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She steps back from me, finally putting air between our bodies. I immediately feel the void left in her wake.
She returns to the table, hips swaying as she glances over her shoulder at me. “Our food is getting cold.” It’s matter of fact, not a question or hint of request lying in her tone. I clear the fog of arousal from my brain and follow her back to the table. I take a long pull from my glass of wine and do not miss that she’s doing the same.
“Why is it so shocking that I can feel your magic?” she asks, her disinterested tone betrayed by her body language. She’s leaning forward, breasts resting against the table, shoulders tensed. Dragging my gaze upwards, I wipe my mouth with a cloth and dangle the wine glass between my fingers.
“To most on the receiving end, magic just happens. It’s not there, and then it is. Influence magic, in particular, would not be very effective if people knew they were being influenced. Some people can train themselves to pick up on the subtleties that lie within each magic, and Seasonale can visualize magic to combine for complex spells, but overall magic is quiet.”
Her nose wrinkles in displeasure, swiping a fork and stabbing a vegetable. She shoves it into her mouth, and between chews, she says, “If it’s so rare for magic to be obvious, why is it obvious to me?”
Why, indeed. Viola is an untrained vessel, so while the potential for magic within her is great, she should not be able to realize it yet. Trained, she should have the same level of magic as a Seasonale, albeit a very powerful one. To be attuned to magic on this level would imply centuries of practice.
“I’m not sure why, Viola. But I also don’t think you’re asking the right questions.”
I love watching her body tense and imagine how it would feel as it tenses for my touch. She may have been an enigma to the humans she grew up with, but I can see through so much of her facade. She has been relatively alone most of her life, and while she thinks connection is not what she needs, her body is begging for it.
Eventually, she steels herself enough to ask the question I know she’s been dying to know the answer to.
“Am I the vessel you say I am?”
A bolt of lightning strikes, loud and close. It’s odd for the Bliksem to not have diverted it, but I shrug that feeling off. Locking eyes with her, I nod deliberately. “Yes.”
I don’t follow up.
Viola stews, clearly waiting for me to tell her more. I make her squirm, forcing her to ask me for what she needs.
“Can you tell me what that means, then?” she hisses through gritted teeth. I lean back, relaxing in the control of the situation. By this point, we’ve all but abandoned our food in favor of wine, so I wordlessly gather my plate and motion to take hers. She pushes it to me but remains rooted to her chair.
After clearing the plates and resting them on the counter, I grab another bottle of wine and a bowl of berries, moving to my sitting room to place the offerings on a small table. I motion for her to join me, and she slowly rises to her feet and moves into the room.
Once again, it appears that I don’t need influence magic to get her to listen to me.
I stay standing until she sinks into a seat on my sofa, and then I find my place beside her. Many would choose a seat across from someone they wish to gain information from. Personally, I find it unnerves my targets more to sit beside them.
And I cannot quite explain why, but when Viola is unnerved, I am undone.
Grabbing the bottle of wine, I pour Viola another glass and push it into her hands. The silence I’ve forced us into has disarmed her, the wine softening some of the hard edges she erects around herself. She begins to tap her fingers together and then moves a hand to her collarbone, a staccato pattern upon her skin.
This is not the first time I’ve noticed her nervous tic, and my hand reaches for hers and stills it. I hold it within my own until her body slows, and only then do I release her. She inhales deeply, the breath leaving her body like a curse, and then turns her head to me. Finally, I answer her question.
“When the Gods were banished so long ago, their magic spread throughout the land. It became a part of humans, and those humans are what we now know as the first fae. Some of it went into creatures that haunt our lands, warping them into horrendous monsters, but most made its way into the humans. Not all could handle the magic, and they died because of it. This is what the humans have called the virus that wracked Krillium.”
It’s almost imperceptible, but her fingers tap against one another again, her wine glass abandoned on the table. It is the only outward sign of tension I notice within her. I reach for her right hand with my left and hold it within my grasp.
“With the Gods’ magic spent, they were locked away into a pocket world, for lack of a better explanation. The promise made by four ruling families at the time was that someone from their bloodline would serve as a vessel for the magic of the Gods to ensure a return.” Her hand clenches within my own, and I release it. She snatches up her wine glass and drinks deeply.
My glass needs a top up, and I take care of that for both of us while continuing. “Stone, my advisor, found in a few tomes that we may only need one vessel and that a single returned God could bring the others back for us. The world could only be made better by the presence of the Gods. They would be able to ensure prosperity and protection for all. While we have Summer’s shielding the cities, it’s proven to be a huge toll on our people, and our magic is waning.”
I sit my empty glass down and pull one leg up on the couch, turning my body to face her. She mirrors my movement, and suddenly, we are knee to knee, facing one another. “Shields?”
“Each city was founded by one of the original families, so we needed to keep travel between the cities to a minimum to track the descendants better. The shields provided protection from the beasts, and we used magic to make the land between the cities inhospitable.” She winces at my words, and the familiar guilt that comes with the admission of my manipulation of the world churns up.
She runs her hand through her hair, pulling on the ends as she reaches them. “And I’m the vessel promised to bring back Himureal and ultimately all the Gods?” she whispers.
“You’re getting ahead of yourself,” I admonish. I’m rewarded for my tone with a glare. “Stone noticed Winter magic disappearing, a sign that it was concentrating on a single vessel. But it went away entirely for too long, so we had to be relentless in searching for a vessel that showed any signs of Winter magic. The four original bloodlines became so diluted throughout the generations that it became exceedingly difficult to pinpoint the descendants. A few times, we thought we had the vessel, but none of them proved to have the aptitude required of them.”
My mind travels to all those failed attempts to summon Himureal into a vessel, the devastation that followed, and that knowledge claws at my throat to be shared with Viola. I swallow it back.
“Until me,” she says, her voice barely audible at this point.
