Page 37 of The Blood that Binds Us

“That’s not fair, Mama, and you know it.”

Zorina is right. The Rut is known to affect males much stronger than their female companions. No wonder Eldridge’s temper almost got the best of him being around a foreign male, let alone one exuding a sickening amount of arrogance and self-esteem. It isn’t uncommon for Eldridge and Theon to bump heads around this time, and they’ve known each other longer than I’ve known either of them. Galen is too young to be affected, but once he matures, the Rut will come for him too.

Shoving the final bits of egg into my mouth, I share a pointed glance with Zorina and scramble to my feet. I head back inside and find the small woven basket Morrinne had made for me near the racks of dried herbs waiting to be pestled and made into seasonings, salves, and jellies. Reaching into the basket, tucked along the side where I had left it, is the cold, steel hilt of my athame.

I pull the sacrificial dagger from the basket and balance it in my palm. My magic stirs inside me, curling and weaving through every muscle and tendon until my very bones rattle with excitement. The ornate swirling pattern etched into the steel makes it look almost fragile—graceful even, but the sheer weight of it in my hand is nothing short of solid craftsmanship. I lift it to the window and turn it over in the beam of sunlight—one way then the other—marveling at the sparkling clarity of the sweeping crossguard, the designs there intricate enough to match the elaborate detailing of the hilt. Crafted into the handle is a nude, voluptuous woman with her arms raised above her head, dancing in tune with a silent melody.

Elysande. The goddess of war, vengeance, and femininity. The first bloodwitch.

Most mages worship the goddess of the arcane since it is Adelphia who strengthens the Black Art’s power to protect the nation from those that would upset its balance. Cosmina had this athame forged for me specifically and gifted it to me a few months after we found each other. Elysande is often thought of as vengeful with an appetite equally as merciless, but her followers know legends have altered the truth.

The goddess feasts on men that harm women and devours mothers that bring pain to their children. Stories claim she went from house to house, ripping babes from their beds and fueling her power with their life forces, but her devoted know Elysande was the most nurturing of all the gods. She did go house to house, but it wasn’t the younglings she sought—it was their wicked mothers and fathers that laid hands on innocent flesh. Elysande tore them to shreds, absorbed their lives to strengthen her power, and delivered the children to deserving women that would care for them.

I pledged my piety to Elysande the day my sister gifted me this athame, and while I can’t be sure she is looking out for me, I survived being captured by Legion twice, and Sin hasn’t slit my throat yet. Even though I’ve given him a neatly stacked pile of reasonable cause by now, starting with attacking him mere seconds after saving his life.

I pull one more thing from my basket—a hand drawn map on parchment that details the major cities and woods of Aegidale—and head back to Zorina.

We sit cross-legged on the perimeter of the property, and taking Cosmina’s necklace from my trouser pocket, I offer my opened palm to Zorina, closing my fingers around her dainty hand when she places it in mine. I take a few steadying breaths, focusing on that sensitive spot behind my eye, and dislodge my collective from its home. I will it away from me, attaching onto Zorina’s collective almost immediately, and I grip her hand tighter, coaxing her magic to flow through her, down her arms and into her delicate hands. And just as I feel its slippery smooth finish tingling in my palm, I latch onto it like a ravenous viper. My chin lifts upward, exposing the underside of my neck as an offering of vulnerability to Elysande, and I squeeze my left hand around the blade.

That buried part of me—that raw, primal hunger—delights at the sticky warmth that pools into my hand. I conjure mental images of my sister—turning them over and over in my mind, studying the lines of her face, the soft curvature of her pale blue eyes, the cascade of her onyx hair rippling over her shoulders. I hold my bleeding palm over the parchment and utter words of intention, coaxing the blood to show me her location. Zorina’s magic mingles with my own, our powers feeding into one another to birth a stronger, more potent blend that encourages the blood on the map to travel faster. I keep my eyes closed, rocking with the magical warmth crescendoing through my body, growing hotter and hotter until it’s a white tipped flame in my wrists, my chest, my forehead.

I go blind with fury.

The burn becomes nearly tangible—tugging my body one way then the next—and I rock in its blazing storm as the rage coats all of me in its silken finish. My back arches and my shoulders shake as if caught in an uncontrollable wind, and Ifeelher. Cosmina.

Wounded. Angry.

Alive.

I fight to hold on to our connection, to cling to the scorching hate erupting from her, to seesomething. Anything. But no images flash behind my eyelids—no clues, no hints—and as quickly as the blistering heat surged through me, it vanishes.

Zorina calls my name. I turn to look at her, worry set deep in her green-brown eyes. “Wren, I don’t think it worked.”

I snap my attention to the map laid flat on the ground in front of us, and my blood clots in my veins. No. No, no, no! The blood I dribbled onto the parchment was meant to travel across the map and stop at Cosmina’s location, but drawn on the map before me is not a path at all. Enveloping the entirety of the map are crimson branches climbing to each corner of the parchment, taunting, and revealing nothing.

“No, it worked,” I croak. “It’s a cloaking spell. Someone has her. Zorina, someone has Cosmina and is masking her location with magic. Someone that knew I would try to find her.”

“Legion,” she breathes, hooking her fingers over her mouth. “It must be them.”

I shake my head, not wanting to believe it, but knowing she’s right. Cosmina likely tracked Cathal for days, maybe weeks. But by the time she caught up with them, I would have already been inside Castle Scarwood. And when she didn’t spot me with Legion, she would have looked closer. Close enough to get caught.

“They’re masking her location which means they didn’t take her to use as bait. If Legion wanted to bait me in, they’d be counting on me locating her with a spell and coming to find her, falling right into some trap they would have surely set. But hiding her location… this is different. They don’t need me to come to them when they already know where I’m at.”

“That sounds way more complicated.”

“And way more deadly,” I add. “They must be planning something. Something big. Legion knows I’m at Scarwood, so if they plan on bringing her to the castle, it’s to force me to turn on Singard. To turn on all of them and bring the kingdom down in exchange for her life.”

“But what do they expect to do with you afterwards? After…” she trails off.

“I become a bloodthirsty maniac,” I fill in for her, and she smiles without warmth, a silent apology that I dismiss. She is right. “I don’t know. They’re either overestimating themselves or grossly underestimating me.”

“What should we do?”

“I think I have to tell Singard,” I say, not liking the sound of that at all.

“To hell with that. If he fears you, Wren, he won’t let you anywhere near Legion when they come for you. He’ll lock you away to rot with Cathal, or—and more likely—just kill you.”

“I know.”

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