Slowly, my sight returns, but there’s little true relief when the hits continue. Most land on my lower back, carving into my skin and scalding my flesh.

Selene! Memnon bellows.

I’m fine.

I fucking hate that word, the sorcerer spits out. Hold fast, fierce queen. I’m nearly there.

Blood is dripping from many, many wounds. For a moment, I don’t know where I am, when I am. This feels like old battles and ruthless enemies.

I draw in an unsteady breath, my hands slipping from Nero, my fingers digging into the blood-soaked soil as the hits continue to rain on me.

Vengeance. The word whispers in my ear—now in English, now in Latin, now in Sarmatian.

There are primordial things deep beneath the ground. Things that hunger for blood and chaos. Things I once made a pact with.

You can have my help again, the deep earth whispers.

This is the part of cursework and blood magic they don’t talk about in the coven—how the darkness sometimes speaks with you if you wake it. If you beckon it.

“Wi’manvus sisapsa bowad bodit, dubtup san est iv'tav’ap,” I say slowly. Devour my spilled blood, feast on my pain. My hands tighten around the wet earth. “Do ligohutnutsa batwad wuvknusava xu onut pesasava va’ukudapsa kav sanvasa.” Tear into these witches, and let them feel my wrath.

Along my skin, I hear the hiss of boiling blood and I smell the acrid, burnt edge of it.

Whoever was listening to my plea, they answered. Power races up from the earth, into my palms. No sooner has it entered my system, however, than it pours back out of me, the cast curse streaming toward my assailants.

My magic strikes them so hard they’re blown back by the force of it. Seconds later, their screams start up, agonized and terrified.

I rise, my body feeling like one open, festering wound. I push the pain away, staring down the witches. One of them is already back on her feet. Another two are rising. The others are still screaming on the ground, curling in on themselves.

I stare at them, this growing, seething anger demanding I stop hearts and snap necks.

“Run!” one of the witches shouts.

Those who can run begin to flee into the forest, but the orbs of light above them now bob along overhead like their own personal spotlights. It makes them easy targets.

One of the remaining women is bleeding. Without thinking, I let my power reach for that blood. I’ve done this so many times in the deep past that it’s second nature. Power roars through my veins. It feels tainted with my own darkness.

Right now, I don’t care.

I don’t speak. I don’t form a spell. I simply drag my fingers through the air, my intention forming itself into my magic. I can see oily black streaks in the pale orange magic as the curses barrel across the forest and strike the fleeing witches. I see each of them go down, their cries echoing in the night air.

There are still two witches lying nearby.

They attacked my familiar. They tried to end his life.

Moving over to the witch nearest me, I place my boot on her neck.

I don’t know whether it’s Memnon’s power or my own, but my hair is rippling as my magic gathers. I can feel old, dark things in the ground, things that reach and claw for the surface.

I lift my chin even as I stare down at the witch, her freckled face illuminated by her blue witch’s orb above us.

I recognize her, I realize with a start. She lives on my floor. I’ve shared meals with her, passed by her in the communal bathrooms. She’s an acquaintance. It makes this situation so much worse.

“The earth hungers for your life,” I say softly, almost in a trance. “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t let it eat you alive.”

As I speak, the soil shifts beneath the witch, as though it’s already eager to get a taste.

The woman lifts her hands, and I can see pale turquoise magic gathering there. All it takes is a little push of my magic, and the ground shifts, dragging the witch’s arms into its dark embrace.

The witch cries out, struggling now against both me and the earth. But her hands are pinned, and the more she struggles, the deeper she sinks into the earth.

I dig my heel into her throat. “Why were you attacking my familiar?”

She chokes out a scream, fighting against me.

“Why?” I press.

When she says nothing again, I funnel my magic into the earth, letting a little more of it swallow her up.

The witch makes a strangled noise before gasping out, “I…can’t…talk about it.”

I frown down at her. Lauren, the instructor, said something similar when Memnon questioned her.

“She wants you,” she adds, which is about the least helpful piece of information she could give me. I already know this—people are leaving me threatening notes and attacking my familiar. What I want to know is⁠—

“Who?”

“Lia,” she finally chokes out.

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CHAPTER 23

Lia. I remember that name. It’s the same woman who’s been coordinating the spell circles and forcibly binding witches.

A burst of magic hisses through the air. The moment it hits the ground, it explodes, throwing me off the witch and into a nearby tree trunk. I grunt as all my cursed wounds scream.

Another spell hits me, this one carving open my chest. I gasp as blood spills from me.

“Fuck you.” The witch who strides up to me is petite, with cropped, curly black hair.

“Yasmin?” I say softly.

Only last night, we’d been drinking and chatting together. I considered her a friend. And last I saw of her, she had made plans to hunt down the fae rider.

I can’t reconcile that woman with this one, who helped torture an animal.

“Help!” the half-buried witch calls out.

While I bleed out, Yasmin turns from me and pulls the other witch from the ground.

I begin to stand, my magic gathering. Yasmin glares at me as she helps the other witch to her feet, then lobs another curse at me. I don’t dodge quick enough, and the spell hits me in the forehead, knocking me out.

My queen. My queen, you must wake.

I rouse at the panic-laced notes of Memnon’s voice.

I blink, and Memnon’s dark form takes shape in front of me. I stare at him for a moment, searching his gaze. Pain muddles my thoughts. I’m cold. Tired.

His hands cup my cheeks, and his eyes glow.

I shiver. The chilly night feels like it’s burrowed itself in my bones.

Abruptly, the air around me warms, and I’m certain Memnon is responsible for it. Beneath his palms, magic seeps into me, drifting through my body and driving out the cold. As it moves through me, it stitches together torn flesh.

I look dazedly around.

Nero. Where’s Nero?

He’s alive, my queen, Memnon says. There is heartbreak in those burning eyes. But you are battle-battered. He says this lightly, using the same tone he takes with badly wounded soldiers.

I’m fine, I insist, trying to get up. Only now that adrenaline and outrage aren’t fueling me, my body has given out almost entirely.

Memnon’s thumb strokes my cheek from where he cups it. You’ve lost a lot of blood. Too much. You need to rest.

I can’t. My eyes move to the darkened forest where the witches fled. Where Yasmin⁠—

His gaze follows mine.

Memnon turns back to me. “Where are they?” His voice carries a dark, lethal note to it.

The witches, he means.

“They ran,” I say hoarsely.

“I’ll find them,” he says menacingly. I remember that menace in all its horrific glory. The fields of dead soldiers, the blood he sometimes wore like a second skin.

Memnon rises, the shadows catching on that scar of his. But it’s his eyes that are the most sinister. They still glow like dying embers, and though I know it’s only his magic that makes his irises smolder like that, the effect is downright villainous.