The Elder Blood Chronicles Book 4 The Blessed Curse (34 page)

“Second, you will not speak to anyone until
you have slept. If you do happen to speak with anyone you will not
under any circumstance utter the phrase ‘Micah boffed a Blight’ or
anything of similar meaning. If you do, I will castrate you with a
dull rusty knife. Understood?” Jala continued in a quieter voice
that somehow managed to be more threatening.

“Understood and not at all appreciated,” Neph
said as he took a step back from Jala.

“Third, if I ever find you drunk with my
fiancé again, I will lobotomize you, turn you into a woman, and
leave you in Madren’s care with the suggestion that you might be
his perfect match. I have no problem allowing him to romance you
for the rest of eternity. Are we clear on everything?” Jala
finished with a glower that could make plants wither.

“Crystal, and I’m terrified of you right
now,” Neph muttered as he stared at her with new-found respect.
After the mention of castration and Madren’s romance he had lost
all desire to giggle. Of course, by her rules, that meant magic was
allowed now so he could at least get up the stairs to his room to
hide.

“By the Divine, Neph!” Jala snarled as he
pulled on his power once more. A flash of movement caught his eye
as he was beginning the transport spell and he looked up just in
time to see the glint of silver as the candlestick connected
solidly with his head.

* * *

Pain lanced through his skull in rhythmic
waves. Each beat of his pulse was like thunder. Groaning, Neph sat
up slowly and started to rub his face but paused instantly as a
fresh wave of pain erupted from the side of his head. Gingerly, he
brushed his fingers over the swollen flesh near his temple and
frowned in confusion.

“Jala walloped you.” Zoelyn’s voice rose from
the side of his bed and Neph spun toward the noise.

His stomach roiled with the quick movement
and the pain in his head intensified. With another groan, he
slumped back to his pillow and turned slowly to look at her. He had
thought he was alone in his room. It was dark and had been dead
silent when he woke. He couldn’t think of a single reason that she
there. No one ever disturbed him in his room. “Why are you here?”
he asked in the softest voice he could manage. Despite his efforts,
the words seemed to echo through his skull with the volume of
battle drums. He cringed and rolled onto his side, partially
burying his face in the feather pillow.

“Rather pathetic when you have a hangover,
aren’t you,” Zoelyn observed quietly with no trace of sympathy in
her tone at all. Her dark hair was pulled up into a tight ponytail
giving her a stern demeanor that suited her voice perfectly. He was
still adjusting to her new appearance and he didn’t like it at all
at the moment.

Neph gazed up at her with one eye, his face
still turned into the pillow, and did his best to glare despite his
position. “Why?” he repeated in a partially muffled voice.

“Jala told me to wait for you to wake up. She
says, since you wasted part of her day with your idiocy, that you
could help her by helping me. She knows you won’t train anyone so
don’t bother objecting. I’m not learning magic. I’m tasting it. All
you have to do is craft mage stones,” Zoelyn explained as she
leaned closer to get a better look at the bruise on his head. “You
can almost see the trace of the filigree from the candlestick on
your bruise. Kind of a darker flower shape near the center,” she
informed him.

Neph narrowed his eye at her, but remained
silent. Talking was still too painful. He preferred it when she was
the quiet half-starved waif.

Now that Zoelyn was healthy she was entirely
too annoying, especially now. Before Seth had helped her she would
hide in corners and simply watch people. Very rarely did she ever
offer conversation freely or trouble him with her presence. Now,
though, she was fit and energetic and Jala’s constant shadow, it
seemed. She didn’t even bother with her hooded coat anymore. She
had returned from the Darklands in new black leathers with what
seemed to be a new body. There was barely a hint of her former self
left. Where a starved girl had been, there was now a very
attractive woman that had a confidence the girl had never known,
and it was highly annoying. “Go away,” Neph mumbled.

“No. You wasted Jala’s time and now I’m
reclaiming it. She would have had time to create the stones herself
if you and Valor hadn’t attempted to drown yourselves. Between
knocking you out, which, by the way, was very funny, and
babysitting Valor, she lost several hours of her day,” Zoelyn
responded coolly. She stared back at him with deep grey eyes and an
expression of sheer stubbornness.

