Page 123 of The Witch and His Crow

There was no time for clear thoughts before I attacked.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

All I could think, when I laid eyes on the man who betrayed my family and those he’d sworn to protect, was what Arwyn had told me. Jonathan was the cause of my mother’s death. The letters in Romy’s diary proved it. He had sold her out to the Witch Hunters. There wasn’t room to care why, or wonder about his reasonings.

All my hate, all my anger and disdain came crashing out of me. The viper may not have been sated during the Rewarding, but it would now.

The demon inside of me, the shard Bahmet embedded into me as I grew beside him in my mother’s stomach, was free. The darkness had never felt so prominent.

Knowledge was the greatest power, and I’d come out of the Witch Trials brimming with it.

I jolted forwards, nails outstretched, my Gift striking out like a viper. One witch closest to me slammed into the stone archway, their skull cracking upon impact. I didn’t care for the life lost, not when these people had sent us into the trials knowing what was behind it.

Jonathan didn’t step back. He didn’t even bother to move out the way. His confidence stirred something violent deep inmy gut. It was the type of behaviour exposed by someone who already believed they’d won.

And he had. For now.

Jonathan smiled at me as my body was taken over by the witches around him. In seconds I was back on my knees, arms pinned behind my back, a needle buried deep into my neck as a strong dose of thistlebane was emptied into my blood stream.

‘Ah, ah, ah,’ Jonathan tsked, arms behind his back, his entire demeanour one of calm control. ‘That isn’t the way to act now, is it?’

I gathered phlegm in my mouth and spat it at Jonathan. Without breaking our eye contact, I said the very thing he likely expected. ‘I know what you did. I know who you truly are, Jonathan.’

He titled his head, smiling harder. If it wasn’t for the witches physically restraining me, I would’ve clawed his fucking mouth from his face.

‘I don’t doubt it. Even your mother was far too inquisitive for her own good, and look where that led her. Six feet under the ground. All that power at her disposal and she choose to squander it, bury it. Maybe if she kept Bahmet free, she would’ve been able to save herself.’

A symbol painted behind my eyes. It was as clear as day, so powerful the lines of the symbol were solid and demanding. Although the thistlebane had rendered me powerless, I knew this feeling suggested otherwise.

Old magic. A spark of it still lingered in my bones, just in reach.

There wasn’t a moment to wonder why. Without thinking about the repercussions, before Jonathan could say another word or the twenty-or-so witches around him could hurt me, I grasped onto it, sinking the claws of my mind deep into the heart of the power.

It was like peeling back the skin of a ripe, sweet fruit. Except, Jonathan’s demise would be sweeter.

When I opened my mouth, it wasn’t to reply with words. Fire spilled out of my throat, a wall of boiling of flame. Heat rippled across my skin, a warm kiss of summer. The blast sent the hair off my face, giving me the perfect view of the destruction. I caught the shock in Jonathan’s eyes, the disbelief as the wave of fire met him. It swept out, devouring him whole.

Flesh melted, bones charred, and blood hissed.

Silence reigned around me as everyone witnessed what I did.

By the time the fire dwindled to natural tongues, the room was empty of Jonathan’s presence. Dead, like my parents, like Salem’s parents, like every witch he’d knowingly sent into the Witch Trials as a sacrifice to a dark demon. He deserved this.

It was justice, I told myself.

I stood, looking around at the ruined remains of my true enemy, the old magic dwindling, but close enough if I needed it. Jonathan’s corpse was frozen in his last act, a burned husk oozing grey snakes of smoke as he fell to the ground and shattered.

All the witches around me paused, eyeing me with suspicion. Then, without word, they bowed.

The hands holding me down released me, the witches putting space between us. Out of trepidation and fear as to what I’d do next. What I’d just achieved was impossible with the thistlebane dampening my Gift.

It proved one thing, or at least suggested that I’d come out of the Witch Trials a victor. A perfectly crafted lie, given to me by the master of deceits.

I heard Arwyn’s last words to me.

‘Tell them you won.’

From the way the room bowed at me, it proved I didn’t need to tell them anything of the sort. They made their mind up inthat moment. And if it kept me alive long enough to leave this place, I would make Arwyn proud. This would be my illusion to cast.

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