Page 167 of Serpent and Shadow

I swallowed, my head pounding so badly I could barely see.

Were we all dead? If not now, then by the end of this night?

My mind still felt slow, deadened, when a robed figure knelt next to me. They ran a hand over my magic, murmuring a low incantation.

“Her magic is gravely weakened,” the witch said, her words audibly satisfied. “But she will survive long enough to serve her purpose, my king.” She smiled up at him, her eyes gleaming. “She will definitely last for the duration of the ritual. Longer, if you need her to.”

Malefic seemed to hear the meaning behind her words.

The Anubis head mask tilted down. The eyes glowed redder.

“I will not permit any joining of inferior blood,” he said coldly. “Not in the new world we have suffered for, sister, and worked so hard to create. We will not begin our new legacy with yet more corruption, so I will forget I heard what I just heard.”

“Of course, my king,” the woman said hastily. She made her voice obsequious, bowing her head. “I only worry for your safety, my lord. Forgive my lack of faith.”

I felt my throat close as I envisioned Bones in that dark cell, unknowing while I died on his father’s altar. He’d said before that my death would kill him, and vice versa. Was that still true? Or had Malefic had a way around that?

I strongly suspected he had.

It certainly sounded like he intended for me to be resurrected into a new, non-hybrid body. Was that how Malefic intended to keep both me and his son alive, while also keeping his bloodline pure? What about his son’s own “dirty” blood? Surely Malefic must know by now about his wife’s part-human ancestry?

Would Malefic resurrect Bones into a different body, too?

I frowned at the thought.

It didn’t make any sense.

Strong, rough hands jerked me up off the floor, dragging me across the stone tile to one side of the altar like a pile of dirty laundry. I heard a disgusted spell cast over the blood, saliva, and vomit I’d left behind on the ballroom floor, erasing them from the stone, but no one bothered to try and clean me up, or even toss me a wet rag.

I got dumped by the base of the stairs leading up to the altar, and kicked by one angry boot. I gasped at the kick, but otherwise didn’t make a sound.

I didn’t bother to look at who’d delivered it, but leaned my head gratefully against the altar’s base. Despite the rough handling, the pain shooting down my spine and tailbone, the bruises forming on my ribs and now my thigh where I’d been kicked, and my skull feeling like it might crack in half, the new position was a definite improvement.

I could see now.

Before me spread the entirety of Worm Hall, everything but the altar behind me, and the enormous Anubis statue breathing fire and black smoke. The hall appeared even darker now, maybe because fewer spells and explosions could be seen through the tall windows.

The main sources of illumination now appeared to be the altar covered in candles, and the bowls on stone pedestals filled with flames.

Two massive ritual circles had been drawn on the black marble, one inside the other.

I tried to work out the inner circle first, the smaller one, which was still big enough it had to be over fifteen feet in diameter.

Dark red and black symbols made up its curved edge, hieroglyphs and runes that appeared bastardized and altered, along with marks and drawings I remembered faintly from my Numerology and Symbology course. Everything looked off somehow, like each symbol had been twisted in ways I didn’t recognize.

I fought to read it, anyway. I stared and stared, struggling to think, wracking my brain to cobble any kind of translation together from the parts I understood.

Opposite ends of the circle, reversed rune for resonance… my mind muttered as my eyes scanned over the strange marks.

Could that be east and west? North and south?

What about that strange symbol below?

Does that mean breaking the resonance in half? Cutting part of it out?

Altering it?

Magical heart? Magical core? my mind muttered. That could symbolize magic being cut out… moved to a different location, maybe? Transmuted? Or simply neutralized?