Bloodring by Faith Hunter Page A

ground. But the other sides were crystal spires or cragged and irregular where it had broken from a much larger stone. Along the smooth side, the crystal curved in a strange shape, like the curve of a closed eyelid. A larger stone with this power is out there. And I want it. A shiver of warmth threaded along my nerves below my flesh. Heat like mage-heat, like sex, chocolate, whiskey, and wood smoke.
    â€œThorn?”
    I snapped back, aware that I had slipped away from the reality of the shop. I was holding the heavy amethyst over my head, staring into its depths, connecting with it as if the stone had eyes in its heart, eyes that stared back with longing. The weakness caused by snow falling and collecting had vanished. In its place was this incredible . . . bliss. Desire. Hunger.
    â€œBond with me. Choose me,” the stone sang. “I am lonely.”
    I shook the thoughts away and set the hunk of rough with three other stones on the table. Each had been cleaved from the same mother rock, though the others showed darker, oval shadings on one side. Their power held a fragrance, an incredible flavor, like lilac blooms, nutmeg, hyssop, something I could almost taste. It was like, yet unlike, mage-heat.
    Suddenly Lolo was in my mind, her voice shocking me awake. She hadn’t been in my mind since I was fourteen, when all the mages in Enclave had been there as well. “What you got, gurl?” she cried. “I feelin’ power. C’est trop. Ça c’est de trop. Dem angels, dey hear! Ge’ away from there. Run!” Instead I caressed the double-fist-sized hunks of stone, lifting each for inspection, seeing less with my eyes than with mage-sense.
    â€œDanger, dis. Run, gurl!” I blocked out Lolo’s warning. She wasn’t here. She didn’t see, didn’t feel this ecstasy, this rapture. She wasn’t a stone mage. She couldn’t understand. Vaguely, I knew I hadn’t been able to block voices when I was fourteen. No mage should be able to hear another a thousand miles away. This was new. But that thought too slid away.
    â€œThere are more boxes in the hallway outside the stockroom,” I said, my tongue feeling thick and flaccid. “You might want to check them out.”
    In what seemed only a second, two more boxes were on the workbench, hammer and chisel ringing as they were opened. Power flowed from them.
    â€œWhat’s wrong with her?”
    â€œLooks like she’s having an intimate psychic rendezvous with that rock. Seraph struck, angel awed by a boulder.”
    I didn’t know who had spoken, but the words brought me back from the faraway place the stone had taken me. This was the danger Lolo spoke of, that I could be swept away and consumed. I forced the silly smile off my lips as I fought for a sensible reply. And then that still, small part of me, safe in the back of my mind, unfolded with words, clear and concise, as if planted in my mind by another, but generated by years of familiarity with stone and with running the shop. Logic. Business.
    â€œJust trying to figure out how many focal stones I could get out of this if it was cut free-form, and how much more profit we could make if we sent it off to be faceted.” I stroked the stone, warm against my palm. “We’d lose carat weight but gain value if we sent it off.”
    â€œIf it’s gem quality,” Jacey said.
    â€œIt’s gem quality. I know it.” I held a rock from another box up to the light. Their pulsing energies had achieved a harmony once the stones were close together again. They whispered and sang. I held the stone to my nose and sniffed, but the fragrance wasn’t physical, not something my nose could sense. Not something humans could detect.
    â€œHere’s a letter,” Audric said, “in with these papers.” His voice was the mellow tone of an ancient brass church gong. He handed a slim packet to Rupert. My best friend brushed off the