My jaw dropped.
In the next instant, I fought to compose myself, turning back to face Viscount Adis, who now studied me with a raised brow. He flicked his own wrist, and wind again whistled by my ear.
“Air magic,” he whispered to no one in particular, before trying it again.
The puzzle pieces suddenly clicked together in my mind. The rings around their irises, the air magic when the book was done.
The book held magic.
And by reading aloud, I had given it to them.
A whisper of something ancient breathed in my ear, a stone sinking in my stomach.
I couldn’t help but feel I had done something wrong.
As the three men in the room flicked their wrists, sending bursts of air back and forth over my head, I couldn’t help but wonder if I had the same magic. If I did, was Viscount Adis aware that whatever they had been gifted, as a result of my book reading, I might now have been too?
Unfortunately, as I came to the realization, so too did Adis, who crossed the room in three large strides, before pulling a knife from his belt and using it to lift my chin, peering into my eyes, one after the other. I fought the urge to squeeze them shut, the intimidation of this position almost too much for my stressed heart.
“Don’t you be getting any ideas,” he hissed after several seconds. “If you so much as try to escape, or use the power against me, I will ensure you, and everyone in your family line, dies.”
I gulped, images of Collum bleeding in a pool of her own blood filling my mind. Not wanting him to realize I hadalready considered that fact, I nodded, agreeing, “Yes, sir.” My voice was rough, even to my own ears, but he appeared to buy it.
He flicked his wrist and something hit me from behind, causing stars to explode behind my eyes. “That is just an inkling of what I will do to you, and your cousin, if you so much as breathe a word against me, do you understand?”
I gritted my teeth. It took all my energy to keep my voice low and breathe through the pain as I muttered out a, “Yes, sir.”
Silence filled the room.
“That’s enough for today. But tomorrow, I expect you to read me the red book, understand, Reader?”
“Yes, sir.” I hadn’t yet figured out the red book in its entirety, but I had been able to decipher at least the first quarter of the book during my study time. Whether I would be able to read it out loud was yet to be seen.
“That is all.” He said as he flicked his wrist, and then Markus and Syrus were there, dragging me back to my room.
Unlike the previous days, I wasn’t nearly as tired, allowing me to walk myself back between Markus and Syrus as they alternated flipping their wrists at one another, releasing small puffs of air. They were distracted the whole way back to my room and it wasn’t until they pushed the door closed behind me that I finally chanced a glance down at my hands.
It was there—the black book was gripped in my fist.
I knew I couldn’t get caught with it, and although the consequences were likely to be vast, I immediately searched my room for a place to hide the book. Not knowing what else to do, I debated briefly on shoving it back in my pack, but I knew that would be the first place they would search if they suspected that I stole it.
No, that wouldn’t work.
That’s when the idea came, and soon enough, I was clearing the grout from the edges of a brick usually concealed behind the pot in my room. It took considerable effort to remove only thegrout for the one brick and not those around it, but soon I was wiggling the brick loose.
Nails blackened, I finagled the brick from its resting spot, before reaching my hand into the dark cavity revealed in the wall. There wasn’t much space, but it would work.
I shoved the book in as far as it would go before wiggling the brick back into place. Then I stood, brushing off my hands and trying to use what little remained of my cracked nails to clear the dirt out from my other nails. It didn’t work quite as well as I had hoped, but at the same time, it was likely enough that the viscount wouldn’t notice.
Satisfied with my work, I placed the chamber pot back in place before lying in the cot and looking at the ceiling. I breathed for a few moments, trying to come to terms with everything that had just happened. Raising my hand, I flicked my wrist as I had seen the guards do and sure enough, there it was, a small puff of air.
Ecstatic, I rose from the bed to cross the room to the soaking cloths I had left there to dry that morning. They were still damp, but with a few flicks of my wrist and my newfound wind power, they dried almost instantly.
Overwhelmed with shock, but also somehow happy, I returned to reclining on the bed, pondering the small black book in the wall.
If I read it to someone else, would they gain the wind power too?
I pinched my eyes shut, fighting to picture some of my last lessons with my mother before her death. Had they known about this? Is this why they had taught me the words of the Seid?