“I think I hate you,” Neph grumbled as he
turned his face fully toward the pillow and pulled his blanket back
over him.

“Fine, have it your way,” Zoelyn snapped as
she rose from her chair.

Neph listened as her footsteps crossed the
room and relaxed more fully. He hadn’t expected it to be that easy
to get rid of her. A faint smile formed on his lips as he heard the
sound of the door opening. Jala never would have given up that
easily. A loud slam shook the room and Neph’s head exploded with
pain. Rolling over as quickly as he could, he lifted his head just
enough to stare at the door as Zoelyn calmly opened it once more
and slammed it again with as much force as she could muster. “What
in the hell?” Neph snapped as she pulled the door open once more
and glanced at him with a raised eyebrow.

“Shall I continue?” Zoelyn asked calmly,
swinging the door lightly back and forth with one hand as she
prepared for another slam.

“No, you bloody, crazy bitch,” Neph growled
and winced as she slammed the door once more.

“Don’t call me a bitch,” Zoelyn warned as she
opened the door once more and watched him. “I can do this all
night; it barely takes any effort at all,” she informed him.

“I do hate you; I’m sure of it now,” Neph
hissed as he sat up slowly in the bed. “You win. Let go of the
damned door and I’ll make as many stones as you want. All you have
to do is explain what the hell tasting magic means,” he wanted to
strangle her so badly, but honestly didn’t think he had the
strength for it quite yet. Maybe by the time he finished creating
the stones she wanted he would be up to the task.

“Seth says each magic has a certain feel to
it when absorbed. He says I need to be familiar with how it tastes.
So I need mage stones of the different types of magics to practice
sensing it. Fire, water, shadow, whatever you can manage. I need to
learn it all,” Zoelyn explained in a matter of fact voice.

“Did you ever consider that maybe Seth is
just regretting what he did by helping you and is looking for a way
to keep you occupied so you don’t annoy the hell out of him? I’ve
never heard of flavored magic before. It sounds ridiculous to me,”
Neph grumbled.

“Just make the stones so I can leave you to
wallow in the misery you created for yourself,” Zoelyn sighed with
disgust.

“Fine, if it means you are leaving, I’m happy
to do it,” Neph snapped back as he pulled on his magic and created
the first stone. “May you choke during your tasting,” he added in a
lower voice.

“I have never wanted to hug someone as much
as I’d like to hug you right now,” Zoelyn said in an overly sweet
voice.

Neph paused before creating the second stone
long enough to make a rude gesture and smile coldly at her. Coming
from anyone else the words were friendly enough, but a hug from
Zoelyn would be fatal. Just the brush of her skin against plants
caused them to wither and any contact with a living creature was
instant death. Jala was still working with Zoelyn trying to teach
her restraint with her powers, but so far they hadn’t seen any
improvement.

“Jala says you never drink, and she has never
seen you drunk before today,” Zoelyn began in a conversational
voice as she sat back in her chair.

Neph glanced up at her as she adjusted the
long leather coat beneath her. The outfit she wore now was a far
cry from what she wore when she arrived in Merro. Before, she had
looked like a tattered peasant. Now she looked as dangerous as she
truly was. Seth had done well on equipping her, though Neph
couldn’t begin to guess where he had gotten the gear made.
According to Jala, the leathers Zoelyn wore now were lined with
lead as her former ones had been, but from the look of the slender
elbow length gloves and the snug fitting vest, Neph couldn’t tell
how. Zoelyn looked up and her grey eyes narrowed as she noticed his
scrutiny.

“So what made you decide to drain the bottles
today?” she continued in a voice that seemed somewhat colder.

“Politics,” Neph replied shortly. It wasn’t
really something he wanted to go into detail on. Let Valor or Jala
explain the problems. He had no idea where to begin or what to keep
secret.

“Pity you can’t gem the world like you did
your people, eh?” Zoelyn said dryly.

“You know it’s rather obvious that we don’t
like each other. So why not keep this a quieter affair? You can
shut the hell up and I will make the stones and we can part ways,”
Neph snapped as he dropped another of the mage stones onto his bed
and gave her a withering glare.

