Red Blood (Series of Blood Book 2) by Emma Hamm (rm book recommendations .txt) 📗

when it had not happened the first time. Even before I turned to Blood Magic, I was powerful.” Wolfgang clasped his hands behind his back as he ignored the angry glares she was sending him. “Perhaps we did it wrong. Or I was not strong enough to complete the spell.”

“This is not the first time you’ve done this?” Lyra shouted.

“No.” He smiled sadly at her. “To completely give up one’s soul turns a Magician into only one kind of creature. One all powerful being that your employers do not want to exist. A Lich King.”

“The king of the undead,” she said quietly as all her anger drained out of her. “Leader of the armies of the dead.”

He nodded with a solemn gaze.

“There are none of their kind left in existence. The Lich are gone.”

“As long as there is one Lich, it is he who shall be named king.”

The words left her stunned. There was little known about the Lich. They were humans who had willingly pulled their souls out of their bodies to hide away. They were shells of what they once were. Unthinking creatures that had only one purpose. To create more soldiers for their armies.

The Lich were notoriously difficult creatures. They were incredibly selfish when it came to hoarding their souls. Anger ran like fire through their veins as without a soul, they were incapable of feeling true emotion. And in the end, they preferred the dead as companions rather than the living.

She shuddered. If they turned him into a Lich King, then they would be bringing a true nightmare to life. The anger that had overpowered her mind drained away.

“You would be dead, and the prophecy would be null and void.”

“Do you think I care about the prophecy?” he asked her. “Do you think I care about their petty games?”

“Saving the world is petty to you?”

“No, trusting in people whom I have never met is.”

He lurched forward and pulled her hands from her sides. Mismatched eyes stared into hers and in that moment she knew she was lost. Like him, Lyra had never had any anchor to prevent her from wildly drifting out to sea.

Wolfgang saw her. He saw deep inside her being and he understood her pain. She was the ocean who had no control over her tides, and he the ship captain who had mastered her.

“Wolfgang,” she began.

“No. There are no words. You will help me do this, to save my people. If we do not succeed, I will still here. And if we do, I pledge to help you in every way I can with your coming battle. I do not trust in prophecies or fate.” He squeezed her fingers in his. “I trust in my own ability to make the right choice.”

“If we do this,” she began, “then you may be uncontrollable. If you decide to work with Malachi—”

“I won’t.”

“But if you do, then the world would truly be lost. I don’t know of any creature who could destroy both a Void and a Lich King.”

“You will be able to control me.”

Lyra immediately frowned. “You don’t know that.”

“You awoke what little soul was left inside me. The darkest recesses of what I am recognize you as mine.”

“You will make me your slave.” The words held a whisper of fear as they left her mouth.

“Never.”

He held his hand out for her to take. His fingers gently curled, she imagined his hand looked like a venus flytrap. So safe, so comforting, and so deadly.

Lyra swallowed hard. She had trusted him thus far. It would be foolish of her not to trust him now.

She reached out to gently place her hand in his. “If you’re wrong—”

He interrupted her by placing a skeletal finger upon her lips. “I will not be.”

Lyra wasn’t as certain as he was. He guided her down the steps of the Black Market towards a very familiar set of streets. These had been her home for such a long time; she was surprised she didn’t recognize them immediately upon arriving.

His hand was warm against her back. She wondered how long it would take for him to no longer be warm. The Lich were not a living species. They hovered between life and death but were part of neither world.

The legends of them were sparse, but she did remember one. Long ago before the dimensions had merged, there had been a war between the dark and the light. The Lich King then had led an army of undead and destroyed nearly all of the creatures of light.

There were no records on how he had died. Legends said that perhaps it was the kiss of a loved one, but she had always considered that to be fantasy.

“Wolfgang?” she asked as they walked past a string of glowing fairy lights.

“Yes?”

“Once you are the Lich King, how can I kill you?”

He did not stumble in his walk. In fact, he seemed to be largely unaffected by her words. She shouldn’t have been surprised. They both were aware of the risks and the second plan, which would be required.

“Remove my heart.”

“You’ll still have one?”

“Yes.” He smiled again then. He was amused by the strangest things.

“And how will I get your heart out?”

“You’ll pull it out of my chest rather easily, I imagine.”

Lyra chose not to mull over the uncomfortable words. She had gotten what she had wanted. Remove his heart and kill the Lich King. She added the hated sentence to her mental list of things to do.

If things went south, she would make the right choice. Killing him would be her last resort. Not to save the world. Not for the prophecy. She would do it because she knew he would want her to. No matter how many pieces her heart was in afterwards.

No other man had given her in such blunt words the easiest way to kill him. Now, she realized that in most relationships no one would want to talk about that. But she had always enjoyed that conversation. A Siren was easy to kill.