Page 167 of Autumn Queens & Shadows

Craft.

Blood craft.

My surroundings grew hazy, blurring and darkening for a brief moment until they grew sharp again, but different this time—the air was dressed in a dark shade of burgundy. In the distance, where Isjordians were watching, at their feet stood my students, laying on the ground, eyes wide and bleeding.

Panic climbed my throat, crawling against my mind as I spun round to see the same thing at where Snow and the rest stood. All bleeding. Sam. Rain, too. Dead. All dead. My sister screaming and crying over their bleeding bodies.

“It’s just craft,” I murmured to myself, over and over. But despite my heart knowing that, my mind didn’t. It sunk, everything sunk under despair. It all sunk inside what I had never allowed my mind to sink against. What I’d always protected my mind from—itself. I suddenly couldn’t dissociate away. It was like someone had grabbed my skull and forced me to look where I didn’t want to look. Every safe place in my mind had been invaded by craft, pulling buried memories and emotions out. Forcing me to feel them all at once. All of it. All at once.

Pain struck against my temples first, travelling further down until it grasped my heart in a firm grip. “No,” I cried, “No, pl—”

My lips pressed together tightly. Remembering I couldn’t beg. I shouldn’t beg.

Every memory returned.

All of them.

Memories I’d buried deep. Deep enough that I couldn’t even remember them happening anymore. Memories, so many of them. Harrowing memories. Mostly of them. Mostly of my brother and sister. Mostly of our father. Then…then of me. Ones I thought my mind had erased.

My body shook.

My voice trapped on my throat as I relived every moment of abuse I’d buried away.

I couldn’t even draw my eyes shut, the darker it was, the clearer I could see them.

Don’t beg, his voice echoed in my head. Scream and cry and bite and scratch, but never beg.

“I won’t,” I whispered.

You’re not me anymore, her young words echoed inside my mind. Not anymore.

I shook my head. “No, I’m not.”

The snowstorm got thick—thick enough to help me disguise what I was about to do. The wind and air grew almost solid, too, engulfing the place in mist.

Forcing my eyes away from my dead sister’s body, I looked at Iskyla. At the woman who’d suddenly grown menacing and terrifying in my craft veiled mind, the woman I was now fearing somehow—my mind working hard to project terror and forbid me from summoning magic.

“What a pretty trick,” I managed to say, my jaw set tightly to stop the trembling, and breathing in until my lungs were swollen with air. And then breathing out as strings of magic spilled from my fingers again.

The Isline queen looked confused, sending looks behind me. “Strike her again”, she bellowed to her sisters, her voice drowned in the snowstorm. “Strike her again. The craft hasn’t taken.”

“It has,” I said, pushing myself to my feet. Tethers of magic grew further, slowly crawling over the ground and air. Hundreds and thousands of them, latching on every limb and drop of blood in her and her sister’s bodies.

The second eldest after Iskyla dropped to her knees, clutching her chest. “Her? Are you fond of her most?”

Iskyla’s eyes grew wide and mad.

Another sister dropped to the ground, screaming and writhing. “Or her?” I asked.

The third followed.

Then the fourth.

Tilting my head, I asked, “Which one do I take first? Or should I make it quick for you and take them all at once?”

Iskyla’s golden stare grew violent as she foolishly ran in my direction.

I let her.