In the Wake of the Wicked (Veridian Empire #1)

78. Rose

78

Rose

T he darkness was all-consuming. The pain was everywhere . But the power…

The power was blinding.

In this rift between consciousness, between time and space, there was nothing separating me from the magic in my veins. From Gayl’s magic. I understood now what had happened when I cast my father’s siphon spell. When my blood had met Gayl’s in that tremulous moment and I’d summoned all of my strength into that unfamiliar incantation.

When Leo and I had found it, we thought we could use it to banish Gayl’s magic back into whatever crevice the power of this empire was held.

Get rid of the power, get rid of the man.

But that much magic…that unending well stolen from thousands of people over almost three decades…it couldn’t simply disappear .

When that first bead of silver light filled me, I thought I would die from the rapture of it. Was this what Gayl felt like all the time? I’d wondered. Like my soul had been covered with this infinite freedom, this bliss I’d never dreamt of.

But then the rest followed .

Thread after thread of Gayl’s magic. More than my body could handle. More than my mind could comprehend.

And it burned .

It shattered and fractured, forcing itself into me, reshaping the fabric of my very being to find space for its existence. Gayl had accumulated it slowly, inch by inch, like filling an ocean with drops from the sky. But I…I was like a river whose dam had been broken, water spilling over and bursting my seams.

I wanted to die.

I begged for death. Begged for the pain to stop, though I knew it never would.

This was my price.

At times, I thought I could hear a voice. Could feel a warm, strong hand on a body I no longer inhabited. It dispelled the agony, if only for a moment, before it flooded back and tugged me under again.

All I knew was that I couldn’t live like this.

I screamed into the void and prayed for my end.