Malice (Malice Duology #1)(26)

Kal’s smile is a slash of white in the gloom of his shadows. “We will begin with your Vila magic. It will be hard for you to Shift at first—you have been in your human form for many years. Some Shifters, when they are too long in one shape, forget how to change back.”

“You mean—will I never be able to Shift?”

“Do not trouble yourself about it now. Typically, such a thing only occurs when a Shifter spends too long as an animal. The primal instinct takes over. But tell me of your Vila magic. How are you accessing your power now?”

“Like the Graces do. I craft elixirs with my blood.”

“Like the Graces…” Kal blinks at me a few times, his mouth opening and closing. My shoulders hunch up to my ears as he studies me. “Give me an example.”

Licking my lips, I tell him about my last run of patrons. The elixirs for blemished skin and limp curls and frumpy figures, each sounding pettier than the last. He listens without speaking until I finally run out of steam. Callow’s wings brush my hem, and I know she senses my anxiety. The heavy clouds have finally begun to fissure. Rain drizzles through the gaps in the ceiling. One fat drop lands on my nose. I swipe it away.

    Kal clasps his hands behind his back, bristling as he paces. “This is exactly what I mean. The Graces have wrangled you into their mold. Repressed your true power.”

An unwanted memory resurfaces. A tight circle of Graces, flinging whispers back and forth as I lay strapped to a bed. A basin rests under each of my arms, catching streams of my blood. Already, my mind is fuzzy. The room blurs. But I can still hear them.

“Do you think that’s too much?”

“No. The Lord Ambassador said we must bleed it out of her. Her blood is that terrible color because of the toxins. The touch of evil. It must be obliterated.”

A wind rips through the tower. The stones groan.

“But the Vila are…were—”

“Lies.” Kal wheels to face me, his shadows sharpening to knifepoints. “All of it lies. I will not have you repeating such filth about your own. Vila blood is worth ten times that of the Etherians. They require those despicable staffs to command their magic. But you—if you have half the power of Lynnore, you will be formidable.”

Thunder rumbles again, closer now, echoing in the emptiness of the tower. My mother carried the same loamy blood that beats at my wrists. A power that could be my key to escaping Briar. The sea churns, pitching waves against the base of the cliff as the storm lumbers inland.

“What do you mean?”

“You are not like those vainglorious Fae bastards, the Graces. They are forced to drain themselves to access their magic. But you are better than that.”

    “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” I turn away. “They…”

Another memory rears its ugly head. I’m soaked and shivering after they’d dunked me in an ice bath laced with cleansing elixirs and Etherium. Pinned my shoulders as I’d fought and flailed against the vise of panic squeezing my lungs. The fevered, impossible count to one hundred before they finally allowed me to surface. Their hushed conversation as I retched the frigid water back up.

“Something’s wrong.”

“How long was she under?”

“Too long.”

“Not natural.”

And one that I don’t want to think about, but that punches through anyway.

“Is it kinder to just put her down?”

“They tried everything to bring out my power.”

Kal is close enough to touch me. “Everything they knew.” He lifts my chin gently. “Which cannot be much.”

That coaxes a weak smile from my lips.

“Your power is in your blood, Alyce. As with any Vila. You have lost some of your connection to it because you live in the borderlands and not in Malterre where you belong. The realm of your ancestors was thick with dark magic. You could have tapped into it as easily as breathing.”

“That’s why the humans wanted Etheria before Leythana’s reign.”

“Yes. In their ignorance, the mortals believed the power in the Fae courts was tangible. Able to be scooped up and contained. Like an elixir in a bottle. It is not so simple. The magic in Etheria is a living thing, as it was in Malterre.” He takes my hand and traces the stark veins at the inside of my wrist with his alabaster fingers. I don’t pull away. “You are trueborn. You have more than one way of accessing and guiding your magic. Magic that, in your long life, will not Fade. It cannot be bled out and expended the way the Graces’ can.”

    “More than one way? All I know are my elixirs. Without enhancements, my power won’t act as I wish.”

“Would it not? Have you never noticed your power working outside of an elixir?” Kal reads my expression. One eyebrow quirks. “Perhaps there has been some sign?”

I tell him about the jug of cream I spoiled. The fountain. The frequent complaints of the healing Graces when I was a child that the effects of my blood were unpredictable and disastrous. It took years before my elixirs started working, and even then the results were often unexpected. Noses grew bumps when hair was supposed to brittle. Toes turned stubby when warts were meant to sprout.

Kal is grinning at me before I’ve finished. “That is because your blood was not meant for elixirs, Alyce. You have never required enhancements to shape your magic.”