Page 78 of Their Blood Rite

But that is what magic is. Taking energy from one place and making it something better for something else. Making fruit ripen. Flowers bloom. Soil fertile. Healing what is sick. Fixing what is broken.

When I open my eyes, the gash on its side closes, and on shaky legs, it stumbles upright. The baby leans in, its forehead meeting mine in unspoken thanks, before bounding away and becoming lost to the endless trees surrounding us.

The fawn was healed, and I’m left all the weaker for it.

But that’s ok.

That’s what earth magic is for.

Balance. Nurturing. Health and life.

The exact opposite of blood magic. If I had drained that creature, I would be strong. My powers remarkable.

But the fawn would be dead. And my soul all the blacker for it.

I carry on, telling myself I am an earth witch. Not a blood witch. I choose what I am. When I can, at least. They will use my powers if they have a need for them. But I will not choose it. In the same way I will not choose to end up in their cells if I can help it. Or get torn apart by a banshee.

Or broken by the three warlords and their strange habits.

I wonder what the banshee meant by saying Archie was the one she believed would end me. Shaw delivered a similar warning, stating Archie doesn’t know his limits. Nor anyone else's.

Strange, because out of the three, I’d be more inclined to trust the wolf than the shadow master or the dream walker.

But, then again, I'm a terrible judge of character. I was to marry Cole, after all. And he was arse fucking my best friend behind my back the whole time.

I continue to walk. The sun is warm. The air is clean. My fingertips dance in the long grass. They caress tree trunks. Glide across rocks and sink into moss. I listen to the wind making the wilderness dance. I smile at the chorus of insects and birds. I’m home out here. No mirrors. No locked doors. Just me and the world.

I think on my Kindred. Damn my brain, constantly reminding me of the shit I would rather forget.

I reanimated a dead cat.

Does that mean I can do that? Bring back the dead? I heard stories of necromancy from the war. Blood witches reanimated hundreds of the dead to fight for them. They couldn’t be stopped easily, seeing as they were already dead and all.

My fingers trace where the dark marks of the Kindred should be if not for the glamour. Mirrors and I have never really mixed. The shadows have always been there, lurking.

I have never seen a dark mirror before. A window into the beyond, I heard someone say once. I can’t remember who. But the shadows have been there since I was a child. So the scar and the markings have been there, too. Hidden from sight.

Death seems to be my Kindred.

Necromancy and communing with lost souls.

Great. Because nothing bad ever happens when you play with dead things.

I should ask the guys if I can see if I have an Earth Kindred, too.

I did connect to the Earth Coven, after all.

Bile rises in my throat as soon as I think of that night. Of my hand over the fire. Of the look on Cole’s face when my blood reacted to the flames. My pulse quickens, and I feel sick to my stomach. I put my head between my knees to stop the world from spinning.

Cut. Cut. Cut.

My skin stings over the places they all sliced me. My thighs press together at the memory of that blade. And rage pounds inside me as I see my father run away and Cole look me dead in the eye as he bent Thalia over.

For some reason, I grip the silver chain around my neck and pull it tight, forcing it to pinch my skin until it hurts. Until I struggle to breathe.

Pain.

That’s real.

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