“Hurry up and finish the washing then, so you can join me.”
He plugs the vat and flicks the tap back on, refilling it with clean water, then he offers me a sneaky smile and takes several quick steps backwards.
I tumble off my rock, flail, twist, and land with a thump on my stomach.
“Oh, nice one, Splat,” Seth teases.
I offer him a Killian-type growl but don’t bother to get up. Nope, I don’t mind being on the ground, not at all. So I continue to sip my wine from my new position.
And that’s exactly the moment Roarke, Killian, and Pax come round the corner. They all stop short, glancing at me then glaring at Seth.
“I can’t help it if she likes rolling around in the dirt,” Seth says.
Killian grunts, folding his arms over his chest and making his biceps bulge, and Pax runs a hand through his short hair, looking exasperated as he beelines for me.
“What did you call us for?” Roarke asks Seth. He has a book in one hand and a quill-type pen in his other.
Seth points towards the hidden cellar, but my attention is locked on Pax as the guy squats down in front of me.
“What?” he asks.
“I didn’t whistle, Seth did.”
“No, what are you doing on the ground?”
“Drinking wine,” I say, awkwardly sipping my bottle.
He shakes his head. “You do the strangest things.”
I roll over onto my back, looking up at him from almost between his knees.
“But you still wuv me?” The words are out before I can stop them, followed by a sharp giggle of nervous energy.
Wuv me? What the chuck am I saying?
Pax’s eyes glow, his lips twisting into a decidedly Thane smile. More animalistic. More bold and demanding.
“Of course,” Thane says, then he retreats back.
“But,” Pax adds, “that doesn’t make her any less–”
“Interesting?” I provide.
“Trouble,” Killian overrides – the guy’s now crouched against the cottage inspecting the open door in the ground.
“Hard work,” Roarke adds from under the house, leaning into the hole with a lit stick.
“Fun,” Seth says, pulling the last item of clothing from the vat.
“Ours,” Pax says, snatching my wine from my hand and standing sharply.
Conversation over, I guess. Wine gone.
Mind blown.
I just lay here in the dirt, watching them inspect the hole. Speechless.
Eydis’ small cellar was hand-dug a few hundred, even a thousand years ago, but whoever did the work wasn’t thinking about ease of use. I have to crawl on my hands and knees to move around, shoving two crates of wine up for Killian and Pax to haul out before I can get to the unusual collection of boxes at the back.
Potions. The woman was stockpiling potions. There’s no real label on them – just a hollow circle with a line through it. The symbol for endings. For things finished. Stopped.
For a soul that is shattered from this plane through the Veil. The kind of symbol I would put on a potion capable of sending a soul already free of its body into the Aeons. A shiver runs over me as I try to find any other likely application – and fail.
Twenty vials in each box. Two, four, six, eight, sixteen, thirty-two… a hundred and fifty boxes. Three thousand vials.
At the back is a leather satchel. I know that with the limited light, searching through it would be easier from outside, but I can’t help myself. I flip it open to find a collection of dried herbs way past being usable. They’re dead twigs really, from hundreds of years ago. Next, I pull out a vial about the length of a dagger and the breadth of my thumb with a crack in the side. Knowing our luck, it once held Origin Water, but it’s bone dry now. Then a typical potion bottle, completely unlabeled. It doesn’t even have symbols on it. And a folded piece of parchment.
“Hurry up in there,” Pax shouts.
“Hold your horses,” I call back.
I open the note. It’s in Eydis’ hand, with scientific diagrams next to the neat inked letters. Two potions.
Soul Elixir – which, among other things, requires Origin Water – and Null Elixir.
Soul Elixir ~ One vial, one soul, no apparent time limit after death before application.
Well, that answers that question.
Yes, we can free the souls from Lithael’s charms. The man is wearing several, and Silvari souls are balls of silver energy. Deadly, fast, and usually angry. So we’d better have our delivery system mastered before smashing their glass prisons or a lot of people are going to die.
And the recipe is here, so even though we’re short a few thousand, we can make more – once we find the key ingredient and free Kitten.
On the bottom half of the page is a different concoction. Next to the heading is a sketch of the Return Seal.
Elixir’s effects last between three hours and three days. I’d hoped for a complete null, but in some cases, Sabers have experienced no benefits; in others, they have had a temporary null, and in all cases, they have lost access to a skill or power for the duration. Which one seems linked to the individual. The trade for one advantage requires the sacrifice of another. I fear this particular potion is impossible without something stronger than Origin Spring water, and I’m not sure that exists.
She was working on a countermeasure to the Return Seals. A way to balance out the magic – null it. Excitement rushes through me. I can work with this, use Eydis’ attempts as a starting point. And her Soul Elixir is – Aeons, it’s a game changer.
I damn near hit my head on the roof in excitement.
The only other thing in here is a worn-out book sitting atop the box at the back. It’s just a little bit bigger than pocket-size and covered in a thin purple leather sleeve, with several
