Page 91 of Traitor Witch

I shift into the shadows and grab one of the girls who walks past.

“Where are the witches?” I demand. “The Mother Lunar. Where are they?”

She meets my eyes with her own startled ones.

“They left. They couldn’t afford the rent, and Councilman Rossi, the owner of this district, decided to make it his entertaining place.”

A mage councilman forcing out the Mother Lunar from a sacred temple over rent?

Rage boils in my blood.

What happened to the Solars was heartbreaking, but the Lunars wouldn’t have left without a fight.

I can't imagine it was a bloodless relocation.

“Where are they now?”

The girl shrugs. “They left. Got on a ship and sailed away.”

“And the councilman?”

She raises a single pointing finger.

There, in the middle of the sacred pool, wine in one hand and ass in another, is a man I despise on sight. The girl he’s feeling up looks like she’d rather be anywhere else, and the men in his inner circle are laughing at her distress.

“Get out of here,” I warn my informant, letting my magic transform my clothes once more, into a black version of the tiny scarves the other girls are wearing. Opal leaps away and starts ushering out the innocent, knowing whatever I'm about to do, it's going to be bad.

I can feel the icy burn in my blood, practically taste the Goddess’s displeasure on the back of my tongue, egging me on.

The moon is barely a crescent in the sky, but it’s enough.

Dark power flashes through me as I stride through the party-goers towards the pool.

The moment my foot hits the water it begins to glow, silencing everyone. The power renders the yellow glow of the torches useless, bathing everyone in silver light.

The girl at Rossi's side uses the distraction and scampers away, leaving me alone, in the pool, surrounded by mages.

“Councilman,” I smile. “I think you have the wrong address.”

“Your kind aren’t welcome here.” Green transmutation circles start to form in the air around him. “Leave, or else—”

I draw my knife from my boot and slash it against my wrist.

The motion is so sudden, and so unexpected that he, and everyone else, freezes in place.

The blood drips into the water, each red droplet spearing through the silvery water of the pool. On contact, my blood turns black. Three droplets later, the entire pool is a perfect mirror of the dark night sky.

On my back, the Goddess's mark burns like a brand. Power runs through me with a savagery that consumes butfeels so good that I don't even care. The next droplet of my blood sends wisps of black and silver flame across the water.

That's when the people on the edge of the scene start to run. Their legs unfreezing as self-preservation takes over.

But the men in the pool, and several of their compatriots around the edge, remain. Transfixed by the power of the Goddess.

"I curse this place," I whisper, wondering absently if I'm crossing some invisible line.

I've never cursed anyone before. I've never needed to.

It's rare for me to use blood magic at all.