Page 53 of Rose and Shadows
That wasn’t fucking happening.
I twisted my right hand and guided my frost from the top of the circle, spreading it straight down toward the vial.
As soon as it touched it, the vial tipped, and then my frost was there swirling around the blood, infusing with it.
As that held steady, I released my frost magic, then swept my purple Dark Fae power across my palms, drawing blood, grunting at the searing pain of it as I cut deep. My blood needed to continue to flow throughout the entirety of the spell.
I turned my palms upward, blood dripping down into the circle and making a sharp hissing sound—a sign the spell had been initialized proficiently.
And then I called my shadows, drawing hard, until they were swirling around the inside of the circle within moments.
The hissing increased in volume and frequency.
My frost spread, filling the inside of the circle, bit by bit.
Sparks went off in the air within the confines of the frosted circumference.
Those sparks were everything—they meant they’d latched onto Victor’s essence.
When a vampire was created, upon their death in their human form, there was something left behind in the Valley of the Dead—trace aspects of their being when they had been in the state between death and life. Undead life, also known as the vampiric condition.
With my Wraith side, I had the ability to walk among the dead through my shadows, an ability, unlike before when my brother killed me and Sylas had to pull me out and back to life, I had to invoke while I was living—something I had to control.
But with me having touched the Valley so recently, I couldn’t risk even trying to invoke that in thenormalsense without now being pulled in and having the spirits there overriding my will and autonomy even as Wraith. And there was no way I was going to risk my men like that, or put them through anything like that again.
So, instead, I was going to astral project into the Valley of the Dead, using Victor’s blood to access his trace essence, which I could then use to connect to his vampiric form in the land of the living, his current state of being. It wouldn’t just connect, it would lead me straight to him.
The only issue was—and, yeah, it was a big one—while I was astral projecting into the Valley, the moment I found that essence, I needed a way to grab hold of it and pull it out.
To avoid dying by reaching in myself, I needed to use black magic in order to override metaphysical law briefly that would allow me to pull that through without being harmed.
My shadows swirled around like a tornado of black and deep gray smoke, growing in height and potency, thickening, and reinforcing.
Victor’s blood started boiling, cracking the hold of my frost, but I gritted my teeth and constrained it with more.
The sparks threatened to compromise my vision, like a mixture of the disorientating sight of flash lightning and strobe lights.
I held steady—as if I was gonna let a freaky magical lightshow and boiling blood scare me. Not when Lazriel’s wellbeing and that of our foursome by extension was on the line.
A translucent haze materialized right in front of me, an oval-shaped almost-portal.
I was about to close my eyes and take the invitation to allow my mind through to the Valley.
But then black tendrils began oozing from my blood that continued to drip inside the circle.
A gasp escaped me as they headed straight for me, then even rose up off the ground, seeking the wounds in my palms.
Black magic.
It was trying to seep into me.
I gathered my power and tried to ease its pace, to control it, but it wouldn’t allow the restriction.
It wanted to call the shots.
It wanted to rule me.
I knew it had to touch me for me to be able to invoke it, so I could override metaphysical law to get what I needed, but ifthat happened when it had complete control, it could take me. It could dominate and rule me—and not just during the spell.
