Chapter 25

Iblink open my eyes. Everything is a blurred mess. The night air is cold, and a drizzle falls like mist.

As I get the world back into focus, the shape of the arch is unmistakable. I've spent many hours looking at them in horror. I know it immediately.

Bones.

Death.

I'm at a bone arch, deep in the forest.

I'm on a circular patch of cobbled stone surrounded by dense trees.

I shift. The area is lit with torches, and Archie is busy placing things on the ground.

‘Let me help you. Here.' Dorian kneels beside me and eases me up, holding me upright as I try not to slump.

I look up at him through a heavy blink.

‘Where am I?'

‘It will be okay,' he assures me. ‘Honestly, Ashe. It will hurt for a minute, and then everything will be okay.'

‘What will hurt?' I ask.

A circle has been drawn on the floor. A circle drawn in blood. I see it glimmering beneath the light of the candles and the moon. Around it, Archie is placing blood-soaked items, and Shaw is hammering nails into the palms of the last of four men, securing him to the outskirts of the circle. They all scream and sob, unable to break free. Their blood spills onto the cobbles.

Blood that hums and sings.

I don't know the men, but I know they're witches.

One wears orange.

One wears blue.

One wears silver.

The fourth wears green.

There's a member of every coven impaled to my blood circle.

My gaze falls on the still-beating heart ahead of me.

Father.

Badum. Badum. Badum.

Next placed on the circle are a pair of eyes. They dart left to right, looking all around.

Gideon LeSaint. My coven Leader.

Next to them are a pair of twitching hands.

Kieran.

Then, a wagging tongue.

Thalia.

I try to sit under my own strength. Dorian only releases me when I manage to.

‘It's almost time,' Shaw calls, gazing at the sky.

Above us, a star shoots across the sky. Then another and another.

‘Dorian. Dorian, please. Don't make me do this, I'm begging you. I'll stay. You can feed from me whenever you like.'

He releases the bindings around my wrists, and I take the chance to run.

Foolish.

He grabs me around the waist before I've even got to my feet and holds me close as I kick and scream, begging for someone to help me.

‘Stop struggling,' he warns in my ear, holding me to his chest. The claim mark burns, and I fall limp in his arms, sobbing desperately.

‘You can keep me,' I cry. ‘I won't fight. I won't struggle. I'll be yours, just like I was.'

‘You won't. You'll run.'

‘I DON'T WANT TO BE A MONSTER!' I cry, screaming my words through sobs. ‘You can fuck me. Bite me. I'll be good. Please. Please don't make me do this!'

He turns me and looks down, watching me through sad eyes.

‘I'll be your whore,' I try, my lip quivering. ‘Just let me keep my soul. I am begging you, Shadow Master.'

His forehead rests against mine, and he lets out a long exhale.

‘Please forgive me,' he says. My mark burns. ‘Stay in the circle.'

He lets go and steps beyond the blood circle, standing between Shaw and Archie. They all watch me.

‘Pick up the grimoire, Pixie,' Shaw commands, his claim mark burning. ‘And read. Don't stop until the spell is done.'

His order has me held. I take the blood coven's grimoire in hand.

‘I'm not even strong enough to use this!' I argue, still crying and even more desperate. ‘Using a Grimoire takes power I don't have.'

‘You are communing with spirits and reanimating the dead. You have two Kindreds. You're an extremely powerful blood witch,' Shaw corrects. ‘Now. Read.'

Around the circle, the stolen body parts move quickly. Like they know what's coming. The eyes look all around. The tongue flips and rolls. The heart hammers harder.

They're afraid. I can feel their fear. My father. My old friend.

I feel Kieran's fear. He doesn't deserve any of this.

‘Read,' Shaw repeats. ‘Please don't make me trigger you.'

I read and hope that I'm right. That nothing will happen. That I'm not powerful enough to command a Grimoire.

‘Blood of my blood. Blood of my enemy. Taken beneath the stars, I summon.'

The power hits me in an instant. The darkest of magic. The most unnatural and fierce. I throw my head back and scream as black sparks erupt over my skin.

The four witches scream as their blood pours from the holes in their hands. It comes to me, a river of red, and pools at my feet. More power. More strength. I'm consumed by it.

Their blood, their life, I'm taking it to fuel this spell.

I'm killing them.

I force myself to keep reading, sobbing in pain and shaking all over.

‘Hear me!' I cry, forcing the words through the agony. ‘I command thee. Accept these offerings. Eyes of the witness who ordered death.'

My coven leader's eyes spin wildly. The man who sentenced me to die.

‘Tongue of the betrayer.'

Thalia's tongue flops from side to side. My best friend, who went behind my back with Cole.

‘Hands of a spurned lover.'

Kieran's fingers twitch.

‘Heart of the one who betrayed my love.'

My father. Abuser. Manipulator. The one who fled when he was supposed to protect me. Who beat me and sold me.

Badum. Badum. Badum.

My hand reaches towards the arch of bones before me as if yanked by an invisible force. I try to lower it but can't. Three skulls shoot through the air and hover over the three organs.

Compelled, I carry on reading. More bones erupt from the endless heap. Legs. Hands. Spines. Ribs.

