His hand shoots up faster than I thought it could, covering his mouth as he scrambles to filter his words. “That detail isn’t important to this story. All you need to know is that he was given material to help him make the book. He simply desired to see her smile again.”
“Who gave him the material?”
“How should I know?” he grumbles as he looks down.
Liar.
“It’s important to your story, isn’t it?” I acknowledge. He looks at me with respect for the first time.
“Indeed.” His eyes snap to mine. “Back to Torin. He tried to stab the book, but the cover was like an impenetrable skin. However, if he pulled back the cover, he could cut the pages free.”
“So all that’s left of the Vitalis is just a front and back cover?”
“No, like you, the Vitalis, can heal. Its pages regenerate.” He holds up a crooked finger, weathered with age. “When a page was removed, the rune on it vanished from the paper, killing the magic link to those who wore the mark. Torin discovered he could erase all the runes by removing the pages. However, the book itself was still an issue. Anyone who possessed it could redraw the runes. So Torin had few choices. Hunted and desperate, he hid it somewhere no one would think to look.”
“Caldara,” I answer. It’s smart; curses make people—even greedy ones—hesitate.
He nods, “Torin found an old entrance that hadn’t collapsed. He opened the book, held back the covers, and stabbed it with the God Sword. Since the pages were not ripped free, no new pages regenerated, but the runes were wounded, their magic cut off. Removing the sword will probably require redrawing many pages unless someone can heal them.”
“Redrawn?”
“You sound like a parrot. That is what I said.”
So Titus needs to find this book, free it of the God Sword, and then… I laugh. My brother can’t draw for shit!
“That’s it? That’s your grand story’s ending?” I sputter.
“Did you want mage fireworks, boy? Let me guess, you wanted a ‘happily ever after’?”
“Who told you this story?” I push off the wall. “You said it was told to you as a boy. How do I know if any of it is true? It could all be a myth.”
“Wasn’t it you who, upon first meeting me, said, ‘Myths have seeds of truth,’ and later I repeated that? By the gods, boy, how dim and daft can you be?”
He’s got me.
He narrows his eyes at me. “Find the seeds.”
“What if I don’t like what they grow?” I challenge, folding up the map and placing it in my pocket. This story is as heavy a burden as Everett’s fae magic. I can choose to harbor it as Titus did or… I can pick a different path.
I can decide not to tell Titus. Force him far away from these lands.
“Do not blame the flower for the color of its petals. It has no choice. If you tell it that it is ugly, it will become so. If you choose to use runes to create evil, they will be seen as corruption. Create good. Do good. Evil will grow regardless. Look at how some wield their magic; we kill without blinking. Bringing runes back into the world will not stop that.”
“Why should we let them return?”
“You were born a vampire, boy; you had an advantage over others.”
How dare he judge me!
“I was an orphan at an early age. I had no mother to love me when I woke with night terrors. I was given a sword and forced to kill. The only luxury I possessed were the skills that were forced into my hands so I could survive, but it was not without a heavy cost. The kingdom only cared about my survival if I was good at killing.”
“What if you were born a human?” he rebuttals. “No magic, just skin and bones.”
“I was skin and bones as a boy,” I scoff. “My magic didn’t manifest until adolescence, like all vampires do. Yes, humans have no magic later in life, but that taught them to be resourceful. Look at what humans have invented.”
It is because of humans that we have machines without the use of magic. They have built cities made of metal and not stone. On the contrary, I respect humans for all they have accomplished without magic, but in the end, we were all born the same, and this old man will not make me feel guilty for being born a vampire!
“Would you trade your circumstances to be a human?”
