Page 61 of Her Blood Revenge

The cell door slams shut, and I return my focus to Sinthia.

‘I bet you know, don’t you? Where Neve is hiding. What she’s planning.’ I take another step closer. My snake wraps tightly around my wrist and looks at me, shaking her head. Now I know why my arm hurt. She’s left welts on my skin from where she tried to rouse me. ‘I’m a necromancer,’ I remind her. ‘Talking to the dead is what I’m made for. If it’s too much, I’ll let go.’

I bite my palm, freeing my blood, and rest my hand on Sinthia’s temple.

Exhaling, I grip onto the tendril of power I feel between us, like a string on which I pull. Pulling it opens the floodgates of darkness, and the same sensation I had the last time explodes inside me now. My chest becomes tight. My head thrums with pumping blood. And strength fills every single cell and atom of me.

Euphoric isn’t close to describing it. The rush. The strength.

‘Speak.’

Her hand twitches, and thin red veins slither from her neck and connect to her head, pulling it back onto her body. As soon as they’re reconnected, her eyes open, and she lets out a raspy, hollow breath. Sinthia blinks asshe looks around the room before bringing her lifeless grey gaze up to me standing over her.

She smiles.

‘Baby blood witch,’ she rasps in a hideous voice. It’s strange how demonic and playful it sounds. Like a monstrous child from the pits of Hell. ‘My little niece.’

‘Where is Neve?’

‘I smell my puppy on you.’ She giggles, her fingers clicking as they twitch, fighting the rigor mortis. ‘I want to play with my puppy again.’

‘Where is Neve, Sinthia?’

‘Not in here.’

‘Where would she be hiding? There must be a safe place for you to go. Where is it?’

She groans, struggling to hold her smile and playfulness as I pull the information out of her. She must speak the truth to me. I know that. It’s a part of commanding the dead. I own their bodies and their words.

‘A cottage,’ she whispers, grunting between her words. ‘In the Dark Woods where the birds won’t sing and the sun never rises.’

‘The sun rises everywhere.’

She grimaces, fighting the link between us.

‘How are you doing this?’ she hisses. ‘Why can’t I move?’

‘You do not know?’ I realise. ‘Lift your head, aunt.’

She does, and when she sees her corpse, she starts to scream. I can’t tell if it is anger or despair. Perhaps both.

‘You killed me?’

‘No.Mypuppy did. And then he fucked me inches from your disembowelled corpse.’

Her body twitchesmore. The clicking and grunting echo all around us as she sneers hatefully at me.

‘This cottage. Tell me more on how to find it. Tell me of any enchantments she would have to protect it.’

Her head hits the slab as she tries to sever my connection. But I hold her firmly.

‘Dread fills you if you get too close. Death surrounds it. Old gods watch over it.’

‘Name the town.’

‘The name is long lost.’

I grind my teeth, frustration growing with her incessant fucking riddles. ‘Which direction is it from the castle?’

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