Total pages in book: 140
Estimated words: 132625 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 663(@200wpm)___ 531(@250wpm)___ 442(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132625 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 663(@200wpm)___ 531(@250wpm)___ 442(@300wpm)
Natan nods and flips the journal in front of him open to a different section. “So far as we can tell, the magic Mordeus used and is using has three main components: the blood magic he used on Jasalyn when she was his prisoner, the lives Mordeus’s followers pledged to him, and the ring she received from the witch. Thanks to Jasalyn, we now know that Erith created the ring, but that may just raise more questions.”
“Like who was this witch?” Remme asks. “What kind of witch—fae or human—would Erith trust with such a tool? And what kind of magic could he have used to create it to begin with?”
“All good questions,” Natan says, “and I’m using all my resources to dig into it. I have to believe that if we understand the ring’s magic, we would know so much more about what we’re up against.”
“We think that was why Mordeus made the blood magic rituals as horrific as he did,” Hale says, turning his attention on Jas. “Blood magic rituals don’t have to be torture, but he needed you to be angry and afraid. He needed you to wish for vengeance so you’d want his people dead and do the work of funneling the life force of his pledges to him through the ring.”
“How do you explain the blackouts?” Skylar asks. “If she didn’t have to be conscious to slay rooms full of his followers, why have her willingness to kill his followers part of the plan at all?”
Abriella grimaces. “I don’t have an answer to that, but the question is fair and noted. Maybe the answer is that she was being too selective with her kills or that she wasn’t killing them fast enough or in great enough numbers.”
“Or maybe,” Natan says with a respectful nod to the shadow queen, “the plan all along was for Mordeus to use the ring to control her once he had enough strength from the initial kills.”
“Regardless,” Abriella says, “we have every reason to believe that they wanted Jasalyn to be suffering from the effects of wearing it during the day.”
“They wanted her sleeping and out of the way until her eighteenth birthday,” Hale says. “Were they simply trying to protect her, to preserve the vessel for Mordeus? Or was there something that they needed to keep her from doing in order for their plan to work?”
“Exactly,” Abriella says. “If we can figure that out, maybe we can undo all of this.”
Skylar drums her fingers on the table. “Maybe they don’t want her to learn to wield her powers.”
I can’t help but study Jas. Her stoic expression gives away nothing of how she feels about them talking about her as if she isn’t in the room. It’s almost as if she’s observing this conversation from afar.
“I don’t know if she could access them if she wanted to,” Natan says. “She has them buried so deeply, I couldn’t find any sign of them when I looked.”
“I found them a few years ago,” Pretha says, frowning, “when she was fifteen. They were buried, but they were there.”
Natan considers this. “But that would’ve been before her scars began appearing?”
“Right,” Pretha says. “So we assume, what? That by the time you searched for her magic, he’d pulled on so much of it through calling on the blood magic that there wasn’t a trace to be found?”
“Nothing recognizable at least,” Natan says. “Her magic exists in the limbo between their consciousnesses—that space where she isn’t herself but she also isn’t yet him.”
“Meaning that theoretically she could access it,” Pretha says. “Perhaps that’s what they’re trying to avoid?”
Natan shrugs. “It’s still hers, so I would certainly think so. With work.”
“Is there any other reason they might want her out of the way all these months?” Remme asks.
What is it? Misha asks in my mind. You look like someone just kicked your puppy.
I stare at my hands, stomach twisting because I know exactly why Mordeus wouldn’t want Jasalyn conscious for any longer than necessary. It’s the same reason he put my brother into that cell across from her.
You might as well say it, Misha says through our connection.
I sneak a glance at Jasalyn. She’s watching me curiously, as if she doesn’t have any idea what’s so obvious to me. I could say it. I could explain to the whole group that Mordeus knew she was trying to end her own life when she was in his dungeons, just as he—or someone working with him—knows that she may very well end her life now. From everything I’ve learned about Jas through her memories, I know she would do it to protect her sister. If the alternative is Mordeus taking over her body and her life, I don’t think she’d hesitate.
I could say it, but it’s such a painfully private truth. And one that it’s not my place to expose—at least not in this setting.