Page 22 of Witch Queen

It didn’t take her long to remove and examine the witch’s internal organs. They were free of disease and well preserved despite her charred remains. Even her coronary arteries looked perfect.

I wonder if she was a healer.

She cut open the witch’s skull next and extracted the brain. It too turned out to be a perfect specimen.

“Found anything?” Vlad said.

“Apart from the fact that she was as healthy as a horse, no.” Mae chewed her lip. “I’m going to examine her core.”

She placed her hand a couple of inches above the cadaver’s abdomen and focused. It took but a moment for the dead witch’s core to appear in her mind’s eye.

It was pitch black and shriveled.

A low growl left Brimstone at the sight shared through their bond.

Mae clenched her jaw.We were right.

“Mae?” Nikolai said warily.

She met the sorcerer’s gaze. “Her core has been sucked dry of magic, like we suspected. I’m going to useSoul Conjureand see if I can find a clue to where Vedran might be.”

Nikolai frowned.

“Are you sure that’s safe?” Vlad said tensely.

“We haven’t got anything else to go on right now.”

Mae silently incanted the spell.

Roman paled and stumbled back a step as the corpse shuddered and arched off the table. “What the?—?!”

His eyes bulged at the sight of the pale, flickering, distorted orb that drifted upward from the woman’s body.

“This your first time seeingSoul Conjure?” Vlad asked Roman.

The young man gulped. “Yeah.”

A tortured scream left the manifestation and reverberated across the autopsy lab. Mae flinched. Vlad and Nikolai unleashed their weapons. A sphere of sizzling Fire Magic blossomed in Roman’s right hand.

“It’s alright,” Mae reassured them hastily.

My witch, Brimstone warned, looming over her in his demonic nine-tailed-fox form.

“I’ll be careful. I promise.”

Her heart raced as she reached out and gently clasped the dead witch’s soul. She drew a sharp breath.

Images flashed across her vision, the witch’s memories playing before her mind’s eye like a flickering movie. She saw the woman as a child playing in a garden full of flowers, then as a weary, angry adult swearing her allegiance to the Sorcerer King, full of resentment for a world that had rejected her.

Mae’s stomach knotted when she witnessed the moment Vedran placed his dark spell inside the witch. It had slowly robbed her of all empathy and positive emotions, turning her into an unfeeling monster who did his evil bidding without batting an eyelid.

Is that why the Dark Council members all act the same? Because of their master’s black magic?She shuddered.It’s a miracle Nikolai managed to remain sound of mind with that inside him.

Na Ri hesitated.I believe his white magic protected him.

The witch’s final moments came to her. Skin and flesh consumed by the dark power seeded within her and the storm of Hellfire Magic that had engulfed her body, her shriek of agony and those of her dying companions echoed in a vast, shadowy place from which there would be no escape.

Mae was trying to make out details of the location through the flames and smoke when a voice sounded faintly in her mind.

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