Blood Vow
Promises written in rune circles often provide more precise magic than their verbal counterparts
“Krgh!”
Kazem gritted his teeth as he drew the curved knife’s tip against his palm, silver edge glistening red as blood ran down the length of the blade in a ghoulish smile.
“Is this really necessary?” Daena asked.
Kazem glared up at her from the black chalk circle in which he knelt. She met his gaze, sultry eyes shimmering sapphire like the lake at the edge of the Davani family estate. The contours of her full lips curled in disgust as Kazem resumed what he was doing, dabbing his fingers into the blood on his palm.
“Is your presence here really necessary?” Kazem retorted.
He used the blood of his fingertips to write runes at different points in the circle, taking care not to disturb the elaborate, geometric patterns that had been drawn inside in contrasting white chalk.
“Can’t I visit with my beloved brother?” she asked.
“What the Queen does with her spare time isn’t my business. I just would have thought you’d have more important things to do before your journey to Gen.”
“You sound just like Father.” Once more her lips curved, this time into a saccharine smile, the very same smile that had felled a hundred men without Daena ever needing to lift so much as a finger.
Kazem ignored his sister’s comment and finished writing out his runes. He used a silk handkerchief to wipe his knife clean, then sheathed the weapon with his clean hand and pocketed the handkerchief.
Daena surveyed the stone room, face puckering in distaste. “You need more furniture. It’s drab in here. Unbecoming of the Lord Commander, wouldn’t you say?”
“I prefer it this way.” Kazem glanced around his room. It was true that he didn’t own much. Besides the typical bed and bedside table, all he really had in his room was a weapons rack for his spears and a wooden dresser for his clothes and armor. Kazem prided himself on being unlike other lords. Most of those in his caste were vain fools who placed far too much importance on possessions. They were mediocre people who all too often lost sight of what was important: service to their gods and to the Shah.
He clenched his fist and began to squeeze his bleeding hand, pushing out glistening scarlet droplets onto each point of one of the shapes beneath him. The stinging sensation in his palm intensified.
“You really would be better suited just sending out a djinn, you know,” Daena said, changing the subject.
Kazem didn’t reply. He found his eyes wandering to the golden amulet his sister wore around her neck, sun-shaped and embedded with a sparkling amethyst. She noticed his gaze on her necklace and tucked the amulet into her shirt, out of sight.
Daena sighed, exasperated. “You’re not a warrior, Kazem, you’re a lord. It’s time you stopped playing soldier and acted like it.”
“Now who sounds like Father?”
Daena scowled. “Father is correct much of the time, whether we like it or not,” she replied. The Queen spoke quietly, as if afraid of someone listening in. “How do you think this path you’ve chosen even ends? Glory? An empyrean vow on your deathbed? It’s never happened for a lord.”
He bristled at her words. “It’s not about that.”
“Then what is it? Your pride? Such a thing is better discarded.”
“What would you have me do?!” Kazem snapped, frustrated. “Our brother is in a coma because of me, Daena.”
“Our brother is in a coma because of his own choices,” she shot back. “While he was skimping on his spear lessons to attend extra poetry classes, Vahid was traveling the world and fighting. Kazra had no business facing such a skilled warrior alone. Since when is a Davani so naive?”
Kazem flinched as if struck. It wasn’t just the callus way in which she insulted their younger brother, though that did hit a nerve. It was the way she used the name Davani. It was the same way their father used it. Anger that he’d already been struggling to contain bubbled up to the surface.
“He did it FOR ME!” Kazem thundered, voice echoing in the stone chamber. His heart pounded loudly in his chest, a dull pulsing sound in his ears and a vibration in his veins. He exhaled slowly, then returned to his work within the circle, writing more runes.
Daena pursed her lips. “I’m sorry about Ariana. Truly, I am.”
“Are you?” Kazem sneered. “Seems to me you benefit. With Ariana gone, your son is that much closer to the throne.” Daena’s eyes widened. Kazem hesitated. “I’m sorry,” he said more softly. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
Daena’s eyes smoldered with an emotion that Kazem couldn’t quite decipher. She seemed to be pondering on how best to respond, choosing her next words carefully.
“You sound just like them,” she said at last.
“I didn’t mean-”
“No, do go on, brother. I’m used to it. You don’t think I hear what they whisper behind my back?”
“I’m sorry,” Kazem said again.
