“Tell me about your runes.”
“My runes?”
He had so many of them.
Sharp angles and elegant swirls. Some glowed green while others bore a faint reddish tint. None of these resembled runes I’d seen in Skalgard. Not the cleric’s marks, the nobles’ gilded runework, or even the rough street carvings.
“This was carved before my first battle.” Kairos rolled up his sleeve, revealing sprawling ink. “It’s meant to summon fire. One small deviation here—” he dragged his thumb over a delicate curve, “—and instead of summoning fire, it turns into a burst of power.”
“Lightning?”
He nodded, and another rune glistened on him.
I reached for it. “What’s this?”
Kairos stiffened as I brushed his skin, and heat surged beneath my palm. Wild, electric, and alive. It raced up my fingertips, licked across my hand.
Then the rune flared. Cool steam unfurled from the ink, coiling around my wrist, sliding up my forearm. It felt likehim—like his touch.
I gasped and jerked back, but the mist followed.
“Relax,” he said tightly. “It’s reacting to you.”
“What is?”
He cleared his throat. “My magic.”
“Well, make it stop!”
“I have as much control over that as you do overthis.” He seized my wrist, and his thumb pressed against my racing pulse.
“Your runes,” I whispered. “They never fade, do they?”
He shook his head.
“Why not? Every rune I’ve seen needs to be redrawn.”
“There’s no need. My blood is a permanent source of power.”
I needed to keep him talking. “So they last forever?”
“Yes. Nothing can break them.”
“Except me.”
“Yes.”
His gaze started to drift toward the books scattered on my table. I let my hand slide up his arm. His eyes snapped to mine.
“Does that…frighten you? That I could break your runes?”
A slow smile spread over his face. “To do that, you’d have to be very close to me.”
He dragged my hand over his chest, and my pulse spiked.
“And you’d have to make me forget what you can do.”
I inhaled a shallow breath. “Oh? How would I do that?”
