Page 5 of Taken By the Blood God

I gathered my power, focusing on my brother. A connection must be established first. Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes.

It was going to take a great deal of power to pull my brother’s consciousness from where he was imprisoned. The wards around him were difficult to penetrate. Not impossible but difficult. Especially since he was significantly weaker than he once was. He wouldn’t be able to help me, to boost my magic with his own.

I hadn’t been lying when I told Minerva that the warlocks were draining him. While we were powerful as gods, our power was still finite. There was an end to it. And he was rapidly reaching that end.

There. I felt the spark of his mind. While his magic was weakening, it was still the brightest light in the dimness of the human realm. I could almost see the furious purple light of his consciousness as I narrowed my focus.

My body seemed to fall away as I yanked him free from the cage of the wards, bringing his mind to me.

“Brother.”

Though it wasn’t intentional, the landscape in my mind looked like the cave where I’d slept for over a thousand years. I didn’t have enough power to project anything more comfortable. My power was closed off, a trickle rather than the raging river it once had been. My years of slumber had created a disconnect. My power was returning to me, but it was slower than I would have liked.

I turned around and found my brother lounging against one of the boulders that rested against the curved wall. His arms were crossed over his chest, and his ankles were crossed as well.If I didn’t know him as well as I did, I would have thought he was the picture of relaxation.

“Brother,” I replied.

We stared at each other in the darkness, neither of us speaking.

“Have you come to free me?” he finally asked.

I shook my head. “You know I can’t. We need the witch.”

He sighed. It was a heavy sound. “And she won’t do it, will she?”

His words were devoid of emotion. Of anything. They were flat and even heavier than his sigh. It was the sound of a man who had given up hope.

“Actually, she will help, but she has some conditions first.”

Some of his apathy dissipated. He straightened, no longer leaning on the boulder, and his arms fell to his sides. But he didn’t speak.

“She wants your true name,” I said.

His chin jerked back as though I’d slapped him. Minerva gaining his true name would give her the ability to imprison him again. After hundreds of years, I knew he wouldn’t want another to have that sort of power over him again.

“What?” he whispered.

I held up a hand before I continued. “And she wants to bind you to the town.”

“What?” he asked, his voice no longer a whisper.

He was shouting now.

“Why are you bargaining with the witch?” he continued, waving his arms around as he paced back and forth in front of the boulder.

Violet sparks showered from his fingertips, his magic leaking due to his emotional turmoil. My hold on my magic slipped. Just a bit.

I tensed, tightening my mental grip on the power, but the seed of fatigue was sprouting.

“Just form a blood bond with her and force her to do your bidding!”

It was a testament to how weakened he’d become that the amethyst light emitting from his hands was his only show of magic. In the old days, the entire mountain would have quaked beneath the force of his ire.

We were both the weakest we’d ever been. Yet I didn’t want to go back to the past, to return to the creature I’d left behind.

“I will never be that man again,” I replied, my voice softer than his.

He noticed the underlying stone beneath my words and stopped pacing.

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