Page 27 of Blood Court (Cursed Darkness #2)
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
EVREN
The academy settles into its evening rhythm around me as I walk through corridors that hum with fresh protective magic.
Blackgrove’s response to the attack earlier was swift and comprehensive.
New ward stones glow at every entrance, their energy singing with defensive power.
The gargoyles are patrolling. The opposition made their move and failed. Now DarkHallow shows its strength.
The security measures provide comfort, but my attention drifts elsewhere. Something pulls at the edge of my consciousness, a familiar tug that has grown stronger throughout the day. The grimoire calls to me with increasing urgency, its ancient voice whispering through the Soul Scar on my arm.
My last class ended twenty minutes ago. The others won’t expect me for dinner for another hour. Time enough to answer the book’s summons and discover what it wants to reveal.
I slip through hidden passages that lead to Lysithea’s room, my footsteps silent on the stone floor.
The route feels as natural as breathing now, carved into my memory through repetition and necessity.
The grimoire waits on its pedestal, but today it radiates a different energy.
The leather binding shifts in the lamplight, revealing patterns that dance across its surface like living things.
Its solitary eye blinks at me, noting my arrival.
The book falls open as I lean over it, its pages fluttering to a section I’ve never seen. Text appears across a blank page.
Death-speaker. Soul-walker. Bridge between realms.
The letters rearrange themselves, forming new patterns that burn themselves into my consciousness.
A spell takes shape on the page, but this is unlike anything I’ve encountered.
The incantation stretches across multiple pages, its components written in mathematical formulae that shouldn’t exist alongside ancient tongues that predate recorded history.
Yet I understand every symbol, every instruction, every warning that accompanies the knowledge.
Thanatos Dominion
The name appears in letters of ice-blue fire that hover above the page.
This is not merely a spell but a fundamental rewriting of reality’s rules within a designated area.
The power to create a realm where death magic reigns supreme, where the boundary between life and death becomes malleable clay in my hands.
The grimoire’s pages turn, revealing the spell’s full scope. Within the Dominion, I would command absolute authority over life force, not just death. I could drain vitality from enemies and channel it to allies.
The Dominion feeds on the caster’s life force. Each moment of activation shortens the death-speaker’s natural lifespan. Use sparingly, for the price is always paid in years that will never be lived.
I read further, absorbing the spell’s mechanics.
The Dominion would create a sphere of influence roughly fifty metres in diameter, within which the normal laws of death become suspended.
Enemies would find their life force draining away while allies gain strength and resilience beyond mortal limits.
The dead could be called upon for counsel or aid.
Wounds that should be fatal become merely inconvenient.
The Dominion grants power over death itself, but death will have its due. What is taken must be given. What is saved must be paid for. The death-speaker walks the knife’s edge between salvation and damnation.
More text appears, detailing the ritual components and casting requirements.
The spell demands perfect understanding of death magic’s fundamental principles.
It requires physical anchors to the material world, preventing the caster from being pulled entirely into the realm of the dead.
Most critically, it needs a willing sacrifice from the caster, years of life freely given to fuel the Dominion’s creation.
The pages continue turning, revealing additional aspects of the spell that make my breath catch.
Within the Dominion, I could accelerate the natural decay of objects or reverse it entirely.
Stone could crumble to dust in seconds, or ancient ruins could be restored to their original glory.
Plants could wither and die or bloom with supernatural vigour.
The very concept of entropy becomes my tool to wield.
The spell’s final pages detail the casting procedure itself.
This magic requires conscious choice and deliberate action.
I must speak the incantation while drawing power from the Soul Scar, feeding years of my own life into the spell’s hungry maw.
The Dominion will last as long as my concentration holds, but each second costs me precious time I’ll never reclaim.
At the bottom of the spell, the grimoire speaks to me directly.
Use this gift wisely. The power to command death comes with the responsibility to preserve life.
The Dominion is not a weapon of conquest but a tool of necessity.
Save those who can be saved. Fight those who cannot be reasoned with.
But remember always that death comes for us all, and even you cannot hold it back forever.
The grimoire’s pages settle, the spell now permanently etched into both page and memory. I place my hand on the warm paper, feeling the ancient magic pulse beneath my palm.
“The cost,” I whisper to the empty chamber. “How many years would it take to heal her completely?”
The book grows warm under my touch, and new words appear on the page before me.
You cannot. This isn’t the way.
“Then what is the way?”
Of course it doesn’t answer.
A soft chime echoes through the academy, marking the dinner hour.
Time to join the others. But first, I study the spell’s casting requirements one final time, committing every detail to memory.
The incantation is complex. The gestures demand perfect synchronisation with the spoken components.
Most importantly, the mental state must be one of absolute acceptance of the spell’s cost.
I close the grimoire gently. The book has given me this to help with the trials, or what comes after. Or both.
The walk to the dining hall passes in contemplative silence. My mind processes the spell’s implications while my body moves through familiar corridors on autopilot. Students nod as I pass, but their greetings feel distant, muffled by the weight of newfound knowledge.
The dining hall buzzes with conversation, making my head hurt.
Our usual table waits in the back corner. Dathan looks up as I sit.
Verik arrives moments later. He slides into his seat with barely contained restlessness. Lysithea enters the dining hall. She is stiffer than usual. It must be the corruption’s continued presence.
She takes her seat and fixes me with an intense stare. “Bookie talk to you?”
Her certainty doesn’t surprise me.
I smile and nod. My raven forms. “A spell. Something for me to use when the time is right.”
“Oh?”
“A way to drain life force and move it to another creature, or creatures.”
“That doesn’t sound good for our chances,” Dathan mutters.
I shoot him a look that is in full agreement.
“The grimoire is expecting us to fail, or at the very least, fall at the next hurdle,” Lysithea says. Her gaze meets mine. “It’s insurance. If one of us is about to die, Evren can save them.”
My raven dissolves into shadow. I don’t need it to speak. Lysithea already understands the most important part. She is right. But salvation always has a price.
Dathan grimaces at me. “Great. The book’s already planning our funerals.”
“It’s a trap,” Verik says, his fork forgotten. He glares at me, his architect’s mind seeing the flaw in the design. “A power like that has a cost. It’ll drain you when we need you most.”
Lysithea’s gaze doesn’t waver. The question hangs between us, unspoken but deafening.
I don’t answer. I let her see it in my eyes. The years. The time stolen from a life that was already stolen back once. Her expression hardens, the soft lines of her face turning to granite. It’s not pity. It’s rage. Not for me. For the game.
She slams her hand on the table, the sound a sharp crack in the dining hall’s low buzz. Several nearby students look over. “No,” she says, her voice a low, dangerous whisper that cuts through the noise. “Absolutely not.”
Her violet eyes burn into me. This is not a request. It is a command.
“It’s a contingency, Thea,” Dathan says, his voice reasonable but tight. “A last resort.”
“We don’t do last resorts,” Verik snarls, siding with her instantly. “We don’t sacrifice our own.”
My raven forms on my shoulder, its hollow eyes fixed on her. “The book gave it to me for a reason.”
“And we’re rejecting it,” Lysithea states. She reaches across the table, her hand covering mine. Her skin is warm against my cold flesh. A shock of life. “We win together, or we die together. No exceptions.”
The book can offer its deals, its terrible bargains. But she is the one who sets our terms. She is our law.
I turn my hand over, lacing my fingers with hers. Her grip is strong. Unbreakable.
The opposition thinks they can break us. The grimoire thinks it can test us with impossible choices. They are both wrong. My raven dissolves back into shadow as the decision settles over us, a silent, unbreakable vow.