there was little movement of humans or even mages on the vast acreage laid out below them. Twice she’d seen hikers, but when Isai had dropped low to ensure they were truly hikers, both times they’d been legitimate.
To feel others’ emotions, yes. To connect so strongly with a Carpathian male? No. That was the first time and it was extremely strong. I was shocked that he didn’t seem aware of it.
You were behind him by several days and yet you were able to pick up his trail again once you were here in Yosemite?
Yes. The pull was extreme again. There was no getting away from it. He was broadcasting sorrow so deep, at times all I could do was weep for him. That was the truth as well. His brother, Iulian, had moved her beyond all self-centered thoughts. Beyond anything. His sorrow was that deep.
Then suddenly that trail abruptly ended?
Again, she twisted her neck to look at him. His voice had been pitched exactly the same, but she listened for any little inflection. Something was off. He was going somewhere with his inquiry, not just trying to find a detail she missed.
I don’t believe he was selfishly looking to keep the book. It didn’t feel that way to me at all. What are you thinking?
The same thing you are. He took the book to protect it. He had to have had a plan. My blood calls to his, yet it goes unanswered. The book was sealed with the blood of sacrifice. To keep that blood sacrifice from calling to any member of the high mage’s family— He broke off.
Julija knew what was coming. She’d entertained the idea she knew was moving through Isai’s mind. She wanted desperately to stop him from voicing it. Already she could feel the beginnings of sorrow in his mind. She couldn’t stop herself. She had to delay the inevitable, even if it was just for a few minutes.
How close were the two of you? She wasn’t close to her siblings at all. She’d tried. They hadn’t wanted her, other than to use her for blood. More than once, she was told she was worthless to the family. As she got older, she knew that wasn’t true. She had what they wanted most—an abundance of Carpathian blood.
He was born nearly a thousand years after me. I met him twice and only by chance. For a long time, before I entered the monastery, I kept tabs on him. From everything I gathered about him, he was a very good man and an excellent hunter.
Isai’s voice was strictly neutral, but she could feel his emotions. The sorrow was growing stronger. She decided to just get it over.
You believe he is dead.
Yes. You lost the connection with him. I cannot feel my connection with him.
They flew together, Julija pressing closer to Isai in an effort to comfort him. The wind ruffled over her wings, but rather than producing turbulence and noise, the effect was an eerie silence. The construction of the owl’s feathers allowed it to be a silent, deadly predator.
Do you think Sergey got to him? Anatolie? She didn’t want to think it was Barnabas, but it was possible.
I think he sacrificed his life, spilling his blood over the book to hide it. He believed me dead. He thought himself the last of our lineage. No one else would have his blood or a connection to him. His lifemate was dead. He knew he would meet her in the next life cycle. He wanted his death to count for something.
Julija turned the idea over and over in her mind. A blood sacrifice to hide the book? It might work. The book was still in existence and someone could stumble across it, but if Iulian had taken his own life, spilling his blood over the book as he’d died . . . She didn’t know. It might work.
He would know no one other than the prince would be able to track him, Isai mused to her. Would that do it? Would that successfully hide the book? From Sergey? From your father? From any with the high mage’s mark?
She wanted to tell him it would. She wanted him to believe that his brother sacrificed his life for all of them and that his sacrifice would count. Be legendary. She remained silent, trying to believe that the book couldn’t call out to the slivers in Sergey’s brain with Iulian’s blood over it. Or that her father couldn’t find a spell that