Page 21 of In the Ravenous Dark
“Several months ago, she passed her bloodline on to her eldest daughter, Princess Lydea, twin of Prince Kineas, who will very soon be declared the crown prince once his father, Tyros, becomes king.”
“Then is Cylla…?” I begin hesitantly, and then trail off at the look on my father’s face.
“Dead, yes, before she could ever become queen consort instead of princess consort… all titles she never wanted in the first place. The process of passing on a bloodline kills the bearer,” he adds, as if it’s an afterthought and not the worst of it. “It takes a life to transfer it.”
I have to put a steadying hand on the chair back, because my eyes flood with tears. “So I’m here,” I choke. “I got caught, like a great imbecile, and they now possess a child of yours, which you never meant for them to have.” I look up at him. “What happens to you?”
He approaches me slowly, and I feel his hand cup my face. His thumb brushes a tear off my cheek. This time, I don’t pull away. I lean into him.
“Rovan…”
I squeeze out the words. “How soon?”
“Likely not until you are twenty. My time is running out in any case.”
“Why?” I throw up my arms, forcing him to withdraw. I want his comfort, want to fall into his arms and cry, but more than that I want to be moving.Doingsomething. “Is it really so heavy to bear, the bloodline? Can’t you hold on a while yet? We can figure something out, plan our escape!”
“The bloodline shouldn’t be doing this to me, or to anyone—” My father cuts off, hissing and slapping a palm to his forehead, fingers clenching his blue hair. “Stop it.”
“What is it? Ishehurting you?” The dead man must be. He seems to be able to sap my father’s strength in an instant or cause him pain. I don’t see how it happens this time, but I still spin in a circle, fists raised as if I can fight off the dead man. “Where are you, you dusty coward?”
My father holds up his other hand to forestall me. “Maybe I’ll only speak of what I can—the bloodline—and see how far that gets me. It shouldn’t be a secret that my own parents didn’t give this to me, but my grandfather, because in Skyllea bearers of the bloodline don’t wish to end their own lives before their time.”
My father’s lips press together, either in pain or because he’s worried he’s said too much. But I consider his words… and their significance. It’s enough for me to understand: Bloodmages live full lives in Skyllea until they’re ready to pass their bloodlines on. Meaning that somethingelseis prematurely aging my father. Or perhaps something has changed the nature of bloodlines within Thanopolis, to make them sap their bearers of vitality.
“The veil,” I say suddenly. “Is it somehow drawing from the bloodlines—from you?” I gasp. “Or is it…them? The dead?”
He grimaces again. “Rovan, I can’t. He really doesn’t want me to say.”
I grit my teeth, biting back more curses. “Okay, then don’t. I’ll figure it out myself, without the dead bastard’s permission.”
My father sighs wearily, seeming older by the minute. “There is a lot I haven’t told you, and much of it I pieced together on my own, like you will have to.” He glances meaningfully at the papers strewn about, and then at the wall near the map, where another scrap of parchment hangs. This one shows a red sigil that nearly looks as if it’s written in blood. “You might just have to follow in my footsteps. Follow your eye.” He holds my gaze, the look heavier than the gold of his irises.
He’s obviously trying to tell me something, something he doesn’t want the shade to know, but I’m not sure what. I have no idea what the sigil means.
“I don’t know how to read very well,” I say hesitantly. “And I know only the few sigils you taught me as a child.Move,sever,seek, that sort of thing.”
My father blinks in surprise. “And they caught you based on that? I taught you those only as a means of channeling your urges toward magic, and to help your mother. What did you do to draw their attention?”
I’m indignant. “Just because I know only a few sigils doesn’t mean I can do nothing with them. I learned to get creative.”
He squints at me, as if trying to see me better. “Show me.”
I should feel indignant atthat, but I don’t. I want to show him. To impress him. I glance around the room, my eyes bouncing from surface to surface, book to book, as if establishing the warp and weft, marking the invisible sigils as I go, weaving the pattern withmy mind. When I’m done, I nod. I don’t even raise a hand to make the motions. Maybe I’m showing off, just a little.
Scrolls, books, and papers fly across the room, clearing the floor and chairs and realigning in neat stacks on shelves and desktops. The office transforms from complete chaos to tidily overfilled.
My father starts in shock, nearly falling over, and then gapes. “How did you do that?” he asks. “You didn’t even sketch a sigil in the air.”
“I did. Just with my mind and not my hands. Nothing you could see.”
“Which sigils?”
“Just one,” I say, feeling suddenly bashful. “Move. Only I used a lot of them, layered just so. It’s the only one I can do that with.”
He shakes his head in wonder. “Despite the seeming simplicity of what you did… the control alone… and your ability to hold it all in your mind… Rovan, many far more experienced bloodmages with an entire bloodline at their disposal couldn’t do what you just did, not without sketching in the air at the very least, and likely with their own blood as ink, to map it all out.”
“I did sketch the sigils out at first, in charcoal on a rock, or in the dirt. And when I could manage, I sketched them in the air. I didn’t know I could use blood, so I had to know them perfectly. I usedmovethe most. Eventually, after years of practice, I could form a whole picture in my mind of whatever I wanted to weave, however complicated. Except it was more than a picture by then, it had…”
