Page 106 of Empire of Dark

She stilled, her breath seething, her green eyes raging as she stared me down. “I do—you fucking idiot—you don’t even know what I damn well understand.” Her hand flew out to the side. “Go get her—go get your fucking witch. Bring her here.”

“What?” Her kicking foot hadn’t moved me, but those words made me snap back, standing straight above her.

Her arm flew back and forth in the air. “Go get your damn witch—bring her to me.”

Bring her Oriane?

Gladly.

Let the witch fry her brain for I wasn’t fucking able to hurt her like she needed to be hurt.

I stormed out of the library and locked her in, then got Oriane from her chamber and dragged her back to the library.

Her arm cuff back in place, Ada was already on her feet and pacing the library when I pulled Oriane into the room and slammed the door behind me.

“Read her.”

“No,” Ada gritted out, her glare twisting into me. “She only reads me if she is a conduit. You see everything she does.”

What the hell?

My livid stare swung to Oriane. “Can you even do that?”

The hag’s grey eyes had lit up when Ada had said it, and she smiled. Smiled like she hadn’t had this much fun in eons. That’s what keeping Oriane’s torturing ass on a tight leash got me.

Oriane looked to me. “Of course, I can.” Her ragged grey dress swinging back and forth across the floor, she shuffled toward Ada.

Damn my traitorous nerves, my skin started to crawl watching the hag get that close to Ada.

Ada, who was just trying to kill my child.

I shook off the creepiness that was invading my skin.

“One hand on her head, one hand on yours and you’ll see everything.” Oriane’s decrepit gravelly voice was giddy. “I haven’t done this in centuries.”

I stepped toward Oriane’s side and nodded. “Do it.”

I looked to Ada.

Her glare set on me, her jaw clenched and she reached down and grabbed Oriane’s right wrist and set the hag’s wrinkled, bony hand onto her forehead.

“Do it.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

{ DAMEN }

Blinded.

I was blinded the moment Oriane set her weathered palm on my forehead.

Everything of my being sucked into the witch and spit out the other side.

Blackness. Floating, spinning through the darkness with small, brightly colored dots all around me. A sea of stars in the night, except this wasn’t the sky and these weren’t stars.

Memories.

Memories all around me that I couldn’t touch, couldn’t look at for the force with which I was being pulled into an orange light burning bright and getting bigger and bigger in front of me with every second.