Page 9 of Spells of Shadow and Blood

I outstretched my right hand toward her, and she grasped it. Cirilla moved her right hand to clasp my shoulder, and when she did, a shock of magic coursed through me.

And it was like nothing I had ever felt before.

It was…exhilarating.

Intoxicating.

I relished the power as it ran through me, my back arching, my feet lifting off the floor. My head was thrown back, my eyes falling closed as it coursed through my blood inside of me. I had never experienced something so incredible in my entire life.

“Chant with us,” Persephone instructed.

I peeled my eyes open once more to see Cirilla’s hand not currently clasped on my shoulder any longer, but grasping a knife off the table. She held it out to Persephone’s open palm, the one not currently in mine, and cut her open with a brutal slash.

Blood welled to the surface quickly, pouring forth and spilling over her palm, coating the chest of the man below. She pressed her bloody palm to his heart, right between the opened buttons of his tunic.

Cirilla’s endless black eyes snapped to mine. “Chant.”

I nodded, chanting along with them.

“Hoc sanguine resurget.”

“Hoc sanguine resurget.”

“Hoc sanguine resurget.”

As we chanted, the energy that had filled me began to pass through me, out of my core and fueling out toward my hand. I could sense the magic passing from me into the man beneath my palm.

“Wait—” I protested, a hollow sensation welling in my core as the magic passed through me. Left me.

I felt…empty. Lonely. As if a void had been left behind.

As if I had never been alive before this…I was only alive now that I had tastedthatmagic. And if I didn’t taste it again, I would simply die.

“You’ll have more soon enough, girl,” Cirilla ground out.

She had never spoken to me so…coldly before.

I nodded in response, swallowing down the anxiety that simmered inside of me as the magic passed through me like a funnel.

The chanting changed, and I continued to murmur the words alongside the two women.

“Cor nondum infectus.”

“Cor nondum infectus.”

“Cor nondum infectus.”

It hadn’t occurred to me, exactly, what we were doing. Not until the eyes of the man before us peeled opened, and they too, were black. He gasped, his back arching off the table as he took a big, gulping breath. My hand fell back to my side in surprise as I stepped back.

My mouth fell open in shock.

“This is necromancy.” The words escaped me before I even had a chance to think about holding them back.

Cirilla’s head snapped toward me in a mechanical manner. “Yes.”

Who was this man we had resurrected? Who was he to Cirilla? I had no idea that therewasa spell in the Grishina grimoire for necromancy. But then again, I couldn’t read half the spells. I was marginal at reading Latin, but getting better with each lesson.

Cirilla moved forward to embrace the man, and he held her fiercely against his chest. Persephone reached out a hand to clasp around his shoulder.

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