“Ke-Han blood magic,” Lady Antoinette had repeated, her hands giving away what her face did not. “We have heard rumors, of course, but I never imagined such a thing might… It is forbidden, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” I’d nodded. Forbidden. A shameful act to take against one’s enemies, let alone one’s own kin. It was a part of our culture, in that the warlords still pledged a vial of their blood to the current Emperor, but that was more of a symbol, signifying the trust it took to give one’s lord such power voluntarily. The understanding was that it would never be used, that it was a mark of their loyalty. To pervert even that was unimaginable. The gods would see to Iseul’s punishment in the next life, if not in this one.
“We can fix it,” Antoinette had said hesitantly, as though thinking aloud. “It would be best if we could get the object from your current Emperor, of course, but it certainly isn’t necessary. Blood magic operates on the principle that even when lost, a part of you will still wish to return to the whole. The whole, in turn, recognizes that part as something of its own, and a kind of… resonance occurs between the two. All we have to do is change it so that Lord Mamoru’s body no longer recognizes the blood as something lost. It would be far simpler if we could just cast off the things we lost like a lizard with its tail, but we, as a race, are so inconveniently built.”
“This is something that can be accomplished, then,” I’d said, careful not to misunderstand.
“Yes. Luckily our magic, as perhaps you might know, rests in the blood instead of drawing directly from the Well, as it did once,” she’d explained. “That’s how we know more about it. It’s different from yours, which as far as I understand involves a great deal of bartering with spirits and the like.”
“I wouldn’t know about that,” I’d said. “Our magic is based in the land, in borrowing its power. Any man can use such a thing if he trains his mind around it. The details of it—the secrets—are quite well kept by those men who possess them. Only a rare few are given that position. The waters are not channeled, but…”
“Perhaps we will be able to study your wild rivers one day,” Antoinette had said. “One day, when all this is over.”
“Thank you for helping him,” I added, allowing the gratitude I felt to seep into the words.
“His own brother,” Lady Antoinette had said, this time conveying everything with her face, in a way that would have been considered most shameful in the capital, my lord’s home.
I found it fitting somehow, after everything we’d been through.
“So we can help him,” the Margrave named Royston told me. “A magical medicine, I suppose. One we’ve perfected since…” His lips twitched, and again I was reminded of the differences between our two peoples. “Well, since you-know-what.”
I neglected to tell them that the snake in the Well had, in part, been Iseul’s idea—a magic based upon the same feverish principles that plagued my lord.
Their medicine was better than any potion fed to him when he was little; it was no simple tea. It had been created to counteract the effects of poisoning from afar—Ke-Han blood magic, the same that had been used in the war against them.
It was strange to think they should be helping us. I hoped the gods would forgive us in time.
“This shall stand between his blood and… well, his blood, I suppose,” Margrave Royston explained to me. He seemed to have taken pity on me—no doubt because I looked like a dead thing, without sleep and without peace—and so placed a hand on my arm as we waited for Mamoru to wake. “We shall hope it lasts long enough to stop it at its source.”
“As you have also done in the past,” I said.
“Well, that,” Royston agreed.
It was a miracle to see my lord so well so quickly, though his limbs were weak and his coloring still paler than it had been. Time was of the essence, nonetheless. The moment he was standing, he said he was ready, and I allowed the lie. I even helped him saddle his horse.
I watched him like a hawk for any signs of relapse, but there were magicians among our number, and Margrave Royston had assured me they would do all they could.