And then returns.
“You reminded me of how heartless I am,” he whispers, the barest sound as he rubs the side of his neck.
His movement drags his hair to the side.
Now I can see that deep, bloody gouges cut across his skin.
I jolt forward, my hands lifting out of the water. “What are those?”
He didn’t have those cuts when I fell asleep.
“Don’t worry about them.” He catches my hand before I can brush his hair aside again.
“Did I do that?”
Oh, what did I do?
He leans toward me, his thumbs rubbing my palms, soothing swirls. “What you need to know, Thyra, is that you spoke to me. I spoke to you. And, other than these very small wounds, neither of us is injured.”
“But—”
“The cuts will heal soon enough. Faster if I let my frost power flow, but I won’t do that while you’re near me.”
“Then I should give you space.”
I tug away from him, but his hands tighten around mine. “Will you answer a question?”
I sway beside him before I give him a nod.
“Can you read the runes?”
I shake my head. “Can you?”
If he’s disappointed, he doesn’t show it. “No. But I know a blood bind when I see it.”
“A blood bind!” I can’t stop my shudder, every instinct in my body wanting to hurl myself backward, as if I could get away from my own arm, an urge as strong as the moment I fully understood the curse and wanted to rip the Dragonstone Blade out of my body.
I can’t stop shaking. “Only a Blood Fae can remove a blood bind. But Blood Fae are extinct! This…No. Blood magic bindsobjects.”
It was one thing for me to wear a ruby circlet that had blood magic infused into its clasp.
It’s another to become the very object that has been bound.
“This can’t be.” My heart pounds as I fight the need to claw viciously at my arm, a desperate instinct to scratch and tear the runes into oblivion.
Last night, these runes spilled onto my arm.
Now I’m having blade visions while I’m sleeping.
What is this blood bind doing to me?
Chapter Twenty-Six
Thyra
“How did the blood bind happen?” Stellen asks, his question reaching me through a thick mire of fear.
My jaw is tight, a chilling dread seizing up my vocal cords, making it impossible to answer.
