Take it, I want to say. Take it all. I give it back if it means I’ll save you.
Invisible hands slide from my shoulders down my arms. My skin puckers to gooseflesh. I shudder. I inhale. My eyes open.
Overlaid on the present is the past. Portraits of the vampir, collected in the great cavern underneath the academy, flash before my eyes. I see them as though I am Ruvan. I feel his nerves, his fear, anticipation.
Through those eyes of his, long ago, I see the vampir that stood in a circle at the center of it all. The first guardians. Those who laid the long night and said farewell to everyone they ever loved.
Goodbye, he whispers to the world he left behind.
“Goodbye,” I say to him. For now.
Magic, blood, life, and power, take shape. It’s a simple command, but a clear one. Guard me from the world; let there be not another marker on my blood—on his. There is no room for the curse. Only him and me.
I hold out my hands and slowly open my eyes.
Crimson threads unravel from my forearms, hands, and fingers. They wrap around Ruvan. The glow from the covenant cements them into place. Crystals begin to form like ice on the side of a water bucket, left forgotten outside the smithy. The ruby coats his body, thicker and thicker.
When the spool of magic runs out within me, I collapse before what looks like a coffin of red glass. Ruvan has been made perfect once more, the curse at bay, held in a sleeping stasis within.
