Page 47 of Vanquished Gods

“But I could kill them.”

A ray of sunlight sparked in his pale eyes. “Yes. At least, until you gain more control over your magic.”

I hugged myself. “What are we doing this morning?”

“Hunting.” He reached into his cloak and pulled out a carved wooden wand. “Here. It’s made of yew. The witches say yew is the best wood for channeling death magic.”

I took the wand from him, feeling a faint hum of power flow from the wood into my palm. My gaze flicked up. “Will I be practicing on you?”

The corner of his mouth curled. “If you’d like. But I was going to suggest we start with animals so I can stay closer to you. The first thing the witches suggest is to take off your shoes. Let the magic flow through you, and use your mind to channel it where you want it to go. They say a vampire’s magic comes from the night, but a witch’s magic comes from the soil, from the buried gods, and that the forest is their temple.”

“Barefoot hunting? I’m up for anything.” I slipped off my leather shoes, feeling the cool, soft moss beneath my feet.

I scanned the green forest around me, the sunlight piercing through a canopy of towering oaks and twisted yews. The scent of moss and wet earth filled my lungs, and the wind rustled the leaves. Between the oak trunks, ivy-wrapped stone pillars stood among the greenery, their surfaces etched with ancient runes. Vines climbed over a carved rock, where I could just make out the image of a man wearing antlers. A temple to the old gods…

“It’s beautiful here,” I said softly.

“And you draw magic from that beauty,” Maelor said. “Life and death mingle in the forest, and magic lives beneath the mossy soil. When you use your magic, let it flow back into you to control it, like the ebb and flow of a canal lock. That’s how you master control.”

“Does it come naturally to you?” I asked. “Controlling your magic?”

“Yes, it comes naturally. My shadow magic comes at will. The only time I can’t summon it or control it is when I use too much at once and my resources are depleted.”

“I’ve never felt any control over my magic,” I admitted. “There’s no will to it, no summoning, no restraint or targeting. I simply touch someone, and they die.”

He took a step closer, and a line formed between his eyebrows. “Does your magic have a feeling to you?”

I cast my mind back to the last time I’d used it. “It feels like hunger. It feels like a dark craving to reap the lives of as many mortals as I can. It’s something that takes over me until I’m not me anymore—I’m just death.”

His pale eyes danced with unearthly light. “Hunger is a feeling I know well. I might control my shadow magic, but bloodlust is something that takes over me just like you describe. The insatiable hunger, it consumes me. When it strikes me…I turn into someone else.”

My eyebrows rose. “You go to a place beyond words?”

He cocked his head. “Exactly.”

“You seem like you’re controlling it better now than you were at Ruefield.”

His expression was hard to read, and he inhaled deeply. “Let’s hope so.”

I swallowed hard, and with a deep exhalation, I imagined releasing my magic from the wand.

He pointed across the path at a white rabbit whose nose twitched as it chewed on leaves. “There. Try to aim for him with your wand. Don’t overthink it. Your magic should act as an extension of you, as natural as taking a breath.”

I raised my wand, and it pulsed in my hand like a heartbeat. It was the life-force of the forest, and it beat in time to the rabbit’s heart. This was an entirely new, invigorating feeling to me. The forest’s energy flowed through the gnarled rootsbeneath the soil; magic lived here, twining with the spirits of all the creatures.Thiswas what the Order wanted us to be afraid of—the wild beauty of nature.

I pointed the wand at the rabbit, summoning that magic from the earth upward. As I aimed, power skimmed up my calves, my thighs, into my belly. It filled my chest and streamed down my arm into my hands.

I breathed in—and I released.

My muscles tensed.

I’d never seen my magic before, but it was just as I’d pictured it—an ashy mauve smoke that streaked wildly through the air. It slammed down a few feet from the rabbit, and leaves tumbled across the forest floor, scattering.

The rabbit darted away, a streak of white against the forest’s shadows.

“Missed.”

“But that was amazing,” said Maelor. “You channeled the magic. That’s progress.”

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