Page 89 of Requiem of Silence

“In Saint Dahlia, her goodness, her power.” His shoulders straighten with earnest emotion. “To use her to summon spirits is heresy. It is not what she would have wanted.”

You cross your legs, affecting a pose of ease. “Perhaps you’re right. And I agree, Nikora’s plan is madness. But will you really help me go free? Why not just kill me?”

Cayro tenses his jaw and looks away. “Your debt to the Physicks could be useful. I would expect a favor in return at some point.”

Ah, the real reason for his visit. “So you let me go, off to my own devices, and then what, I offer you a boon in the future?”

“I’m certain you will discover another way to regain your power and take over the Elsiran land. It may be a good place for my people once we regroup.”

“A safe haven for the Physicks?”

“Indeed.”

You stroke your chin and think it over. This ally may be usefulto have, when you need him. And easy to crush when you do not. “Very well. When would this escape take place?”

“I have loyal men among the guards. When it is time to move, I will arrange to have my people on guard duty. Wait for my signal, and we will make it happen.”

Cayro rises and takes his leave quickly, believing that he has forged a useful alliance. Dissension among the ranks of the Physicks can only help your cause. Eyes turned toward fighting one another will not be looking in your direction. And if something untoward were to happen to Nikora, then her blood spell would be null and void.

It is one path forward, a window opening while the door remains barred. You ponder in front of the fire for a long while.

The answer you’ve been seeking comes to you in a dream. It hits like a bolt of lightning, like the strikes of Nethersong used to obliterate the spirits and banish them from the bodies of their hosts.

A memory from centuries earlier, long repressed, returns. It is from when you were a power-starved lad with a taste for Earthsong and your sister staunchly refused to give you more. You knew of blood magic, knew that Cantors like Yllis studied and innovated it. That the Cavefolk in the eastern mountains practiced it and used it to accomplish things that Earthsingers could only imagine.

Those of the Folk who left the safety and cloistering of their caves had emerged and shared secrets—your mother having been one of them—but the true masters of blood magic were the shamans who never left the mountain. With them lay its most powerful secrets.

And so you went to them.

You traveled to the east of what was then the whole of your land. There you met those who were leaving, the pale-eyed Folkunused to light and fresh air who were tired of life underground. They had been leaving in droves since your grandparents first arrived in this land from some dying world. Your father, aunts, and uncles had found spouses among these former Cavefolk.

After leaving the protection of the Mountain Mother, the Folk became known as the Silent. They had no inborn Songs, though their children who had been conceived with Earthsingers might.

Your mother had taught you some simple blood spells remembered from her childhood, and you longed for more. Blood magic was power in its own right. And there were whispers that it rivaled Earthsong.

So you sought it out. Made the journey with nothing but faith to guide you, that and the lessons of your mother.Never take that which the mountain does not want to give. Always treat the Mother with respect.

At the mouth of a cave, high in the mountain you met a man. He was old then, his skin translucent in the flickering light of your lantern. “Why have you come here?” he asked, blocking your way.

“I came to visit my mother’s people.”

“You are not one of us.”

“Can I not be?”

He’d grunted and turned and you’d followed him deep into the cave city. In a little-used, out of the way chamber, he fed you and bid you to leave.

“Teach me,” you begged. Back when you would stoop to such a thing. But he did not budge. “Teach me, for one day soon there will be no one left to teach.”

The truth of your statement shone in his eyes. Though the city still lived, it was already beginning to die as more and more chose to leave. In two, maybe three generations, if the current exodus continued, it would be a town of ghosts.

“What is it you wish to learn?” the old man said after a while.

“Everything.”

From the shaman, you learned how to remove a Song from a Singer, how to fashion calderas from blood and words and intent. You absorbed blood magic’s possibilities, its drawbacks and limitations.

Clarity greets you now when you awaken from this memory-dream. You have not thought of that old man in centuries. You have forgotten the source of your education, the reason you were able to take power. So odd. But even now as the knowledge afforded by the memory swells in your mind, trepidation fills at skirting so close to the past.

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