“Does the curse get worse for you the deeper we go and the closer we get to its anchor?”
He shakes his head. “Thankfully not; the curse affects all vampir evenly, for the most part. It’s a curse laid on our blood with magic humans should have never meddled with. There is no escaping it, only slowing it. That is also why the consumption of fresh, untainted blood restores our proper visages and powers—even blood taken by force, the affront to the lore that it is, is better than no blood. It’s why we need the Blood Moon to replenish our stores. We’re not strong enough to harvest the blood of those here in Midscape—those with magic—in this weakened state. They’d hunt what’s left of us if they saw the danger we’ve become.”
Ruvan’s eyes drift back to his companions. His brow furrows slightly with worry. I leave him to his thoughts, keeping my own. He said that his true form was not the monstrous sight I first saw him as, but the almost ethereal man standing before me now.
“The curse weakens your magic and turns you into monsters, and the creatures we’re fighting have been turned by it?”
He returns his attention to me with a tired nod. “We call them Succumbed. It’s the second stage of the curse. We—” he motions to himself and back to the other three “—are still vampir. We are Accursed, but have our wits about us.
“The Succumbed have fallen prey to the curse. They are no longer living, thinking beings and cannot return to what they were, no matter how much blood they consume. They are beasts of instinct, hunting to regain what was lost even though they cannot.”
“They sound like they should be weak.” But I know better.
“If only. The Succumbed are not without magic. In some ways their powers have been heightened by their frenzy. But they are blunt instruments, lacking any strategy or tactics.”
“I see…” I look back out over the vast expanse of ice and stone. “That’s why whenever they’ve attacked us it’s been without organization. There’s no plan. It’s always one or two—if any—hunting on instinct alone.” There was never a “hive mind” to the vampir. We were wrong all along, about everything, when it came to our enemies.
“Attack you? But the Fade is only weak enough to cross during the Blood Moon.” Ruvan sounds genuinely surprised.
“Weak enough for you, but those cursed monsters come every full moon from the marshes.” I wonder if I should be telling him this. Can he use this information to find his own way across the Fade during the full moon? Though it’s not as if Ruvan has the army I once thought he did…
Ruvan strokes his chin and murmurs, “That explains some things the vampire lords have been wondering about the hunters. They have always been trained far better than we expect for encountering vampir only once every five hundred years. When I found out that they were using blood lore, I thought that explained it solely. But this is far more plausible.”
“What is the blood lore?” I’m finally curious enough to outright ask. “I understand it involves blood and magic. But how does it work?”
“I’m not sure if a human could understand.”
“Try me.” I shift to face him.
He appraises me and I must, somehow, measure up. “All right. As I told you before, all blood—all life—holds magic within it. Blood tells the story of a person, their strengths and weaknesses, their lineage, the sum of their experiences. Even their future is all marked on the blood.”
“You can…see someone’s experience?” I ask cautiously. “Their future?”
“Yes. But like all blood lore, it requires talent and the right tools to do.” A smirk slides across his lips, mouth tugged slightly open at one corner, his fang wicked and gleaming. “A vampir can steal a form. What makes you think we can’t also steal a thought, if we wanted?”
“The blood lore sounds horrific.” Invasive. Intrusive. And yet…I’m deeply curious.
“You might feel that way, but thousands in Midscape didn’t.” Ruvan looks out over the mountaintops, his voice becoming wistful. “They would come from far and wide for our monthly moon festivals. When our power was at its strongest, we could read the futures of kings.”
“Only kings?”
“Anyone who offered their blood.”
I consider this a moment. “If vampires can see the future, then how didn’t they know they would be cursed?”
“Maybe someone did and they misunderstood their vision. Vampir do not get a complete picture. We can only see specifically what the asker demands of us. So it’s possible that no one saw it coming—no one thought to ask.”
“Did you look into the future before we ventured down here? Is that how Callos knew the way?” I ask.
“No…the curse has obscured and stinted many of our abilities,” he says curtly, avoiding my gaze as if in shame.
It makes me wonder just how powerful blood lore is. So I ask, “What else can the blood lore do?”
“Some can identify truth from lie. Others can glean insight into a person’s true nature. We were revered and respected for all our insights into things that had not yet come to pass and the true nature of individuals.”
“The hunters can do nothing like this.”
“How can you be so sure?” His gaze begins to harden. “Just how did you get the blood lore on the night of the full moon?”