“All bark,” Zoelyn sighed and Neph’s hands
tightened in response. He had never hit a woman, but he wasn’t
entirely sure that Zoelyn qualified. “I honestly don’t know why
Jala loves you so much. You are an ass,” she added with a slight
shake of her head.

“You aren’t too sweet yourself,” Neph
grumbled. Letting out a long sigh, he pulled on his magic once more
and focused it into another stone. If this was Jala’s idea of
punishment for drinking he would be having nothing but water until
he returned to Delvay.

“I don’t see any reason to be nice to you.
You are rude to everyone including your own people and as far as
I’ve seen you haven’t done a thing to help Jala since you have been
here,” Zoelyn pointed out in a matter of fact tone.

Neph glanced up at her but didn’t bother to
dignify her remark with an answer. In truth, he hadn’t done as much
as he would have liked to help Jala. The most he could really claim
as work was helping Sovann with the portal project, and that wasn’t
even the tip of what needed to be done. As Jala put it, they were
in a holding pattern until Vaze returned with the information on
Delvay. He dropped another stone to the bed and shrugged in
response to her comment. “Why does it matter if you know what magic
tastes like?” He asked in the friendliest voice he could manage.
The last thing he wanted was Jala storming in later to bitch at him
for being rude to her new pet. If he at least made an attempt to be
nicer, maybe Jala would forget about the drinking, or at least not
hold as much of a grudge.

“Seth says if I learn what the magic feels
like, I can use it later,” Zoelyn explained hesitantly. “He says
I’m more like a magic item than an actual mage, but it’s something.
Right now, I have nothing but death, but if I learn maybe one day I
can have more.”

“What?” Neph stared up at her in complete
confusion and shook his head. “That’s not how siphons work. Seth is
feeding you false hope.” “I’m not a siphon. I am an
Undrae
.
We are another matter entirely. Seth says if I store healing magic
and I recognize it for what it is I can use it when I need to. It
won’t work on me, but it would work on Jala if she were hurt. I
just have to learn how to recognize what I have absorbed,”

Zoelyn corrected him in a voice that brooked
no argument.

Neph paused and rolled one of the mage stones
on the bed as he watched her. He could see the desperation deep in
her eyes. She needed to believe that one day she would have a
purpose in life beyond destruction. From what he had seen of Zoelyn
so far, she hated herself. Seth had given her something to distract
her. He had given her hope. “I have never heard of
Undrae
. I
thought it was the Glis word for
monster
,” he said quietly
and returned to his magic. As much as he wanted to argue the point
on siphons, he understood how important hope could be. Even if she
never achieved what Seth had promised, at least she had something
to take her mind off her self-loathing. That was another aspect of
life he understood all too well. He didn’t exactly get along with
Zoelyn, but he could relate with her. There were few things in life
worse than being inadequate.

A faint thud from the wall behind him drew
his attention and he stared at the altar by his door. One of the
idols had fallen to the floor.

Most likely it had been knocked off balance
by the damned slamming of the door earlier. With a heavy sigh and a
glare in Zoelyn’s direction, Neph stood and walked to the
altar.

“Seth says the Undrae were more common before
the barrier. He has known them before and the stories he told me
were amazing. He says if I learn enough, I can function like a mage
on the battlefield and will only absorb the magic I want. Like, if
there is a healer nearby I can focus on the fireballs in the
distance rather than absorbing the healing magic near me. Or I
could siphon a damaging spell from a friend without destroying
their protective magics on their armor,” Zoelyn continued.

Neph paused as his hand wrapped around the
idol and glanced back at her. He tried his best to keep the look of
hope from his own face as he replayed her words in his mind. “You
can learn to drain specific magics while not damaging others?” he
asked quietly as he lifted the idol, his eyes still locked on
Zoelyn.

She nodded slowly, her eyes flicking to the
mage stones on the bed. “If I can learn how to taste the magics. So
far I haven’t been able to. Seth says it will take a while, though.
He says I have been starving for too long and it’s like asking a
man starved for food what spices were in the dish you served him.”
There was a note of discouragement in her voice but she smiled
faintly and shrugged. “So I will keep trying until I can be useful
or Jala runs out of time to help me.”