Page 188 of Serpent and Shadow

“Tell me!” he shrieked. “Tell me or I will remove his head and bring it to you! I will drag him here and let every one of my Death Eaters take turns degrading him––”

“Stop!” a voice commanded. “Stop this! Your ritual is over!”

I thought I’d hallucinated it at first.

I thought it was a final, waking dream before I lost consciousness for real.

I even thought I’d died maybe.

I was certain I was at least on the verge of passing out.

Then the fingers left my throat, and I slumped forward.

“You ungrateful, disloyal whelp,” Malefic snarled at the person standing behind me.

I couldn’t move at first, not even to look up. I gasped in sharp, painful, excruciating breaths that felt like my throat was lined with glass. I fought and dragged the breaths up from inside my body anyway, indifferent to how badly it hurt, only caring about what the oxygen meant. That same part of me that wanted to survive, wanted to live, compulsively sucked in as much air as I possibly could.

Spots returned behind my eyes. Tears ran down my cheeks.

I couldn’t make a sound apart from those choked, painful breaths.

My throat felt crushed.

Then that other person was there, right beside me.

I forced my eyes up, and saw long legs, a pale arm tensed, corded with muscle, magic sparking around his arm and hand.

He didn’t look at me, I noticed, not taking his eyes off his father for an instant.

“Don’t,” I fought to gasp. “You can’t––”

“You can’t hurt me, whelp,” Malefic said, staring up at him with a cruel satisfaction in his eyes. “I own you. And if I can’t wield your power any other way, I will continue to own you––”

He kept talking, but his voice faded out of my awareness. It sounded and felt a lot like someone had taken a volume knob inside my head and twisted it all the way down. A different voice took his place, locked inside a still, silent, unbelievably dense presence.

The black snake reformed behind my eyes, thick and coiled, its scales like chips of obsidian making up the sickening length of its body.

I would like my favor now, the being hissed.

Inexplicably, feeling it there was a relief.

I tried to nod, but it still hurt too much to move.

“Of course,” I croaked instead. “Take it, my lord. Whatever your wish…”

I saw Bones’s head jerk sideways as he looked at me, as if unable to help himself.

I opened what remained of me, of my person, of my magic. I offered it to the being that had already once saved my life. Threads burst out from my sun primal, which I could suddenly, unmistakably see. Blue, white, gold, green, those strands connected intensely with Bones’s black crystal, and I heard him let out a shocked gasp.

Magic flooded down from that sun and crystal into my chest.

It filled me so full, I could only lie there, letting it in.

I’m not even sure, exactly, when or how I stood up.

I just know I was suddenly over him, over Malefic, and I was the one looking down. Behind my eyes, I felt the snake looking at him through me, and the judgement didn’t feel kind. The indifference remained but it had another flavor now, compared to how I’d felt it before. This time, it felt like the being looked at Malefic, and saw him as small but troublesome, and too much effort to keep around.

A flash of black light left the center of my chest.