Page 172 of Her Blood Revenge

But I didn’t. I left. I left to save her for when she returned.

Time is a strange thing when you’re a Dream Walker. I exist in the realm of sleep. In the land of dreams. That is where I am strongest. And that is where I will protect her most.

So, to dreams, I went.

A second. A day. A week. A month.

I have no concept.

I find all who pose a threat to my Pixie. To my brothers.

The soldiers who seek her out fall into an endless sleep. They sleep soundly, but inside, they scream, and they cry.

The surviving witches who sided with Neve, too.

An endless sleep.

A curse upon the land. A curse upon anyone who speaks her name, whispers it in secret meetings or plots her capture.

The curse of the endless sleep takes them.

Their bodies never move again. They starve to death.

Sleeping skeletons wrapped in a skin suit is what you will become if you ever think about the stolen earth witch taken by the witch hunters.

Ashe Nectan’s name becomes a fearsome whisper in the wind. A ghost story. A tale mothers read their children before bed.

Be good, or the witch of blood and earth will come for you.

Soon, no one speaks her name aloud again.

And Pixie is safe.

She is finally…finallysafe.

Chapter thirty-five

Pixie. The Earth Goddess.

The sleeping plague swept across the land like a wave of death. Hundreds, if not thousands, fell in its path. Their eyes closed, and they never reopened.

Six months have passed since the day Hel broke free.

Six months. Two days. Five hours and three minutes.

But who’s counting?

I still have my earth magic. And I can use it as much as I wish.

I pick up the mug of sleeping draught and drink it down. Same as I do every night, pulling me into a deep slumber that refuses to come without its aid. I lie down and close my eyes, praying that tonight will be the night he comes. That this will be when he stops his mission of death and comes to me instead.

I know that Shaw is the cause of the plague. I know it. And I wish beyond all wishes that he would stop.

The lives he takes, he takes for a reason. I know that.

He has either destroyed or driven away the unseelie. It has ended any attempts to find me by striking out at the remaining covens. The Prince fell to the sickness, too, and the new king has decreed that witches should be left alone and that no wars should be sought out. No retaliation. Nopunishments.

Peace has swept the land. It’s come at a heavy price.

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