Page 156 of Their Blood Rite

I’m killing them.

I force myself to keep reading, sobbing in pain and shaking all over.

‘Hear me!’ I cry, forcing the words through the agony. ‘I command thee. Accept these offerings. Eyes of the witness who ordered death.’

My coven leader's eyes spin wildly. The man who sentenced me to die.

‘Tongue of the betrayer.’

Thalia’s tongue flops from side to side. My best friend, who went behind my back with Cole.

‘Hands of a spurned lover.’

Kieran’s fingers twitch.

‘Heart of the one who betrayed my love.’

My father. Abuser. Manipulator. The one who fled when he was supposed to protect me. Who beat me and sold me.

Badum. Badum. Badum.

My hand reaches towards the arch of bones before me as if yanked by an invisible force. I try to lower it but can’t. Three skulls shoot through the air and hover over the three organs.

Compelled, I carry on reading. More bones erupt from the endless heap. Legs. Hands. Spines. Ribs.

I’m trembling as I command this twisted power, and I know that the energy of the murdered witches whose organs rest before me will fuel it.

Just as the four witches now lying in a weak huddle do.

Just as I would burn in the fire of The Rite, forever aflame as my power fuels the coven who condemned me, these souls will forever fuel this spell. I’m condemning them. Draining their essence and power.

They will never rest.

‘I command thee,’ I push on, every word agony as my body struggles to contain this magic. ‘Mistress of darkness and death. Hel, of whom we serve. Our mother in the nothing. Return what was taken…’ Everything inside me stills as I read the following words. As I realise what this spell truly is. I look up from the book to the three skulls. ‘Let…’ I say, my words trembling. ‘Let them cross over…’

I scream as I’m thrown onto my back by nothing at all. I feel my chest constrict. Blood fills my mouth as my insides compress. I jolt as something inside snaps, and thick blood falls from my lips.

The forest disappears, and I’m now beneath a burning sun in the middle of a summer heat. I lie atop a stage, chained to the ground, surrounded by cheering and applauding.

Dorian stands over me, holding a large slab of stone. It shimmers like the anti-magic cuff placed on me at the palace.

On my body are two more slabs of stone, crushing me.

He places his third slab and watches with cold eyes as I scream.

I try to talk, but I can’t.

He places another. And another.

He never stops watching as I slowly, so slowly, die.

‘More weight. I beg of thee. More weight!’I cry.

Each word from my mouth is a strained wheeze.

‘I have no intention of making this easy for you,’ he replies.

Hours pass. Days. Another stone. I scream as more bones inside me break.

---