It whispered, the book that had once been soaked in his blood. It always whispered.
He had taken it to the Salt Mines, left it in a vault. But the girl who walked without fear in the mines said that it was probably not the best place, that there was too much magic in the air it could feed upon. Reluctantly, he’d taken it into Grazyk. He’d had a vault built in the corner of his study, and even though the girl would wrinkle her nose at it each time she entered the room, there it remained.
But he could always hear it. The insidious whispers were constant. Even when he shut the door and went to bed, it bled into his dreams.
They needed to destroy it, he said.
To destroy it would be to release him, she would reply.
And they would argue for hours, eventually leaving it to its corner with its locks and chains.
He spent most of his time trying to hold together the fragile shreds of magic left in Tranavia. Long days locked in his study, some alone with the whispers, but most with the girl. Her blond hair like snow and honey. A glove shielding her left hand even though she was told time and again that no one would look twice in Grazyk. Who read his notes and pointed out inconsistencies, finding all the places that he could not with her strange, incomprehensible magic. Sometimes his brother would perch on the back of a chair, his boots on the seat, and frown deeply at the notes Malachiasz had gathered, moths fluttering in his neatly trimmed hair, only to be pulled away by the quick smile of his general. Or he would tug the prasīt into his study to find a pattern in the numbers, the tension in him diminishing, just slightly. Or the healer would work with him to discover what was possible in this mortal life, leaving flowers in his wake.
The god he had agreed to let in never spoke.
Only the whispers, constantly.
But that was all they were. Whispers could do no harm. There were greater things to worry about. Tranavia and Kalyazin needed to be rebuilt. The time between war and peace was dangerous and tense.
But magic was everywhere, and what was locked away was simply waiting for the door to be opened.
The girl tapped him on the temple, stealing him from his thoughts. She smiled, taking his hand in hers—no glove, only stained skin and curled claws next to his tattooed fingers.
Today, everything was quiet.