25. Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Five

Wilder

Ablast of heat meets my back. I look over my shoulder to see that a wall of flames rising up in front of Bronwyn. Her silhouette nothing but a dark form with flapping skirts.

But Morozov is a professor of magic, and he did not become one by being easily bested in magical battles. As soon as that thought crosses my mind, a rushing wave of water crashes into Bronwyn's wall of flames, snuffing it out and leaving that half of the room enshrouded in mist.

I turn back around and pour on the speed as I race toward the tomb. I skid a bit as I try to stop next to it, my boots having difficulty finding traction on the wet stone.

I brace myself against the tomb. It's an intricately carved coffin with runic markings etched into it around a carving that is likely supposed to be the likeness of this Petrov.

I mutter a quick apology for desecrating his grave and pull out my spellbook, summoning a gust of wind between the lid of the coffin and the base. At my command, the lid goes flying off; the massive stone crashes to the floor and splinters into three pieces.

I wince and mutter another apology before I look over my shoulder, trying to see what is going on. All I can make out are flashes of light and crashing waves.

I turn back to the body within. At this point in decomposition, nothing about it looks remotely human. The skin, while preserved to the best of the abilities of those who entombed it, is stretched across the bones. Only scraggly bits of hair remain, clinging to the dried husk. I wrinkle my nose in disgust before my eyes lower to the bright purple book lying clutched under two skeletal hands.

"So sorry about this," I mutter before I pause. Why do I keep apologizing to him? He is dead; it isn't as if he cares what I do anymore. Petrov is in Skyhold. He will have no idea what happens here in Ruskhazar.

I grit my teeth and grab the spellbook. It doesn't at first budge, so I have to yank it. There's a splintering sound, and the spell book comes free with so much force that I nearly fall backward. I hold the book up and almost let out a cry and throw it when I see that there is still a hand attached to it.

However, at the last second, I manage to get control of my trembling limbs. I shake the book so hard that I dislodge the hand. It drops to the ground, and I shudder as I turn to the book in my hand.

The cover is worn with the edges frayed, and the symbols marking the front worn away, but those are the only signs of its age. Other than that, it seems to have held up remarkably well. I can only hope that I can say the same for myself after a thousand years.

I quickly flip open the book, my eyes scanning over the pages, but I can't quite believe what I'm reading. Because these pages are telling me to wield magic like sorcery.

But that can't be, that's impossible. Sorcery and magic are two separate entities. They have separate sources; one comes from the goddess Meruna, and the other the vile demigods. Mortals bend magic to their own will by controlling it with spells while sorcery is at its source the demigod's power that the heretics only channel through themselves with the hope that their demigod overlords will heed their wishes.

There is no one alive capable of wielding both together. Sorcery and magic can never mix, and those that try either die in the attempt or are driven mad by it.

But perhaps the most practical difference between magic and sorcery is that sorcery can only manipulate that which is already there, whereas magic creates anew. The flames that Bronwyn is wielding, she is creating from the magic she wields and the same as Morozov with his water magic. He is creating new water, not using what is already in this room. That's something only a sorcerer would be capable of.

I may not have been the most diligent of students at the Academy of Magickers, but I know enough to realize that.

And yet that's exactly what this book is telling me to do. At least, it is telling me that instead of creating water with magic, that I should imbue the qualities of the water around me with magic. That such an act would cause it to obey my spells as if I had conjured it myself.

Down the passage I hear Bronwyn let out a short scream that is quickly cut off. I lift my head, gripping the spellbook more tightly. I don't have time to deliberate on whether this is sorcery or not.

If it is then I will just be cursed because I'm not about to allow Morozov to do to her what he did to me. No matter who she may actually be underneath all the lies.

Coward as I am, I could never let her share my fate as one cursed to be a vampire. I draw the line at that happening to the woman I love.

Love.

The word shudders through me, causing a ripple in my emotions like a wave. I find myself smiling. So perhaps I know so little about her past. I know enough about her that I will never actually allow anything to hurt her. And I know enough about myself that I am irrevocably smitten.

Even if she isn't just a merchant's daughter.

I start back toward the entrance of the tunnel muttering the spells within the book under my breath.