He felt foolish for his outburst. Daena could be annoying when she nagged him, but when had she ever been anything but supportive to him? She could have resented him for shirking his duties as a lord in favor of pursuing the path of the warrior. He had an autonomy that she did not. Though she carried the heaviest burden of the Davani children, Daena had only ever thought about what was best for him and for the family, even in her most stinging criticisms and admonitions. She had been dealt an impossible hand, and even still gave him so much kindness. Yet here he was, yelling at her for showing care in her own way.
“I’ve never wished ill on Ariana,” Daena continued. “I was honestly happy when I heard about your betrothal. I always knew you two were close growing up. Arranged matches are seldom so fortunate.” She averted her gaze. A long silence passed between them, broken only by the crackling of fire in the hearth.
“You’re the best of us, Daena,” Kazem told his sister.
Daena smiled, though not as widely as she had earlier. Her eyes appeared more sunken this way, though Kazem couldn’t tell whether that was from exhaustion or because of the shadows cast by the light. She looked so much like their father sometimes. He wondered idly whether she ever thought the same thing about him.
“I wish you’d let me in,” Daena said. “I’m not Father. I don’t have ulterior motives for caring about you.”
Kazem wasn’t sure what to say, so he remained silent, instead electing to return again to his runes. Daena studied him for a moment, then stood and walked over to Kazem and knelt by his side. She peered over his shoulder, regarding the ancient script.
“This one is wrong,” Daena said, pointing. “You’ll use too much ka with the way this is written. Were you really going to swear a blood vow with such sloppy work?” Kazem hesitated. “Have you ever even performed one of these before?” Daena asked.
“Only in lessons when I was a kid,” Kazem admitted. “I asked Lord Yasmeen to teach me, though we never vowed anything serious.”
“You need to be more careful. This is dangerous magic, Kazem,” Daena said. “Even with an ordinary promise, wording is everything. That’s all the more true for a written spell. One grammar mistake, one incorrect punctuation mark, and you could change the fundamental function of the spell and destroy yourself in the process.”
She took his hand while speaking and dabbed at his bleeding cut with her own fingertips, making the appropriate corrections in his runes. Her hands were cool and smooth, familiar. Kazem was reminded suddenly of humid childhood afternoons and times spent swimming together in the lake of their estate. He smiled.
“What are you smirking at?” Daena asked.
Kazem shook his head. “Nothing. Just reminiscing.”
“Well I’ve fixed your runes. Do you know the procedure for completing the spell?”
“Of course I do.”
Daena gave Kazem a blank look. She really had aged. She wasn’t an old woman by any means, twenty three years old to Kazem’s twenty five, but the lines in her face told the story of multiple lives lived; A young girl, innocent and carefree, playing in the lake with her brothers; An adolescent battered by impending responsibility and expectation; A woman forced to bear a burden she had never wanted or asked for.
“Go through it with me anyway,” she insisted.
“I’m not a-” he began to protest, then stopped himself. Instead, he nodded. “Okay.”
Kazem pulled the knife from his belt once more, holding it tip downward. Daena took his knife hand into her own, delicate fingers wrapping around his hand. It felt odd, he realized, that he was the oldest. Daena had always been the more mature one. If anything, she was the one who truly played the role of eldest, not Kazem.
“Repeat after me,” Daena said. “I, Kazem Davani, lord under the god Mithra, do commit to this vow.”
Kazem repeated the words. Daena looked up at him as if to confirm his intent. He nodded. Together they plunged his knife downward, stabbing it into the center of his palm. The blade pierced vertically at the center of the existing cut, forming a curved cross on Kazem’s hand. He gasped at the sharp pain that ripped across his flesh, like the sting of water turned nearly to ice. As they removed the knife from his hand, blood spilling onto chalk, the circle began to glow.
Violet sparks leaped across Kazem’s body. On the back of his injured hand, a circle identical to the one he had drawn formed as if inked in: filled with the exact runes he had written. The new insignia glowed violet before receding into black.
Kazem breathed in deeply. He could still feel the beating of his heart. Badum badum badum. One heartbeat. Two heartbeats. Three.
“Did it work?” he asked.
“Given you’re not hurt or dead, probably,” Daena replied. “Though you won’t know for sure until you face Vahid.”
Kazem nodded. “Thank you.”
She shrugged. “You can repay the favor right now.”
He frowned. “How so?”
Daena smiled mischievously. “You can help me pack for my journey to Gen.”
Kazem’s jaw dropped. “Hold on. You haven’t even packed yet?!”
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