Talyria
Idon’t feel too different despite having used magic as a sorcerer. At least I’m not immediately dead. I don’t want to say that I got off free, after all, the warnings against mixing sorcery and magic are there for a reason, but so far, I haven’t noticed any adverse effects, so I’ll take it.
Better than watching Victor bleed out, even if he claims his demigod would have healed him eventually. I tap my finger against the table as Victor’s father strides by with a mop and bucket in his hands. He heads toward the back of the inn. Vera and Mika have finally gone to bed… now that it’s daylight out.
Estelle is sitting on the far side of the inn, a blanket wrapped around her shoulder. She seems to be having a hard timecoming to terms with the fact that her longtime friend Lek was responsible for this and that he killed all these people for her in his own sick twisted way. Although she does admit to having flirted with both the guards earlier that night, she had no idea that it would lead to their untimely demise.
A chill wind blows from the open door where Victor is working to dig a path out. The snow fell hard last night, and it got so high that it blocked part of the door, but hopefully we’ll be able to leave soon enough.
I turn to Corallin and frown at where she is sitting across from me. “Are you sure you need to go now? It isn’t exactly good traveling weather.”
“I’m a vampire, and he is a Highlander,” she replies with a smile. “The cold won’t be too much of a problem. Besides, if I’m gone for too long my father will come looking for me.”
“And we can’t have that,” I mutter. We’ve already agreed that we won’t be telling her father Elwis the Eel about this. I’m not sure what to do about Elwis, especially considering that he now holds the power that I want, but obviously straight up displacing him is off the table now that he is my sister’s father.
I suppose I’ll just have to start up my own empire, from scratch. Find the thieves that slipped through Elwis’s net and make him have to share some of the power.
He won’t like that, but I was here first, so he is just going to have to find a way to cope. And in the meantime, we will have to find some way to coexist with each other for Corallin’s sake.
“Are you sure that I can’t convince you to come work for my father?” Corallin asks, tilting her head.
I offer her a small smile. “I’m not very good at taking orders. Are you sure that I can’t convince you to stay here?”
“I have a family that I love.”
I reach out and rest a hand over hers. “You had better visit.”
“I’ll figure out something,” she says as she gives me a crooked smile. She glances up as Lief walks into the room, two books balanced on his open hand. His other hand is wrapped up in a sling from his wound.
“Are you done, my dear?” Corallin asks as she glances over her shoulder at him.
“We are lucky the arm they cut was not the dominant one.” He drops the two books on the table. The top was the one he brought with him that he had apparently been penning a story in it. The other was Valentine’s spellbook. While we had worked on cleaning up after the evening, Lief had been transcribing the words in Valentine’s book into his as well. It was a compromise that Corallin and I came up with. I wasn’t willing to give up such a powerful spellbook, especially since I have it to thank for the fact that Victor is up and walking around, but she couldn’t return to her father empty handed. Now there are two copies and already I feel a bit like I’m returning to my old position of power.
Corallin reaches out, grabbing Lief’s book. She casually flips through the pages and then looks up. “I wonder who Valentine was and how he got the spellbook. You don’t suppose….”
“What?” Lief asks as he braces his good arm on the table as he settles in behind Corallin.
“I was just wondering if Valentine was actually the original writer of this spellbook. Devalen Tine himself.”
“But Devalen was one of the founders of the Academy,” Lief says, which is something I’m learning for the first time. I’m going to need to start brushing up on my history, especially if I want to be able to beat Elwis at his own spellbook finding game. After all, Corallin had mentioned that there was still one more spellbook that Elwis didn’t have. “That would make him what? Five hundred years old? No human can live that long.”
“Try me,” Victor says as he steps up behind me. He wipes the snow out of his hair. “I’m pretty sure I can’t age as much as I can’t die, but I guess that’s only a theory right now.”
“Hey, if the demigod fails, there’s always vampirism,” I say as I turn to look at him over my shoulder.
Victor’s eyebrows rise in surprise, and he lets out a small laugh. “So, you’re not in a hurry to be rid of me then?”
I smack his stomach in reply. Victor smiles and grabs my hand before I can pull away, holding it in place. He turns to Corallin. “So, what is this about five-hundred-year-old humans?”
“I was just conjecturing that perhaps Valentine was the one who penned the spellbook that he was actually Devalen Tine and that his healing magic somehow kept him alive all these years.”
“Until last night,” Victor says with a sigh. “Poor man. He probably gave me that spellbook so I could heal him. I had no idea it was that powerful that it could bring back from the brink of death or else I’d have done it for him.”
“Then I would have had to make three copies of the spellbook,” Lief says. “I can write fast, but maybe not that fast.”
“Oh well,” Corallin says as she pushes to her feet. “I suppose it will just be a mystery.” She holds the spellbook to her chest. “Are you ready to go, Lief? I want to be on our way before the law arrives.”
Lief throws her a smile. “Always, my love.”
