“Oh, fucking fuck! She’s doing it again!” Hemlock released me abruptly, his tattoos of wolves and hawks flexing as he recoiled from me, but I was too focused to give it the attention it probably deserved.
The students that remained in the class screamed in horror.
My smoke swirled around the infected student, entering his mouth, nose, and ears rapidly.
I tilted my head, feeling my eyes tingle. My magic devoured the dark magic and soul within, and I felt my reserves fill. It was blissful and bitter all at the same time. The smoke returned, seeping into my stomach with a painful drop that wrenched a groan from my damaged throat.
“The dark magic and soul are gone,” I croaked, hot tears welling in my eyes.
The student's gray flesh began to crack and flake away, his body disintegrating into ash in front of my very eyes. Then, the sickness hit me, violent and relentless. I dropped to my hands and knees and vomited onto the remains of what had once been a demon.
Everyone in the room was frozen; I could practically feel a mix of shock and fear. Dusk ushered the remaining students out, leaving mewith Dex, Hemlock, Skel, and the growing pile of ash.
“Holy fucking Fates, trouble,” Dex said, astonishment clear in his tone.
“Dude, what the fuck?” Skel shouted, fear saturating his voice. “Maybe don’t praise the soul eater for eating fucking souls!”
“But she did a good job. You know, she hasn’t been able to lately,” Dex muttered.
“Is she like…okay?” Hemlock asked.
“Of course I’m not okay!” I choked out, sucking in a breath as I claimed a break from the vomiting session.
I had just eaten a soul, an infected dark magic soul that was tainted, but I did. And unlike when I ate Mother’s soul, I could feel my magic swirling inside of me in a way I had never felt before. When I ate her soul, I had been close to death, and my magic healed me. I had no idea this was what it felt like to be a demon with filled magic reserves, but my magic felt…alive.I felt like I could do anything,control my own magic.
Headmaster Blackthistle entered the room with Hunter and Daryl in tow.
“Gravesend, are you injured?” The headmaster's amber scent filled the space, his green eyes assessing the mess with a strategic calm.
Hunter, with his sweet chocolate aroma andhooded icy eyes, rushed to my side, concern etched into every line of his face. “Starlight, talk to me. What do you feel?”
Daryl had his black eyes trained on Hunter. “Starlight?”
Hunter whipped his head back to my father and barked, “Not the time!”
“You’re right. There’s always later.” He sighed, kneeling down on the other side of me. “Pandora, are you okay?”
“I—” My body heaved as I hurled more dark tar-like puke.
“We need to make sure she’s not infected,” Headmaster Blackthistle stated matter-of-factly, brandishing a golden staff-like artifact.
“Give me that,” Daryl snapped, taking it from the headmaster roughly. “She’s my daughter. I’ll check on her.”
As I continued to heave, my body shaking with exhaustion, Daryl moved the artifact over my body. The council members began chanting an incantation, making the artifact pulse with a white light, but it did nothing to ease my agony.
“Is she going to make it?” Skel asked, his voice tinged with genuine concern.
Hemlock clenched his fists as if this whole situation pissed him off. “She's fine,” he grunted.
Dex hovered close behind Hunter. “I need them to tell me she’s okay.”
My stomach felt like it was turning inside out as I hurled, but when I finally stopped puking, the chanting stopped, too.
Exhaustion swept over me as sweat clung to me in a sheen.
I didn’t know who I fell against, but their touch was like a healing balm to my soul.
“She’s not infected. She doesn’t have an ounce of dark magic in or on her.” Daryl muttered in shock. “She…she absorbed it?”
