My claws hitThe Book of Dark Magic.
As seamlessly as cutting through water, they impale the book’s cover and its thick pages, all the way to its back cover before hitting the stone floor and impaling it, too.
There’s a moment of pure silence and a strangely dark peace.
Within that heartbeat, I sense an unexpected connection with the magic in the book, as if the dark soul of it actually welcomes my touch.
As destructive as it is.
Even stranger is that this dark peace—this sudden sense ofwholeness—triggers a spark of deep rage within my body and mind.
Suddenly, there’s a whisper within my mind. A burning impulse that’s as clear as if the book had spoken to me.
Take control of the light and the dark.
Mold the living to match your will.
Fight the old and find the new…
Power, so pure and intense that I feel like I’m breathing for the first time in my life, floods through me and my back arches with the force of it.
Opposite me, Emil’s eyes have flown wide, undeniable shock reflected in their green depths as his focus flashes from me to the book and my black claws rammed through it.
I’m certain he thought that I would choose to drive my claws through his heart.
And still, the powerful impulse flows through me.
Take control of the dark.
Mold them.
Make them yours.
I grit my teeth against it.
This book is the reason my father hates me. The vision he saw within its pages showed me slaughtering dark creatures without mercy. This book has wormed its way into his mind. If ever there was a truth that Emil has spoken, it was about this book.
This book wants bloodshed, and it serves only itself.
My father lurches desperately down toward the book, his arms outstretched, a shout of protest roaring from his lips. “Daughter, donotdare?—!”
As if I would obey him.
With all the ferocity of my dark nature, I snarl, “Die, book. Fucking die.”
With an outward sweep of my hand that feels as easy as pushing it through air, I rip my claws through the book’s pages.
My claws shred it from the center and out across its spine, breaking the central parts that keep it bound, leaving it barely held together by the top and bottom of the spine.
Despite how easily I move, the tearing sound my claws make is like metal cutting through iron, shrieking and high-pitched, as if two metallic forces are grinding against each other.
For a second, I imagine that I can hear screams raging from the pages and it’s impossible to sense if they’re screams from battles long past or the souls of a thousand dark creatures crying out for mercy.
At the last moment, before my claws exit the book, a hard bolt of energy leaps up through my fingers, traveling across my palm, up my arm, and into my chest.
The power I sensed when my claws first impaled the book now strikes directly through my heart.
It’s cold and full of malice, flooded with hatred and cruelty.
