“You sealed them with blood,” Caius observed.
Reina nodded. “It was the only way to hold the barrier together, but it is a temporary measure. We can hold the in-between back, but we cannot close the seal altogether.”
Violet said something in Avicet to the mage next to her. “They think Tanith’s blood might be able to close it,” she then said to Caius, “but I take it you’re not walking around with any of that.”
“Sadly, no,” Caius replied. He stood. “But what about my blood? Tanith is my twin. Our blood is identical.”
“It was identical,” Violet replied. One of the mages who had accompanied Reina and Echo’s group tapped Violet on the shoulder. Violet dropped her arms and stepped back, and the mage took her place. “Tanith’s blood has been tainted,” Violet said. “Altered. Irreparably, I’m guessing.”
A look flickered over Caius’s face, there and gone before anyone could see it. Except for Echo. His features hardened into an implacable mask, showing no hint of the emotions that lay beneath, but Echo had seen them—the grief, the loss—written on his face as though Tanith had carved them there. It was so easy to forget that their enemy had been a person once. Not a good person—not in Echo’s reckoning—but Caius had loved her. He probably still did. The bonds of family were not so easily severed.
Altered. Irreparably.
It was a succinct way of saying there was no hope for Tanith, that she was beyond saving. Echo watched Caius’s hope sputter and die in that one fleeting expression. Then it was shelved wherever he put all his other inconvenient emotions. Echo had thought she was good at compartmentalizing, but Caius had perfected it, made it an art form.
“It’s worth trying,” Caius insisted. He rolled up one shirtsleeve, not waiting for Violet to object. “Do it.”
She did it.
The blade sliced through the skin of his forearm with ease, so sharp it took a second for the blood to well. Scars stood out along his arm, pale and shiny against the tan skin. Violet led Caius by his bleeding arm around the circle, fortifying the Avicet runes with his blood. The barrier shimmered so brightly it became nearly opaque. Echo felt the grasping energy of the in-between recede.
“I don’t believe it,” Violet said, gazing at the circle with awe. She let go of Caius’s arm. “It actually worked.” She reached a hand toward the shining barrier and closed her eyes. After a moment, she said, “It’ll hold. For now, at least. We’ll need Tanith’s blood to close it for good.”
Caius was pale when he rejoined the group. Reina studied him with an appraising look, as if taking his measure. She made a gruff sound of approval. “I suppose you have your uses after all,” she said.
Caius offered her a tight smile in response and looked at Echo. “How many broken seals are on that map?”
Echo fished the map out of her backpack and unfolded it. A dozen Xs were scattered across every habitable continent. “Eleven more.”
Reina clapped Caius on the shoulder, with enough force that he nearly staggered under her hand. “Rest up, Dragon. You’ve got a lot of bleeding to do.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Caius’s blood was not an infinite resource.
They had made it to one more seal on the Ala’s map, this one located in Iceland, before Sage sized him up and prescribed a period of rest long enough for his blood to replenish itself. It wouldn’t do to have Caius die of exsanguination before they’d gotten to all the seals. Sage had also insisted on making camp near the mended seal in order to conserve their dwindling supply of shadow dust. Ever the pragmatist, that one.
And so Echo found herself staring up at the glittering blue-green lights of the aurora borealis while standing at the center of what appeared to be an abandoned camp somewhere in the middle of miles and miles of Icelandic nothing. Perhaps not nothing. The landscape surrounding the camp was quite possibly one of the most gorgeous sights Echo had ever laid eyes on. Long stretches of rolling green hills were capped with a dusting of the season’s first snowfall. The camp itself was situated near a magnificent fjord that stretched toward the sea like a blanket of deep-blue velvet.
It was hard to tell where the water ended and the sky began. One bled into the other until all the eye could see was the soft indigo darkness sliced through with ribbons of light. Echo hadn’t had time to appreciate the sight when she last saw it. Caius had been too near death, their situation too desperate. She had been too scared. But now she could gaze upward and wallow in a sense of cosmic insignificance. It was strangely comforting. If not for the sound of voices as people wandered about setting up camp and lighting fires, she would have been able to pretend that she was all alone. A tiny speck in a vast wilderness.
Stjerneklart, she thought. Norwegian for “a night illuminated only by starlight.” Echo turned the word over in her head, savoring the rightness of it.
Behind her, footsteps crunched over the frosted grass. When she turned, she saw Caius standing there, watching her watch the sky.
His hair had grown long enough to have a slight wave to it. A gentle breeze sent a lock of it tumbling over his forehead, which he promptly brushed away with an irritated sigh. A vain attempt at a smirk accompanied his words when he spoke. “If it gets any longer, Dorian’s going to be at me with the scissors again.”
“He likes to fuss over you,” Echo said, matching the forced lightness of his tone. “Like a mother hen.”
Caius’s smile failed to reach his eyes. They were nearly black in the darkness, but every now and then, a bit of green glimmered like an emerald, reflecting the shining lights dancing in the nighttime sky. The scales on his cheekbones refracted the light, highlighting the planes of his face and making it abundantly obvious when he flinched at a faraway shout. He wasn’t hunched, exactly—his spine was straight and his shoulders proudly squared—but there was a stiffness to him that seemed altogether alien to Echo. She had grown so used to the casual grace with which Caius moved that its absence was startling, though imperceptible to those who hadn’t spent a great deal of time looking at him. Echo had.
“The others are waiting inside,” Caius said. He inclined his head in the direction of one of the larger buildings at the center of the encampment. Chipped red paint coated its exterior, and its roof sagged in the middle. It had probably served as a meeting hall when the settlement had been up and running. The Avicen used it as an outpost between their territory in the Americas and the Drakharin’s in the British Isles. And now it was their temporary home. There were enough buildings to house the mages and warriors without anyone having to share a room. After the cramped conditions at Avalon, the arrangements were positively luxurious.
“Ivy and Helios have arrived, along with some reinforcements from Avalon,” Caius said.
“I know,” Echo said. “I just…”
“Needed some air?” Caius offered.