Page 12 of The Stygian Crown
“I’ll send for you.”
* * *
Kara hidthe vial of demon’s dripin the back of one of her vanity’s drawers, tucking it beneath a velvet pillow cushioning a pearl necklace. The vanity was full of expensive jewelry like it. If things went sideways and she had to escape the capital in a hurry, she could make a tidy fortune fencing them. She put the leather pouch of syringes in the bottom of the armoire, beneath the heavy skirts of her dresses. She needed a better place to hide things from Merry, but the floor and walls of her chamber were all stone—she’d have to chisel out a hiding place if she wanted one.
Kara crawled into bed with the grimoire, closing the curtain around her, and propped herself up on the pillows. The book creaked as she opened it and braced it on her thighs. She thumbed through the pages, looking through different rune names and their designs. Kara stopped when she came to a page titled ‘Sound.’There were several rune variants depicted on it. One could hold a message that’d play when someone activated the rune with blood. Another variation allowed eavesdropping by pairing a rune at the location she wanted to spy on with a mirror rune attached to some token or object.
An adjustment to the eavesdrop rune had been sketched in the margins of the grimoire in ink. Beneath the sketch, it read, ‘Mirror rune may store messages for later listening.’Kara grinned and bent the ear of that page. That one would prove useful.
Her eyes drifted down the page. Another note in the margins read, ‘May be runed onto the skin beneath your ear for a direct sound link. Wouldn’t recommend. High propensity for madness.’
On the page for ‘Sight,’there were similar runes, allowing someone to record images of a location or open a peephole portal into the location they'd like to spy on. ‘You can see them, but they can see you, too! Useful on ceilings.’
The implications of such spells were staggering. Salizar could know everything that was happening in the castle if he wanted to. If he had the library runed, he may already know her true identity. Was he toying with her?
Kara continued reading, flipping deeper into the book.
Unlock / Lock
Unlock a locked door or chest, or prevent entry except to those whose blood makes up the rune.
Ineffective on someone’s secrets.
Pain
Drawn on the body, will cause pain varying in intensity according to size of rune.
Merge with fire rune to cause burns.
Passion
Draw on the two targets you’d like to feel impassioned for one another. Beware, passion quickly becomes rage.
Do not mistake passion for love.
Health
Helps heal a wound or combat an illness. Only effective on minor wounds and illnesses.
As Kara got farther into the book, she wondered who it had belonged to. Marginalia riddled the pages—someone had spent a lot of time on these notes and rune customizations. But Salizar didn’t seem like the type to lend out his personal grimoire. She flipped to the front again, looking for a name or initials, but there were none.
The runes in the latter half of the book grew complicated, the instructions and list of precautions longer and more dire. Some runes had to be paired with incantations or performed during a specific phase of the moon. Simple rune shapes became several runes knit together to form a larger rune. One design spanned two pages.
Transport
Place an object on a blood-charged rune to transport it to the rune's mirror.
Teleportation possible in theory, but so far people have only managed to teleport pieces of themselves.
Shield
Creates a hardened blood shield around the area the rune is drawn on. May be drawn on skin.
Search
Track an item or person.
Can be used to search a room for the presence of other runes or spells.