I'm trembling as I command this twisted power, and I know that the energy of the murdered witches whose organs rest before me will fuel it.

Just as the four witches now lying in a weak huddle do.

Just as I would burn in the fire of The Rite, forever aflame as my power fuels the coven who condemned me, these souls will forever fuel this spell. I'm condemning them. Draining their essence and power.

They will never rest.

‘I command thee,' I push on, every word agony as my body struggles to contain this magic. ‘Mistress of darkness and death. Hel, of whom we serve. Our mother in the nothing. Return what was taken…' Everything inside me stills as I read the following words. As I realise what this spell truly is. I look up from the book to the three skulls. ‘Let…' I say, my words trembling. ‘Let them cross over…'

I scream as I'm thrown onto my back by nothing at all. I feel my chest constrict. Blood fills my mouth as my insides compress. I jolt as something inside snaps, and thick blood falls from my lips.

The forest disappears, and I'm now beneath a burning sun in the middle of a summer heat. I lie atop a stage, chained to the ground, surrounded by cheering and applauding.

Dorian stands over me, holding a large slab of stone. It shimmers like the anti-magic cuff placed on me at the palace.

On my body are two more slabs of stone, crushing me.

He places his third slab and watches with cold eyes as I scream.

I try to talk, but I can't.

He places another. And another.

He never stops watching as I slowly, so slowly, die.

‘More weight. I beg of thee. More weight!' I cry.

Each word from my mouth is a strained wheeze.

‘I have no intention of making this easy for you,' he replies.

Hours pass. Days. Another stone. I scream as more bones inside me break.

Three days and I live it all as she did. My bones break. My organs pop.

I die slowly… For three whole days.

When the death-delivering stone falls and my chest collapses, filling my mouth with thick blood, I return to the forest. To the arch of bones. I'm still on the floor. The moon is still high.

Moments have passed here, but for me, it's been three days of torture. I'm so tired. So hungry and thirsty. Pain is all I know. I longed for death and it came. Now I'm alive again. My heart breaks.

My bones click and grind, and sweet air fills my body as I heal. I went through what she went through. I died how she died.

How Dorian murdered her.

‘You'll heal. I promise,' Archie says desperately. ‘You can do this. I know you can do this. Keep speaking the spell.'

I look at the book lying beside me. If I don't read, he'll trigger me.

‘I c-command thee,' I whimper. ‘Mistress of darkness and death. Hel, of whom w-we serve. Our mother in the nothing. Return what was taken. Let them cross.'

I lift from the ground, struggling against an invisible noose.

The forest is gone. It's dawn. Rain falls, and grey clouds swarm the sky. I'm atop the gallows with a rope around my neck, my feet twitch and kick.

Archie looks up at me, smiling at me with his hands in his pockets.

I hang for hours, slowly choking as I dangle from the rope.

I can't breathe. I can't think.

My eyes bulge, and my tongue swells. I feel my blood vessels pop.

Archie steps closer and sighs with relief as I finally die.

I jolt, and I'm back in the forest.

‘You're almost there,' Shaw calls over. ‘I'm sorry,' he says sadly. ‘We will make this right. I promise you.'

‘Y-you said it would only be a m-moment of pain,' I cry, rolling onto my side.

‘It's been a moment. One more to go,' he comforts. ‘Be brave. You can do this.'

To him, it's been a moment.

Not to me.

‘Keep reading, Ashe,' he says.

‘I c-command thee,' I whimper. ‘Mistress of darkness and death. Hel, of whom w-we serve. Our mother in the nothing. Return what was taken. Let them cross.'

My arms rise above my head, and I'm lifted again from the ground. The invisible rope is not around my neck but my wrists. I hang there, seeing the guys look up at me.

Lightning flashes, and I'm here, but in a different time. I'm naked and tied to a cross, looking at Shaw as a storm rages in the distance.

He has a blade in his hand.

‘I sentence you to die,' he says. ‘In a manner befitting your kind.'

Cut.

I scream.

Cut.

My skin breaks, and my blood flows. It trickles down my legs and drips onto the floor.

Cut. Cut. Cut.

Shaw's face splatters with blood as he slices me over and over, counting with each one. He takes regular rests, stopping to drink wine and watch me bleed.

Cut. Cut. Cut.

The sun sets.

Cut. Cut. Cut.

The sun rises.

My face burns as the knife drags down my cheek. Blinking tears from my eyes, he cuts my legs.

‘Two hundred,' he says. ‘Two hundred and one.'

The sun sets.

‘Two hundred and fifty three.'

The sun rises.

Shaw steps forward as I blink him into focus. The blade rests at my throat.

‘Three hundred.'

Cut.

My eyes close, and the last thing I see is him smiling.

Back in the forest, I crumple to the ground in a motionless heap. I have every cut still on my skin, seeping copious amounts of blood through my clothes.

Blinking blood and tears from my eyes, I look up at the stars still shooting overhead.

Let me die.

Please… let me die.

I explode in power. My entire being is torn apart from the inside. All I can do is throw my head back and let it happen. Let myself be shredded.

Let myself die.

Let this end… Please…