“Aspen, if you have the full power of a Seraphim bound by the Severance Rune, then if we can find whatever your mother chose as the key to unlock the bind, there’s a high probability we could win this.”
He slumped back in his chair and gazed up at the painted ceiling. “Problem is, I have no idea what she’d use as the key.”
“You’ll know when she wants you to know,” Sam said, making a good point.
But seers could still get it wrong, and we only had a few days to figure it out.
“We are not telling Lucille about this.” Aspen gestured to the bite mark.
“If she chooses to ever talk to me again, I won’t hide this from her. But I’ll be the one to tell her.”
If their guardian bond acted up, I’d be there to stop it.
Aspen considered my words, opened his mouth, thought better of it, and finally asked, “Why did my mother do this?”
“Maybe Lucille knows.” I walked toward the door. “Let’s go. Your near-liquified-flesh experience won’t prevent you from helping train our military.”
“I need more vials of your blood first,” Sam interrupted. “Then Oliver and I will work on making batches and having healers dispatch them to everyone.”
Music to my ears.
We finally had a chance.
Chapter
Fifty
Lucille
After a long day of research that led somewhere only to circle us right back to nothing, and enduring Ronen’s fear through our bond, I called it. I dismissed our group and told MJ to find Ronen and relay what we’d learned while I checked on Oliver and Sam.
Only to discover Sam had figured out immunity and needed a lot more of my blood.
He put me under while he took it and gave me the shot during that time too.
Oliver telling Sam about the Severance Rune had been risky, but now we stood a chance against Melanie’s army. Sam even said if we could figure out how to remove Aspen’s Severance Rune, we could win this.
I only knew of one place to get that information.
I spent most of the afternoon in my room attempting to dream-walk to Miriam—or anyone—who had answers about the Severance Rune, but it never worked. Every time I asked the question,how do I release Aspen from the Severance Rune?it dragged me back to the same moment Miriam placed it on him.
Every. Damned. Time.
I tried framing the question differently. Approaching it from every angle I could think of.
Nothing.
Fed up, I dream-walked to Anya, knowing she’d been waiting for me.
This time,the park Anya dreamed of budded with pink flowers, their fragrant scent perfuming the air. She stood from a bench and walked over to me, her face as grim as the feeling in my stomach.
“She’s coming with her infected souls in days, and we still have too many unknowns. Sam found a way to give us immunity to the infection, but unless I can figure out how to release Aspen from the Severance Rune, we don’t stand a chance against her numbers. We don’t even know how many souls those Spinewalkers are holding.”
“Thousands.”
The certainty in her voice and the gravity in her gaze crushed what little hope I’d been clinging to. Even if I released Aspen, even if he became as powerful as everyone believed, could we survive against numbers like that?
“I think I know how to help, though,” Anya said.
