Page 22 of The Bloodstone Oath

Her use of the ancient High-Fae tongue sent an ill tremor down Kaelor’s spine. “Fire of Living Blood,” he translated her words with a sense of dread sinking into his marrow.

“They say it fell directly from the heavens and scorched the earth next to your great ancestor, King Varek Flamewright,” she muttered as if telling herself the old tale. “When he was just an Ember Fae dwelling in Emberglade. It was the stone that brought him here to these mountains and we were reborn as the Fireforged.”

“I know my own history,” Kaelor said. “Can you cure her?” His words bit into the dry, dusty air of the grotto.

Varienna turned slowly clutching a single azure bottle in her hand. “You do know what it does, then?”

Kaelor swallowed, “I know it is killing her.”

A faint light of compassion slid across her face. “Aye, it will surely kill her. Fireforged can handle the heat. It feeds on living blood and our blood teams with fire. But when it was foolishly given to the Rootborn by-”

“King Auren,” Talia interjected, sensing her lord’s frustration and attempting to hurry the story along, but Kaelor raised a hand to her. He did not know what happened to the stone once it had left the Fireforged realm.

Varienna’s gaze slid past Kaelor, as though she were seeing back through centuries.

“The Ignis Vitae Sanguinis was never meant to leave Fireforged flesh,” she said, voice soft with equal parts reverence and regret. “Our first king, Varek, discovered the stone thrives on living flame contained in our blood. Connected to Fireforged veins it merely drinks and slumbers, warmed and sated. It gives us power. The small bloodstones we mine today are mere shards compared to the power held by Ignis Vitae Sanguinis. Varek, like your father wished peace in this land and arranged the union of his son, Auren, to the Rootborn Princess Elira.”

“But she took the bloodstone and left Auren bereft, returning to the Rootborn,” Talia said, curiously following the story.

“There are many opinions on what happened in that marriage,” Varienna’s shoulders lifted. “Though I doubt any know for sure.”

“What about the Bloodstone?” Kaelor needed to refocus Varienna.

The High-Healer returned to sorting through her bottles. “Your great ancestor was not a fool. The Bloodstone was the foundation of his rule and though they continued to search for more of these sky fire-stones, nothing ever compared to Ignis Vitae Sanguinis. Before the wedding took place, King Varek bled the stone almost dry before the ceremony, starving it, so it would lie dormant if for any reason it ended up completely in Rootborn hands.”

Talia shook her head. “Smart king. That’s exactly what happened.”

Varienna’s finger traced an invisible sigil in the air above her bottles of potions and then peered closer at them. When a crimson jar lit up, she plucked it from the shelf and turned back to Kaelor. “Rootborn blood is cool, rich with earth-magic rather than fire. When somehow the stone awoke, probably through Rootborn magic trials, the stone could not feed. There are rumors it rooted itself to Solthorn, their god-plant, the only living reservoir powerful enough to sustain it. Through trial and error, the Rootborn discovered how to activate a different side of the Bloodstone. The priestess offers a conduit and a blood sacrifice, Solthorn provides the pulse, and the stone drinks from the mingled flow.”

Kaelor’s jaw tightened. “But why is Selara suffering more than those who wore it before her?”

Varienna held the crimson jar up to the dim light and shook it, frowning. “Did you have sex with the priestess, prince?”

Kaelor’s skin burned, and he dared not glance at Talia. A royal’s personal life was no one’s business, but his privacy was of no value if Selara died. “Yes.”

“Well, there you have it,” the old Fae healer gave a chuckle, only causing Kaelor’s skin to burn more.

“The chastity vow of the Bloodstone Priestesses was no moral decree and probably a few have broken it over the centuries. But none would have done that with a Fireforged prince, I imagine.” The clunk of the crimson jar on the High-Healer’s table underscored her words. “Your union, prince, re-ignited the ember inside the stone. The Ignis Vitae Sanguinis has remembered its first ember feast, and it will not release her. It will drain her of every ounce of fire-blood ignited in her veins by your lovemaking. Until there is no more.”

A sickening jolt gripped Kaelor’s chest as he grasped the brutal truth, the same fever-bright desire that bound him to Selara now threatened to burn the life from her veins.

Talia touched his elbow again, but Kaelor pulled away.

“How do we stop it?” He ground the words out of his mouth. There had to be a cure.

“Half root-charm, half ember-hex. I can break it, but my bottles are empty,” Varienna’s crow-like fingers motioned towards the two bottles on her workbench. “I need moon-ash from the highest fumarole and heart-seed resin from the low orchards. Dawn to gather, dusk to brew.”

Kaelor’s breath hissed between his teeth, half fear, half fierce resolve. “The two spears will go now and gather what you need. We ride at dark.”

Varienna bowed to the prince. “You do understand there is little chance we will arrive in time?”

“Selara will live,” Kaelor vowed, a forge-bright certainty hammering each word into iron law.

“I will do my best,” Varienna murmured.

Talia slid into the grotto. “Guard her with your life,” Kaelor commanded as he stormed out the door.

He had explored these volcanic peaks endlessly as a child and quickly located the smugglers’ tunnel where he and Avelina had often played. Cracked basalt swallowed his footfalls until he reached the obsidian portcullis known as the Ash-Gate. No sentries. No forge-hounds. Only an unsettling hush broken by the clang of forge-bells tolling a slow, funeral rhythm. His father’s.

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