Emily never knew how difficult it was to draw intricate lines in blood with someone screaming in pain right next to you.

Since they had to do this the old-fashioned way, Emily was left painting lines of crimson onto the stone tiles. They had chosen to do this as far away from everyone else as they could get, not that any would come closer to inspect anyway. This type of magic was the most ritualistic blood magic one could get.

Chanting over a sacrificial altar with a dagger had nothing on this magic, and while Emily's abilities could offer some help, they would not be the main contributor. She even had to go so far as to paint the lines by hand–something about the act of preparing the ritual helped it garner strength.

Ashe devised a modified ritual designed to purify life—extracting it from the body, cleansing it, and then restoring it to a purer form. However, instead of targeting Seila's life source, she altered the ritual to focus on her curse.

At the precise moment of transfer, they would flood it with a surge of source energy, diluting and hopefully dispersing the spell.

The risks, however, were significant. If Emily miscalculated, she could inadvertently strengthen the curse—the worst possible outcome. And if she truly botched the ritual, the curse could lash out at her or someone nearby

Seila let out another cry of anguish, and Emily grunted at its suddenness, which caused the line to skew.

"Oh, shit! Would someone please make her be quiet?" Emily growled.

There were not many people around them right now, just Ashe, Nox, Kael, Alex, and Selia herself.

Yishmal had already given her something for the pain, but it didn't seem to have any effect. Emily was never the most delicate person, so drawing extremely intricate runes while surrounded by screaming just made things harder.

Ashe was doing her half admirably, but Emily had never been the artsy type.

"I've got it, don't worry," Kael said from beside her as he took hold of the woman's hand and began whispering in her ear. Silence descended and Emily sighed in relief.

Selia was sweating profusely, despite the chamber being the coolest place they had been in days. She wore little to cover her body, and only now did Emily see just how far the curse had progressed. A complex network of black veins spread across her entire body, and the flesh above her heart and shoulder looked necrotized where the attack had initaly landed.

Since Emily had met the woman she had always been a quiet, yet powerful presence in the Wandering Fangs.

She had a tall stature and while she didn't hold a direct leader position everyone seemed to respect her.

Now though her frame looked so small. Her muscles had atrophied in the last week making it look like she had suffered for months.

The biggest surprise –at least as far as the Healer was concerned– was how fast the curse was progressing. What should have taken over a month was already reaching its final stages in under a week. That's when Emily realized the Blood Mage had been connected to her when they had attacked Selia.

Some of her life force might have been used to fuel the spell which only caused Emily's frown to deepen.

Pushing the thoughts from her head she focused on the ritual circle and her part in this. Drawing the lines as best she could using Scarlet sister's guidance. Alex came up beside her and sat down.

"Emily relax, your lines are too rigid, let them flow."

Frowning she glanced at Alex and saw a calm in his eye that helped her concentrate. It wasn't that Emily was nervous, but her education on this kind of magic was shallow at best, and she didn't want to let Ashe down.

Nodding to the man, Emily slowed her pace to a crawl and focused on the runes she was drawing from memory.

By the time she was almost done she saw Ashe connecting their portions.

"Emily I'm ready on this side, I need to make the last rune on you."

Emily nodded and moved around to her as Kael moved Selia into the circle.

When Ashe got you her, her hands were shaking as she drew a small dagger.

Clutching it in her hands tightly she pressed the tip to the inside of Emily's left forearm.

Willingly letting herself be cut was not something Emily was accustomed to but she lessened Tested Flesh as much as she could in that area.

The blade carved a rune into her flesh pulling a grunt from Emily's lips.

Emily kept the blood from running down her arm and Ashe looked up from the wound.

"Emily, you can do this. Please, I'll give you whatever you want after this. Just please succeed" said her voice getting quieter by the second.

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Emily couldn't pull her eyes away from the woman.

"I told you I'd help. But if you're offering, please continue teaching me magic, it's been fun." Emily said a smile breaking out on her face.

With that Emily stepped into her half of the circle. The ward on the floor was split into two three sections. The first half Selia now lay in, the second Emily had just stepped into, and finally the third was a small circle in the center that remained empty.

The amazing thing about this spell was that it did not require much energy to get going but it had to be life source. So Emily shaved off the smallest amount of power from her chest and moved it to the rune engraved on her arm.

On sooner had she done thins than the rune began to glow and the wound began to weep blood.

She could feel the ward below her awaken as it began to glow too.

There were distant gasps as people watched the ritual from a far but Emily didn't have time for them right now, she had to begin the first gestures.

Glancing at Ashe and Alex once more, Emily turned to look at Selia who lay trembling on the ground.

Kael wore a look of concern as he sat at the edge of the circle near Selia.

There was a low keening hum that began to spread out from the ward and Emily knew it was time. Right away she moved both her hands into the first gesture and sent another pulse of vitality into the ritual.

Moving to the next one she copied the wave of source, and repeated the process.

