Page 134 of Marked By His Hunger
Control.
The word hit differently now.
After the cliff.
After the magic that had burst out of me like it had been waiting years for permission.
After the way the dead had answered.
I swallowed.
“And what exactly am I on the edge of?” I asked quietly.
Her gaze sharpened.
“Your lineage,” she said. “Your blood. Your inheritance.”
A chill crept down my spine.
“You come from a line that has always carried magic,” she continued. “Not the kind most Witches wield. Not elemental. Not domestic. Not benign.”
Her voice lowered—just slightly.
“Yours is death magic.”
The words landed heavy.
Solid.
Final.
Something inside me shifted in recognition.
“You were born into a family that has spent generations trying to bury that truth,” she went on. “Bind it. Silence it. Stamp it out.”
My throat tightened.
“That’s not possible,” I said, but it sounded weak—even to me.
She didn’t blink.
“Your ancestors were powerful,” she said. “Dangerously so. They could speak to the dead. Command them. Bind them. Release them.”
A pause.
“Some lost themselves to it.”
My stomach dropped.
“Madness,” she said plainly. “Isolation. Obsession with what lies beyond the veil. Death magic is not passive, Miss Notte. It does not sit quietly within the body. It calls. It consumes. It demands to be used.”
My hands trembled slightly.
Memories flashed—voices in empty rooms, shadows that lingered too long, the way I had always felt like I was standing halfway between something.
Not here.
Not there.
