Page 120 of Scourged

It slammed into Mariah, the feeling of wrongness that had her magic recoiling. It came from the western end of the building, just around the right corner of the hallway stretching before them. She pulled back all her magic but for a single thread, watching the silver-gold thrash and vibrate in the air as it fought to get away from whatever it had found.

“There,” she whispered.

Without hesitation, Sebastian and Andrian fell into step beside her, the bonds between their souls pulled taut by the distress of her magic. Andrian’s burned brighter, a glowing star within her chest, but she was too consumed by the evil she chased.

She followed that lingering thread around the corner, her steps steady and even, in time with the heavy beating of her heart.

When she pushed into the room beyond, she froze. Her eyes flew wide, magic clawing and raging and whipping inside her chest. Shadows unfurled behind her, and she heard Sebastian swear softly under his breath.

The room … it dripped with something dark. Something evil. And not just something magical, although that certainly was imbued within the seedy floors and cracked wallpapered walls.

No, it was physically dripping with evidence of the atrocities—dozens, if not hundreds, of them—that had been committed here.

Mariah pushed her magic out further, illuminating the space. She held back her gasp of terror and disgust, just as Andrian growled and Sebastian swore again, this time louder.

On the floors were dried pools of blackish red, spread into pockets every few feet. On the walls, more splatter of the sameliquid arched in delicate streaks, dripping down in a morbid mockery of artwork.

Blood.

It wasblood.

Gritting her teeth, Mariah forced her magic into the room. It recoiled and snapped but obeyed, a piece of it as curious as she was.

An altar sat at the far side of the room. It looked as if it was bathed in blood, just like the rest of the room, deep stains of it spilling rivulets down the raised pedestal.

She took a step toward it.

“Mariah,” Andrian and Sebastian murmured together, but they didn’t stop her.

She had to see.

Mariah inched closer, something deep and integral buried in her soul screaming at her torun away, get out, do not go closer.

But … she had to see. Her rage, the only thing pushing her forward, demanded her to see. To look at what was done in this room on the night of her Solstice. The desecration of the beautiful magic she’d helped to create.

She stood before the altar. On top of it sat a single stone obelisk, its surface so dark she wasn’t sure if it was more blood coating it, or if that was simply the stone itself.

A wild impulse seized her. She extended a brazen hand.

“Mariah, no!” Andrian’s desperate roar was the last thing she heard before her finger touched the obelisk.

Before her world plummeted into darkness.

Chapter 45

Mariah dropped like a stone tossed into a lake, and Andrian’s stomach went with her. His shadows whipped and writhed, and he surged across the room.

But he was too late.

She hit the floor just as he reached her, sliding to a halt as his shadows curled beneath her to keep her head from cracking on the filthy concrete floor. Everything in his world narrowed as he threw himself to the ground next to her, searching desperately for the pulse in her neck, the rise and fall of her chest.

When he found the steady thrum of her heartbeat, he relaxed slightly. Until he lifted his gaze to the altar she’d touched, to the stone obelisk sitting atop it.

He swore again, this time much lower and much more vicious.

Sebastian appeared by his side, his own terror wafting from him.

“What thefuckwas she thinking …”