elf in front of her. “What did Damien tie Nikolai to?”

Rheih lifted Nikolai’s wrist to Feron, pointing at something in the markings. She nodded at Gwyn. “Show me your ankle.”

Gwyn stilled but pulled off her boot and sock. She lifted her foot to the edge of the slab for Rheih to inspect.

“Ancient runes,” she mumbled, running to the wall to grab a large piece of glass. Its edges were rounded and it bulged out onone side so it looked like a giant raindrop when she pressed it to Gwyn’s scar.

Gwyn winced from the cool glass. Rheih studied the markings around her ankle and then Nikolai’s wrist, the pattern magnified under her tool. She nodded at Feron. “Can you read them?”

Feron crouched down, putting all his weight on his cane. When he looked up, his eyes were wide. “Ziiba,” he whispered. “And the other?” Rheih lifted Gwyn’s ankle only an inch but it was enough to throw her off balance. Fyrel caught her.

“Asiina,” Feron said with a sorrowful look on his face.

“Water and stone?” Riven started to pace along the slab. “That’s all we have to go on?”

Syrra’s inhale was sharp as she put the meaning together. I turned and saw the worry in her eyes. “Stone is one of two symbols our ancestors used to represent a city or a home. The other is that of a tree.”

Like the burls of Myrelinth and the stone dwellings of Aralinth. The two ways the Elverin had always built their homes.

“So Gwyn was tethered to a place, and Nikolai is tethered to … the sea?”

A thick tear dropped from Vrail’s cheek and landed on Nikolai’s forehead. “These runes are rudimentary, translating them properly without the full context is much more likely to be wrong than it is to be right.” Vrail pointed at the rune. “This could mean water, yes. But it could be any body of water. It could be a vial that Damien could smash at any time.” Vrail’s chest broke into a small sob, but she forced herself to push through. “But it could also be less literal. Water is used to represent things that flow or have a cycle. Magic or spring, for example.”

My stomach plummeted through the floor. “Look again, there must be more information than just that!” Panic struck my heart; it hammered in my chest like a caged beast vying to get out.

But Vrail’s expression was pure defeat. “I can’t translate a spell from a single rune, Keera.”

I turned to Feron and Rheih, but they both shook their heads.

Gwyn pulled on her boot. “We might not know how to decode the spell that set the tether, but we know the man who did it. Damien wouldn’t create it in the first place if he couldn’t use it somehow.” She lifted her chin. “It gives him an edge.”

Riven scoffed. “Or it is nothing but a puzzle with no answer to waste our time.”

Elaran tugged on one of her curls. “What would have happened if Keera had blown up the palace of Koratha instead of the dam at Silstra?” She nodded at Gwyn’s ankle.

Feron’s mouth went flat. “A tether is made of two parts. If the bond is not severed and one of the parts is destroyed, so is the other.”

Gwyn’s bottom lip protruded, more fascinated than worried. “So I would have died.”

I fought the urge to vomit as Feron nodded.

“That’s the threat.” Gerarda stopped toying with her blade. “Damien wants us to know that at any moment—”

“He can take Nikolai from us.” Riven finished for her. “Permanently.”

My shoulders wilted. “So he would have tethered it to something small enough to move and break.” I swallowed. “It could be anything.”

Syrra caressed her nephew’s face. “I will storm Koratha and gut the pretender myself.”

---