Callos and I spend hours poring through the old notes. At my insistence, he prioritizes studying the letters. He is of course utterly shocked when he discovers the connection between Loretta and King Solos. I intentionally didn’t tell him. After how Ruvan handled my suspicions, I knew it was best for Callos to reach that conclusion on his own. Then the discovery comes from within the vampir. Let him handle the shock and disbelief that will no doubt ensue. He’ll have an easier time convincing the others than I will, anyway.
There’s not much information about who Loretta was. So far as we can tell, she appeared in King Solos’s life shortly after the last Blood Moon before the creation of the Fade. But this doesn’t prove that she’s a human, given that the festivals during the Blood Moons in Tempost were allegedly world-renowned and attracted attendees from across the known world at the time.
While there are still gaps on who the woman was, her records hold a wealth of useful information on blood lore that is going to give us the strength to take on, and take out, Tersius and his curse. There’s more information on the blood silver, too, among the notes. It supports our previous theories and Jontun’s public writings.
“The smith was going to make hundreds of these blood silver daggers to harvest the blood of those who came to Tempost to have their futures told.” Callos is scribbling away as I hammer, continuing to work on weapons and armor for our final assault on Tersius. “People would come and offer up their blood to the vampir. They would have their fingers pricked by daggers, and the daggers would store the power to be released later as the vampir needed it. Since blood freely given is more powerful than blood that is stolen, it would be potent enough.”
“If as many people as you say came to Tempost for the festivals, there was no shortage of blood being given,” I agree.
“I don’t yet know how they planned to get the stored magic out of the blade later.” He stands and goes to the window, staring out over Tempost. “But it’s an elegant solution. People offered their blood freely, the vampir gained their power, and the people still received their insights into the future.”
“Something still doesn’t sit right with me.” I pause to wipe my brow. “If blood lore is all about blood being freely given then it doesn’t add up for Solos to have created magic relying on voluntary blood by experimenting on people he held captive.” It’s difficult sometimes not to outright tell Callos things.Buthe has to come to the conclusions on his own, I continually repeat to myself.
Callos hums. “I had always wondered that myself. In truth, I assumed it to be the worst and ugliest part of his process that led him to the discovery of the real blood lore.”
“Unless he didn’t trap humans?” I suggest, glancing his way.
“Do you think the humans helped willingly?” He cleans his glasses.
“It would make more sense,” I dare to say. “Loretta is already an assistant we didn’t know about.”And was a human, I want to shout.
Callos wanders back to his notes, staring over them and the journals. “She does seem like a rather important figure. Which makes one wonder why Jontun never mentioned her.”
“Curious, indeed.” How can someone so smart be so dense?
“Another thing I’ve been wondering is about the group of humans that escaped—the one we suspect Tersius was a part of. If we’re correct in assuming that he was the vampir they created…” Callos has a hunch to his shoulders. His eyes are still distant. Even though he scans the pages, he lacks his usual enthusiasm. “Why would Solos want to make a human a vampir at all? I always thought it was part of the general research on fortifying a body, but I’m not so sure.”
“Is there record of that ritual?”
“Unfortunately, the only one who knows is Ruvan as one of the lords. Some blood lore is guarded only for the descendants of Solos. If there’s a written record of it somewhere, its location was never told to me.” He looks at me with haunted eyes.
“We can ask him about it when he wakes.” I resume my hammering but Callos doesn’t resume his reading. He continues staring listlessly at the notes. I pause. “What else?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re as bad a liar as me.” I sigh, putting the metal back in the forge and setting my hammer on the anvil. “Tell me.”
He pulls his spectacles off to rub his eyes. “I’m afraid that we’re still missing something and all of this preparation is for naught.”
“What do you mean?” I ask softly. I can’t have him beginning to doubt now. We still need him—all of us have to be working together to make this plan happen.
“I’ve always said, the curse anchor can’t be tethered to a living person.”
I remember Ruvan going after Davos, thinking the Master Hunter was the curse anchor, and Callos’s smugness on our return. “This is no ordinary person…this is a vampir—or human turned vampir. Either way, he has access to the first three blood lore tomes and very likely has powers we can’t even imagine. And he has lived thousands of years. If any mortal could be a curse anchor, surely it’s him.”
Callos gives me a smile. I think it’s meant to be encouraging. But it doesn’t reach his eyes. My chest tightens.
“I hope you’re right.”
“I am. I must be,” I murmur and return to my work. I’ve been right about Loretta and Solos. And my dreams… The curse anchor is Tersius. It has to be. And if it’s not, then we’ll make him tell us where it is.
Who else would lay the curse but him?
* * *
Day and night,we work, we plan, and we practice.
I want to spend more time with the rest of them in the chapel—our makeshift training grounds—but my duty is where it has always lain: in the smithy. I imagine the song of my hammer echoing up to Ruvan. I wonder if he can hear me over the clatter of blades and the hum of magic in that distant place where he sleeps.
