Arielle's POV
Blood magic was nothing like what I had imagined.
I had expected something theatrical. Candles and chanting and the kind of ceremony designed to make power feel significant. What Lucien showed me in the deep workroom below the compound was methodical and quiet and almost surgical in its precision.
"Blood magic is not about power," he said, standing at the stone work table with his sleeves rolled to the elbow. "Everyone gets that wrong. It's about contract. Every work in blood magic is a binding agreement. Between people, or between a person and a force, or between a person and a location. The blood is the seal. Not the power itself."
"Then where does the power come from?" I asked.
"The intention behind the contract." He laid out the tools with the same systematic precisi
