Page 184 of Serpent and Shadow

His voice was guttural, deep, hissing, poisonous in turns. He switched between what sounded like Ancient Egyptian, Latin, Sanskrit, Urdu, German, and French.

In the beginning, his followers chanted with him.

Their voices harmonized and resonated with his.

Before he had started, Malefic removed his leather uniform coat and breastplate.

I’d been disturbed by sight of his pale skin, and the contrast of his one pale arm, muscular and alive, against the other, which was metal, jointed, with a greenish cast, and appeared to have been fused to his shoulder and some part of his chest.

That arm, obviously artificial, had changed dramatically from the last time I’d seen it.

The changes both revolted and fascinated me. I couldn’t deny it was an impressive piece of engineering and magic. The arm moved with a mechanical grace, yet somehow held magic like flesh. I remembered that part of him being dead and dark the last time I’d seen it, but now it glowed more than his living arm, and something about how his bone dragon interacted with the swiveling, jointed appendage made me think he’d fashioned it not just to be animated by magic, but also to store and channel it.

It was disturbing. It struck me as somehow obscene.

He held both arms over me now. They glowed brighter in the Aether the longer he chanted, changing colors as he spoke louder.

His words sank into me like iron hooks.

They bound me to him through my blood, through my connection to Bones, even through my La Fey bloodline that had long been devoted to his religion. I felt those horrific cords that tied us together, and it felt like being swallowed whole.

I fought it as long as I could, but my vision eventually began to gray.

Then it began to black out around the edges.

Mercilessly, whatever he did to me, it didn’t knock me out.

It didn’t even blind me, not entirely.

I could still feel everything. I could feel myself being consumed.

At first, the change felt mostly physical, like he was leeching the blood out of my veins, the breath out of my lungs, the muscles from around my bones. Within minutes, I could scarcely hold up my head. My neck softened and went slack, my shoulders, arms, hands, jaw, tongue. I fell backwards, held up only by the cords of magic between myself and the bare-chested figure with his ghost-like arms raised over her, and his long black hair.

I stared up at him, at his glowing, silver eyes.

Those were nothing like Bones. They were deathlike, empty.

Yet I couldn’t break free of his gaze.

My magic gathered hotly and sickeningly in my chest just before he would siphon it out. The pulling sensation made me more nauseated. Every part of the process made me want to vomit. My revulsion curled my lips, brought bile permanently to my throat. He sucked that pure light out through cords like a parasite. I watched that heated, fire-like thread leave me and tears ran down my face. It was all I had left, all that tied me to––

Something changed.

I couldn’t make sense of it, not at first.

Something in the process slowed.

It slowed… slowed… slowed…

I felt it come to a stop.

Then, abruptly, the cords between us snapped.

I collapsed backwards, my arms and hands still bound, barely held up by my knees and shins, which felt somehow glued to the marble floor.

Despite the pain, I felt nothing but relief.

I felt so insanely, incredibly weak, but so, so much better.