Page 4 of Bitten & Burned
“Rowena,” he said, low and deliberate. His voice foldedaround me like a ward, small and ferocious. In Verdune, we had prayers for light and for shadow, but none sounded as urgent as the promise in his voice: “Tell me how to help you.”
Part One
One
BALM AND BOND
Caer Voss, Sol, Verdune
30 Inery, Year 810
Six Months later
I awoke with a stiff neck,having gone to sleep reading again. The books were neatly stacked on the table beside me; apparently, Vael had cleaned up before leaving the room.
I yawned, stretched, and winced as the burn bit deep into my left thigh. Not new, hells,nevernew. But, in that soft, sleep-glazed moment, I’d forgotten as if this gods-forsaken mark would ever let me forget for long.
Six months. That’s how long it had been since the sigil bloomed under my skin in the courtyard. A sigil—I knew that much now. For what, I had no idea, but I doubted it was a specific “make this witch’s life miserable” curse. It hadn’t necessarily zapped my ability to do magic, but it had severely lowered it. It was as if something was blocking me from Inera, and to access her power, I had to jump through several hoops and leap out of a burning building.
Now, whenever I tried to do magic, it would start to tingle,the tingle making way for searing pain the longer I did magic. So, I’d had to figure out how to do things without it.
Cooking spells, cleansing wards, even the tiniest charms from the Solian hearth traditions—I’d learned to do them by hand, muttering prayers under my breath to my Lady Inera, who heard me but could do nothing for the cursed wound I carried.
I was not a fan, but I had managed just fine.
I sat up in bed, glancing around the room. Vael’s side of the bed was cold, but I couldn’t hear anything, so I called out.
“Vael?”
“Yes?” He ducked his head into the doorway almost comically fast.
I frowned. “What are you doing?”
“Cleansing my bookshelf. So I don’t get parchment weevils.”
I wrinkled my nose, drawing my knees up to my chin under the blanket. “Do you… have any reason to believe you mighthaveparchment weevils?”
“No, and I don’t wish to procure them. Are you awake?”
“No. I’m fast asleep.”
“Rowena…”
“I know. Yes, I’m awake.” I shifted, the sting sharpening in my thigh.
It had never really healed. The flareups still came—sudden and sharp, a bite of heat deep in the muscle that made my teeth ache. Tonight wasn’t bad, but the faint sting was always there, a warning hum beneath the skin. Vael could ease it, and did when it got bad, with one careful bite, drawing the blood out from around the wound. It stopped the worst of the pain, but it didn’t cure it.
All that particular act revealed was that this came from a blood curse. Blood curses outside vampirism were rare in Verdune, outlawed after the Stone War for their cruelty—but still, even centuries later, they appeared once in a great while. This one, apparently, was one of a kind. Lucky me.
Vael, being both a vampire and annoyingly clever, should haveknown exactly how to handle a simple blood curse. It frustrated him more than he admitted that he couldn’t. He’d been researching it for months: tracing pieces of the rune, finding matches for fragments, but never the whole thing. Handmade, he thought—stitched together from different runes and symbols. The kind of thing built to be untraceable.
“Are you hungry? Can I fix you something? I think I’m getting better at making those eggs you like.”
“Better is relative, but yes, I’d love some, if it won’t get in the way of your… literary fumigation.”
“Of course not, I’d love to make them for you. I feel I must correct you slightly… I’m not fumigating, but rather pretreating.”
I rolled my eyes. “Yes. Fine, Vael.”
