Ruler [Blood Magic, Book 3]

Chapter 30: Guns to a Magic Fight

Keel and I took a break from bond magic after that. When he came down from the blood 'n' power rush, he saw things differently and our inquiries shifted back to more conventional sorcery and the parts of the bond accessible by drinking blood. To our surprise, that renewed focus brought progress. Through copious trial and error - and the accompanying royal threats and tantrums - we discovered that Keel's strengths lay more in bolstering my magic than weaving spells of his own. In the right circumstances, he could be rocket fuel. And this became our main area of study.

For me, however, that day in the arena had switched something on and I became more and more fixated on what we had done. What we could do. All the possibilities began to crowd up my brain just like worries used to, a relentless throng of jostling temptations.

I still had no desire to rule the compound, the world or anything else. That taste of power hadn't changed that, but it had given me an idea. The kind that caught on, burrowed in and became a part of me. Maybe I could be free. With power like that, we'd easily be able to handle all Keel's would-be assassins and even my own. And while the bond meant I would never be able to travel for too long or too far, there was renewed hope that I'd once again get to see the places and maybe even the people I loved. And the sun. God, how I wanted to see the sun. 

Ever since Keel had taken me out for that late-night walk, I'd been obsessed with its absence. That obsession took the form of a deep-rooted homesickness, an internal wailing for something utterly natural, normal and now gone, but not gone, just inaccessible. Memories of that glowing yellow orb danced against my eyelids when I tried to fall asleep each morning; other times my mind would wander and I'd discover I'd filled up pages of my journal with wistful doodles of sunrises and sunsets. In one reoccurring dream, I'd sneak upstairs after dawn when the compound was on lockdown and the facility given over to humans and their self-storage needs. I'd burst through the doors and dash across the parking lot at full tilt, hot pavement nipping at my bare feet - not caring how much attention I drew or what kind. All that mattered was vaulting the wooden fence to the nearest field, collapsing into its lush green grasses, and just letting the sun pound down on me for hours while the flies, grasshoppers and crickets serenaded me. Sunburn? No problem. Magic's got a cure for that.

Sometimes my yearning for daylight even seeped into my working hours, usually when I caught a glimpse of my colourless skin and sunken eyes in a mirror or other reflective surface. Neither the sorcerer nor human parts of me were designed for subterranean life, and it showed.

When I wasn't dreaming of frolicking in the sun, I dreamed of magic. Senseless narratives in which my power ebbed and flowed on the tides of my unconscious, throbbing up inside of me with promises of fulfillment and well-being and unthinkable pleasures. Sometimes I'd wake up and have to stand in the shower for twenty minutes until I felt halfway clean and calm again. Perhaps that part unnerved me the most.

Etan too, Garstatt had told me, had found an appetite for power. 

The escalating intensity of these twin desires drove me to insomnia, and yet they continued to circle my brain - hungry sharks waiting for me to tire and let them in again.

Sunlight and real power - they came to represent the two things furthest from my reach. Both required sacrifices I remained unwilling or unable to make, though each day they grew more flavoured with ifs.

I never told Keel any of this. I wasn't sure he'd be able to keep his promise if he knew. Perhaps he'd think he didn't need to. It came to serve as a cautionary buffer between us, when elsewhere our magical research was decimating distances, both perceived and otherwise, each and every day.

In the meantime, our day-to-day public routine solidified into a well-oiled machine of security and protection. Boras and I were now so confident in our roles that Arthos took over my old ops position in the surveillance room. The reassignment allowed him to do some public relations work on behalf of the compound. Other Nosferatu enclaves had heard rumour of Keel's miraculous recovery and the sorcerer in his employ and had endless comments, questions and concerns. Arthos fielded most of them while watching over us from above.