Page 62 of The Serpent Prince

Imani stepped carefully forward until she could reach her hands out and touch the fence.

She gasped.

It wasn’t what was above her that she should have been looking at—it was below. A huge trench with a maze of dirt-lined pathways was dug deep into the earth. Men and women of all kinds were holding wands and casting at the soil, slowly enchanting it to reveal some kind of ore or metal that they would then drop into a bucket near them.

Their tunnels went farther into the forest, gnarled tree roots exposed as they dug deeper into the ground. Some trees had been cut down and removed entirely. Imani couldn’t look away.

She saw many with pointed ears, including Drow elves; darker, paler-skinned elves, possibly dwarves; but she also saw rounded ears, probably shifters and sirens. They all looked dirty, ragged, and far too slim to be healthy.

And death. She sensed death here, as many of their souls were clamoring to be released. It was as if they were calling to Imani to drag them from their bodies, to set them free.

What are all these witches doing here?

Catwalks covered the farthest end, at the deepest part of the forest. A few men in impeccable clothes walked along the planks, pointing and speaking to each other in some form of a serious conversation.

Standing amongst them, wand in hand, was the Serpent Prince. He held up his hand to one of them then leaned over the side of the walkway, pointing his wand at someone. Imani couldn’t see what was going on, but seconds later, a peppery smell hit her nose.

A delicate soul rose amongst the crowd. It floated, unsure of what to do or where to go, and Imani had the strongest urge to not just consume the soul but save it. She wanted to direct it to leave this world and enter the Under.

Kiran went back to his conversation as if nothing had happened, but Imani watched in horror as a dead man was pulled from the trenches and dragged to the ground under a large tree.

Lying next to him was the woman in blue, and she was quite dead, too.

Deader than dead, her body looked like it had been in the same position for days.

The sight filled her with a creepy yet loathing feeling that, despite her confusing feelings for the elf prince, she didn’t know whether to vomit or slit Kiran’s throat.

She wasn’t sure how long she stared at the bodies, wondering what in the fuck was going on, before she realized she was breathing hard. In fact, Imani was barely hanging on and wouldn’t be able to stay in control for much longer. She needed to escape before she did something she’d regret.

“Always putting your nose where it doesn’t belong, aren’t you, my darling?” The quiet tenor of Kiran’s voice sent a shiver up her spine. An unspoken threat laced the air.

Imani’s hands were small enough to fit between the barbs on the wire fence. She hadn’t even realized she’d started grasping them tightly, squeezing them at the sight she took in below. Imani didn’t remove her hands from the fence, nor did she turn around.

“Kiran … what in the Six Saints is going on down there with those witches?” she whispered, an icy timbre to her words.

“Something you wouldn’t understand,” was all he said.

Braid flying behind her back, Imani whipped her head around to glare knives at him. “I’m not some simpleton. Now, tell me.”

“We pride ourselves on our covens. They aren’t about building up one leader, with the remaining witches subservient to them. They’re about the unity of combined power. That’s what makes our witches great. They develop a community and share the bounties.”

Imani pursed her lips. That was indeed quite different from how things worked in Essenheim.

“But not everyone is a good little witch. I’m sure you have criminals in Essenheim, and I’m sure you have places to house those criminals. Prisons, and jails, and the like. This is no different. These witches committed crimes with their magic—they broke the law—and now they’re being punished.”

Imani recalled Esa telling her how regulated magic was here. How many rules there were for practicing. But this was beyond a simple punishment—this was an extermination.

“For a country that prides itself on being more open with practicing different types of magic, you sure seem intolerant of its general use.”

“Well, in case you haven’t noticed, the Fabric here requires a different method of control than the one you enjoy in Essenheim,” he hissed. For a man so elven on the outside, there was always something distinctly bestial about him that reminded her he had shifter blood. “Which is why our covens work so closely together.”

“You’re killing them, though,” she stated flatly. “As First Witch, you have the power to stop these atrocities,” Imani whispered.

“You have no idea what I can and can’t do as First Witch.”

“Magic is disappearing, and so are witches—we need all of them to save it. You control all of the magic in your realm—the policing of it, the use of it. Esa told me your father gives you free rein over all things magic. Why haven’t you stopped this?”

At this, Kiran quirked a dark brow. “Maybe I just like it. Maybe I just want the power.” If he had said that to Imani a few months earlier, she would have believed him. It was easy to think the worst of Kiran.