A blade made from that antler, coated in my blood … that’s what the Cataclysm suggested was powerful enough to kill a celestial dragon bound to the Conduit.
I study the blood runes etched across the walls, extending up to cover the ceiling. Thinking, thinking … again and again — whose blood? Whose blood was used to create my cage? Certainly not my own. I don’t think my own blood could be used against me at all, no matter the power of the caster, be it Bellamy or someone else. The essence would cancel itself out, wouldn’t it?
I reach over my head, hiding the movement under my pillows even as pain streaks through me at the barest shift of my neck and the weeping wound on my shoulder. I reach for the blood runes hidden behind the top of the mattress, hoping the gesture isn’t caught by whatever monitoring system is in place.
Though Jewels, who evoked Pinky’s name, must be covering for me somehow with the water already …
I press my fingers against the concrete there and feel a grainy texture where I’ve previously dumped the water. I’m slowly — too slowly — eroding the wards.
Not certain why I do so, I dip those same fingers in the blood weeping from the wound at my neck. Then I smear that blood — my blood — across the same spot.
The Cataclysm might smell that fresh blood when he returns … but he might simply assume it’s from the wound — his weeping bite mark — not the wall.
He gave me that hint, as unintentional as it must have been. The idea that the blood of the Conduit could fortify a blade. I goaded him about the blade he used to kill his brother — a blade that was still coated in blood when I found it buried in a niche at the base of the mausoleum in the family plot on my aunt’s estate. That blood appeared fresh, even more than thirty years later.
No. It’s my estate now.
My essence. My power.
And my responsibility for it all.
The barest hint of essence curls around my outstretched fingers.
I swipe those fingers at the wound at my neck — each touch painful — transferring smears of blood over and over to the partially compromised wards.
I do that until I’m too weak to lift my arm.
Had it been my aunt’s blood on the blade that was wielded by one soul-bound mate to kill another? How would Oso have gotten that blood from her? And did she know? When she held that knife, when she interred that blade with the ashes of her mate, did she know it was her own blood that was used to kill him?
There is a reason that Gages are all cremated. We’re too powerful for our remains to fall into the wrong hands. But the ashes of the previous Conduits aren’t tucked within the niches in the family plot because once truly dead, the Conduit’s vessel returns to the universe. In its entirety.
Doesn’t it?
Whose blood is etched across all the flat surfaces of my prison? Again, my mind circles the answer, but I don’t latch onto it. Maybe I’m not ready to know.
Jewels touches my shoulder lightly to rouse me from my nap, though I felt her presence moving around the room many minutes before. The shock of suddenly being able to sense even a trickle of the shifter’s essence keeps me frozen in hope for a moment.
Just long enough for me to try to open myself up to the universe and have nothing reach back.
Shoving my disappointment away — I already knew I was going to have to save myself, didn’t I? — I allow Jewels to silently tug me off the bed and guide me into the adjoining bathroom. Not quite meeting my eyes, she gestures me into the walk-in shower.
I climb in willingly, noting that not only does the water work — it’s usually turned off when I’m alone in the room — but it also comes out nice and warm. I might consider the white marble walls and floor of the bathroom the height of luxury. If they weren’t attached to my prison. And covered in blood runes.
Anxiety rolls off Jewels as she reaches in to turn off the water, then bundle me in towels. I don’t have to be able to read her on an essence level to note it. Something has shifted, or something is about to shift.
We continue like that. She silently changes the bandage on my neck, then drapes me in more silk — a floor-length deep-green dress belted around the waist. Not another nightgown. Jewels is careful to not touch me skin-to-skin.
All the while, I watch, waiting for any hint of what has changed or what is about to happen.
I’m aware that only a day or so has passed since I goaded the Cataclysm about being unable to kill Rath. The severed antler hasn’t been removed from the room. I quashed the odd impulse to drag it onto my bed, but couldn’t stop myself from touching it — reaching for the essence buried deep within the bone — a few times through the following day and night.
I suspect the Cataclysm is right in saying that the antler could make a powerful weapon. I just have no strength to wield it as is, and no tools or skills to hone it into a spear or blade.
I haven’t passed out again. I’ve grown faint, weak, and needed to lie down, but I haven’t succumbed to that deep slumber that should be healing me but isn’t.
I’m also not strong enough to open the door. I can’t even lift the main latch. The runes aren’t the only element of this plush prison designed to keep me confined.
Jewels leans around me at the bathroom mirror and wordlessly hands me a blow-dryer that was already within easy reach. But before I can question her, she reaches just a little farther and writes Soon on the still-steamy mirror. A split second later, she scrubs her hand across the entire mirror, as if her intent all along was simply to clear it so I could see my reflection to dry my hair.
