“If you push to the point of the curse taking over, you’re likely to become a Lost, and we’re not strong enough to kill you,” Callos says, matter-of-fact as he cleans his spectacles. “You have to know your limits, for all of us, awake and still slumbering.”
Exactly what they’re talking about finally hits me—he’s expected to go off to die, to end himself before the curse can end him. I think of the needles in the collars of the hunters. The expectation to take one’s life before they could become a monster exists here, too, and my heart crumples at the realization.
Ruvan says nothing. He stares at his hands, curling and relaxing his fingers. He’s like a mirror to how I was when I first arrived. I never imagined that between us I would be the strong one.
And I’m going to need every bit of strength I ever had.
I see his frustration, uncertainty, the need to do something when all seems hopeless. I know the pain and frustration he feels all too well and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. But Callos is right: Ruvan is limited right now, he must take things easier.
I, however, have no such limits.
“There might be a way to prolong Ruvan’s strength in fighting the curse,” I say. All eyes are on me. What I’m about to suggest is a long shot, I know it is. But it might be our only choice—if blood is strength, and blood lore is blood made even more potent, then Ruvan needs strength through blood lore. And there’s none stronger than, “The Hunter’s Elixir.”
Ventos is at my throat, fist balled in my shirt. “You would have him drink something the hunters made?”
He barely manages to speak before Ruvan’s hand is on his wrist. Ruvan’s knuckles go white as he grabs and twists with an immense strength his body doesn’t show. Ventos winces, and his grip goes limp. I breathe freely again. Ruvan pulls Ventos’s hand away from me, but holds it and the man in place as he says almost too calmly, “You touch her again and there will be consequences.”
The room is stunned to silence, myself included.
Ruvan relaxes the hard stare he was giving Ventos and releases the large man. Ventos steps away, rubbing his wrist, looking more confused than hurt. Ruvan turns to me with a small smile, as though he hadn’t just threatened one of his own. “You were saying?”
I try and find my thoughts again after that outburst. “I know, it’s not ideal. But…what we just did, what we just made in the chalice, it looked almost exactly like the Hunter’s Elixir.”
Winny raises her hand. “What is the Hunter’s Elixir?”
“No one knows but the master hunter. He’s the one responsible for preparing and administering it. The recipe is more closely guarded than the substance itself—which is saying something—to steal either is punishable by death.” I rub the back of my neck, remembering the night before the Blood Moon, Drew pressing the obsidian vial into my hand. “The hunters store the elixir in obsidian vials. Just like you store blood here to keep it fresh.”
“Curious,” Callos murmurs, stroking his chin.
“It’s what I drank the night of the Blood Moon—the thing that made you say I had the blood lore performed on me.” I look to Ruvan again. “My brother gave his elixir to me and told me only to drink it if I needed to. A Succumbed had made it into town…and when I drank, the vampir could sense me even across a salted threshold.”
“Just like I could sense you in the marshes,” Ruvan says softly, affirming my theory.
“I might not know how they make the elixir, but I think you’re right, it’s some kind of blood lore.” I’m finally ready to admit it aloud. “And it’s powerful. It can make humans strong enough to fight against the vampir. The draught my brother gave me was special, so he said. But it did make me—someone who’s not a hunter—able to go toe-to-toe with the vampir lord himself. This also means Drew should know where to get more of it.” If he’s still alive. But I still refuse to believe otherwise. “If we can steal some, maybe it could help give you the strength to ward off the curse for as long as you need?”
Everyone is silent, chewing on this information. I wait on pins for their verdict.
“It might work.” Ruvan is the first to speak. Then the rest of them do, as if they’d been waiting for his permission and assessment.
“This might be a way for her to run back across the Fade and tell her human companions all she knows about us.” Ventos is ever confident in me.
“I won’t run and I won’t betray your trust,” I say.
“How can we know that?”
“I’m sworn to him—to help all of you. I can’t do anything that would hurt any of you at least until the curse is broken. And I—” I stop short.
“You what?” Ventos demands.
“I wouldn’t even after the curse and oath are broken,” I finish softly.
He snorts. “How can we believe her?”
“I do,” Winny offers. Lavenzia still looks unsure, but she doesn’t say she disagrees, which I take as a good sign.
“I do too. And at the very least, this elixir will be worth studying,” Callos adds. “Knowing what the hunters have will only help us—or future lords and ladies—in our fight.”
What have I done?I’m giving people who would kill everyone and everything I’ve ever loved access and insight into one of the few defenses we have.
Doubt vanishes when I look at Ruvan. I must help him. And if this means we succeed in breaking the curse then it doesn’t matter what the vampir know. Vampir will never cross the Fade again. Ruvan would uphold our deal even if there wasn’t a bloodsworn oath holding him to it.
This is worth it. It has to be…or I’ve damned Hunter’s Hamlet, and no one will survive the next Blood Moon in five hundred years and whatever vampir lord or lady that comes for us then.
“Let me go back across the Fade,” I say. “I’ll bring you the elixir.”
“How do we know we can trust you to return?” Ventos asks.
Ruvan announces, “Because she won’t be going alone.”