The next ten series of gestures each got their own sliver of power buried in them, but if Emily were to total it the amount of power she'd used was less than a single life.

It was only because of her high degree of control that she could be so exact with this portion of the ritual.

With each pulse of energy, there was a corresponding pulse growing in the circle below, especially near Selia.

Then the woman suddenly became more animated. She lunged up to her hands and knees and retched.

The sounds filled the cavernous chamber as she finally let out a stream of black bile onto the floor.

Emily frowned in disgust but kept moving through the gestures.

The blackened bile slashed onto the floor and quivered like it had a mind of its own. It reached up toward Selia as though trying to get back to her but the ritual wasn't done.

It pulsed once more and the black sludge began to drift up from the floor and into the center of the ritual.

It drifted there in the middle portion of the circle.

Seeing the first part was stable Emily moved into the second half of the gestures. This was the part that Emily had only just received, luckily they weren't particularly different from the first set.

Emily moved through them until their black sludge began to condense into a dodecagon shape. Even now, it still tried to escape but Emily moved to the final portion of their ritual.

She called to her bridge and threw it open, pulling in all the power her three bridges could handle.

There was a sudden shift in the room airflow as source poured into Emily at an incredible rate.

Then like she was powering an item Emily poured the second form of energy into the ward. The results were better than she could have hoped for. The ward readily drank in the source and life source. Focusing on the center of the ritual where the curse now sat.

There was a shift inside as the curse bubble roiled like liquid. Then Emily began to see the blackened substance turn, trembling in joy as it grew in strength, and then in despair as it turned grey. Near the outer edges, it even became as clear as fresh stream water.

Through the ritual, Emily could feel the curse indirectly as it searched for a host but was unable to move from the ritual's grasp.

The more grey source Emily forced into the center the fainter the curse became, unable to absorb all her source and getting lost amongst the power. The ritual was unable to kill the curse or even weaken it, but it could dilute it in so much source that the spell couldn't affect anyone anymore.

Emily pumped power into the curse until there wasn't a hint of black residing in the dodecagon. When she was certain there was no sign of the spell anymore Emily sighed in relief and moved to the closing sequence.

The moment she did she realized something was wrong and moved to repeat the gestures.

The final few gestures were supposed to release the curse out into the open air and allow it to be carried away by the grey source. The problem was, to make sure the curse was completely dispersed, Emily had needed to pump a lot of power into the ritual. And as far as she could tell the pressure that had been built up was preventing the spell from releasing. Grunting Emily closed her bridges and cut off the flow but she was still unable to release it and it was beginning to move back toward Selia.

"Um, Ashe! Something's gone wrong it won't release!"

Emily grunted as she pulled on the source but got little to no response. The ritual Ashe had designed this one after had to return the life to its original owner. And seeing as she'd not had time to modify it all that much it still held that function.

So now all the source Emily had just moved into the curse was traveling back towards Seila.

If that amount of power entered her body now, it would rip her apart from the inside.

When Ashe heard her call she didn't hesitate, she moved into the ritual space and made some hand gestures of her own but there was no outward change.

Growling Emily turned to look at what was left of the curse. She could still pull the grey source out of there, but then it would just go back to its previous state and they would have achieved nothing.

Unfortunately, that was starting to look like the best option, at least then Seila would live and they would have time to make adjustments.

Emily was about to try this when Ashe called out to Kael.

"Pull her out of the circle on my command!"

Emily's eyes had widened because before this Ashe had stressed that pulling her out of the circle was not to be tried or they would both suffer.

Then Ashe drew her knife and stepped into the circle, engraving a rune on her own arm. As soon as it was done she gave the signal and Kael ripped the unconscious woman from the circle.

Emily's eyes widened as she realized what Ashe was trying to do.

The rune on her arm was an intake rune. She was attempting to transfer the curse onto herself.

Guided by the rune, the ritual homed in on Ashe with finality

"Ashe, what are you doing, you can't!" Emily strained against the power of the spell, but it was useless at this stage.

The dodecagon slammed into Ashe's chest with the force of a kicking mule.

She didn't even scream as she went flying out of the ritual like a kite with it sting cut. The glow vanished and Emily was left reeling from the lash back.

Alex moved to intercept her path and caught her out of the air causing the two to go flying backward, but he managed to stop her momentum by collapsing to the floor.

Emily regained her balance and moved toward Alex, who had pressed the back of his hand to Ashe's mouth.

He looked up at her, his eyes distant, hollow.

"She's not breathing..."

Emily froze mid-step as she looked at Ashe's still body.

A slow, seething heat rose from the pit of her stomach, twisting around her ribs like a thorned vine. Her breath came shallow, sharp. Then, with a deliberate step, she resumed her march toward the woman, her eyes glowing red.

"You think I'd let you die after a stunt like that?"

Her voice was ice, cutting through the vaulted chamber. The words slithered into the shadows, filling them with quiet menace.

Blood points: 610

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