Page 36 of The Cursed

I clenched my teeth to fight back the burn of acid rising up my throat, the emotions surfacing as he used my own words against me. There was no doubt as to where Leviathan had gone, fetching the one man he thought could get through to me. “I canhearthem, Gray. I’ll never be able to sleep now that I’ve felt this pain, but I’m not strong enough. Loralai says I don’t have enough control for something like this.”

If it surprised him to know that my aunt had visited me, he didn’t show it. “She’s right. You aren’t strong enough for this,” he said, running his hands down over my arms. He took my hand in his, turning my palm to face the sky and staring at my forearm. “But we are together.”

“I didn’t think you would care about them,” I admitted, swallowing as he withdrew the dagger once again and placed the tip to the inside of my wrist. “I thought you’d try to stop me.”

“I don’t, but I care about you. If this keeps you from being happy? Then I care about it.” He pressed the tip into my skin, and I winced back and stared at him in horror.

“I’ll lose too much blood.”

He smiled at me, slowly pulling me back into his space. “I won’t let anything happen to you. Do you trust me?”

“Absolutely fucking not,” I said, my brow pinching when he laughed.

“Good girl,” he said, tipping his head to the side. “But do you trust me to keep youalive?”

I paused, studying him and the blade pressed to my wrist that could end it all. He’d given me pieces of himself to bring me back once, and I’d felt his fear in the moments before I lost all sense of my surroundings when Beelzebub snapped my neck.

I couldn’t trust him in the slightest, but I could trust him with that.

“Yes,” I said, nodding as he pushed the knife deep. White hot pain spread through my arm, sinking deep enough to cut through muscle and sinew. My arm trembled as he held me still, slicing his way up to my elbow efficiently before he moved to the other arm and did the same.

My arms fell to my sides, blood dripping down over my hands and fingers to fall onto the earth. My vision swayed from the pain, my eyes drifting closed for a moment until Gray’s grunt of pain echoed my own.

He cut through his own flesh, carving his arms in the same way he’d done to mine. He lent his blood to my resurrection, the taste of life and death coating the air around us. It was the same as the decay of leaves in autumn, as the first budding of leaves on the trees in spring.

Tossing the dagger to the side, he took my hands in his and turned my arms to face the ground as he gently pulled me to kneel upon the earth. Threading our fingers together, he guided them into the ground that seemed to part, allowing us to slip into the grave dirt effortlessly. It surrounded me, sinking beneath my fingernails and sticking to the blood coating my skin until my hands were buried like the corpses beneath me.

I swayed as I bled, my eyes landing on Gray’s ethereal stare. “I don’t know what to do,” I admitted. This was so different from raising one skeleton from the throne, so different from the magic of life that usually called to me. I didn’t know how to call to so many different areas of magic at once.

“Just feel,” he said, letting his eyes fall closed. His fingers entwined with mine reassured me he hadn’t abandoned me, and I followed suit. My entire world narrowed to my fingers in the earth, to my blood flowing through the grains of fertile dirt. I followed the flow, followed the path the earth took to spread our blood through the cemetery like a river, delivering it to each and every witch who needed it.

A single drop was all they needed to become mine.

“Nowbreathe,” Gray whispered, his voice warm and comfortable. He was the hearth on a winter day, his word a reminder of everythingliving. I followed the dirt in the other direction, to the blades of grass and the tree roots spread through the cemetery grounds. The green of my magic reached me, the familiar feeling of life spreading through me. I let it build within me, feeling it fill me with warmth.

I breathed, sucking in a deep, ragged breath that filled my lungs with spring.

I released it, breathing life into the death of the cemetery. The ground shook beneath me, forcing my eyes to open as Gray hastily guided me to my feet. He lifted me, carrying me to the edge of the boundary as the ground split open where we’d been only a moment before. I swayed in his hold, watching as skeletal hands burst from the dirt.

The witches clawed their way to the surface, a mix of bones and rotting flesh emerging from the earth. The ground beneath them settled, fresh grass and flowers sprouting where the empty graves sat. The dead got to their feet in varying stages, some staggering on bones alone and others with flesh falling from them as they moved.

I held back my gag, watching as their group formed a circle. There were around fifty witches buried in that cemetery since the Covenant had turned its back on the balance.

Gray pressed his arm to my mouth, letting the blood from his skin touch my lips. I opened, drinking from him for the first time since he’d brought me back. I only managed a few drops before his wound healed entirely, and a moment later, mine followed suit with a flash of gold.

Gray released me when he knew I’d steadied myself enough, taking a step toward the cemetery. “What have you done?” he asked, spinning to look at me in shock.

I looked past him to the rotting figures of the witches who had come before me, watching with dawning horror as flesh knitted back together. As fresh muscle and sinew covered bone anew.

They turned to me as one, but it was the youthful face of my aunt who snagged my gaze, raising her hand to turn it over as she studied it in fascination.

“I didn’t mean to—” I said, but the gears were already turning in my head. The implications of what I’d done, of what Icoulddo.

I’d taken in life.

And then I’d breathed it out.

Gray spoke, his voice quiet with his surprise. “Willow, you didn’t raise the dead. You fucking resurrected them.”

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