Excerpt From Death Speaks Louder Than Words, Shrouded Nation Book #38
The ground was damp and cold through my jeans. Pine needles stabbed through the thin spots, and dead leaves clung to my palms when I tried to catch myself. I failed. My chest flared with heat so sharp I saw stars.
The smell of rot and old blood still hung in the air from the undead we had just put down. Ash drifted on the breeze like dirty snow. The relic was gone, destroyed into fragments and soot, but the aftermath of its magic still crackled in the clearing.
Dagna and Drathar were gone. The moment they realized the fight had shifted, they ran. Cowards always did.
My chest burned harder, like my ribs were a cage and something inside was trying to claw its way out.
Faith was beside me, her hand resting on my shoulder. She was warm. Solid. Real. Her grip was careful at first, like she was worried I would shatter. Then it tightened, because Faith did not do helpless.
Aurora crouched on my other side, her green eyes scanning the treeline, her body angled like a shield. Blond hair fell into her face and she shoved it back with an impatient jerk. Even in the dark, she looked like she was seconds from shifting and tearing someone’s throat out.
“Stay with me,” Faith ordered.
“I’m here,” I rasped, and immediately regretted speaking. The words scraped out like my throat was lined with sandpaper.
“Okay,” Faith said, voice shaking with forced steadiness. “So what do I do? Tell me what I can do.”
I swallowed. The motion lit a new wave of fire behind my breastbone. “I must be stabilized.”
Faith’s brows drew together. “How?”
“A coven.” I sucked in a breath that didn’t feel like it belonged to me. “If I’m not connected to a coven, I’ll die.”
The words tasted like defeat.
Aurora swore under her breath, low and vicious.
Faith’s face went pale, then hard. “How long?”
I stared up at the canopy. Branches swayed overhead. Somewhere, an owl called. The forest did not care that my magic was unraveling.
“Not long,” I whispered.
Faith’s jaw clenched. Then she turned her head and screamed, the sound ripping through the trees.
“EVE!”
Her voice bounced through the clearing, loud enough to wake the dead that were still trying to remember where their bodies were.
“EVE!” Faith yelled again. “Get your ass back here!”
Aurora glanced toward the trail that led out of the ritual area, the one covered in dead leaves and pine needles, the one that felt colder and wetter than it should. “They went after them. They might be too far.”
“They better not be,” Faith snapped.
I laughed once, a broken sound. “If I survive this, remind me never to get on your bad side.”
Faith looked down at me, and for a second the fury cracked to show panic underneath. “You already are on my good side, Salima. That’s the problem.”
Tegan swore under her breath and the look she exchanged with faith wasn’t encouraging.
My chest flared again. Heat licked up my throat. The edges of my vision dimmed.
The dead noticed.
It started as a pressure in the back of my skull, like someone whispering my name from a distance.
Then it became a tug, subtle and hungry.
The undead we’d fought were gone, turned to ash or scattered into pieces that would not crawl again, but death left echoes.
The forest had its own graves, old ones, forgotten ones.
And in my current state, I was a beacon.
Aurora’s nostrils flared. “Something’s stirring.”
Faith’s gaze snapped toward the treeline. “More?”
“Not like before,” Aurora said. “But I don’t like it.”
I didn’t either. Not because I couldn’t handle the dead. Because right now, I was open. Raw. Leaking power like a cracked jar. The boundary that usually separated me from them felt thin enough to tear with a thought.
Footsteps pounded on the trail.
Two shadows broke through the trees. Eve first, hair loose and wild, skirt torn at the hem, eyes bright with anger. Nishi right behind her, shorter, faster, moving like her body was still in hunt mode even though the chase had failed.
Eve skidded into the clearing and froze when she saw me on the ground.
Everything in her face changed in a heartbeat.
“What happened?” she demanded, but her voice already knew the answer.
Faith didn’t waste time. “She’s crashing. She says she’ll die if she isn’t stabilized. Now.”
Eve dropped to her knees beside me. Her fingers hovered over my sternum, not touching, like she could feel the heat coming off me. The blessed amethyst necklace she always clutched when she was nervous swung against her chest.
“Salima,” she said, and her voice went tight. “Talk to me.”
I forced my eyes open wider. “Hi.”
Eve’s mouth twitched, not quite a smile. “Of course you’d greet me like you’re hosting a dinner party.”
“Someone has to bring manners to this mess.”
Nishi crouched on the other side of Faith, scanning the woods. “They’re gone. We lost them.”
Aurora made a sound of disgust. “Cowards.”
Eve’s looked me over me. “Lucinda had you severed from your coven.”
I swallowed again, the movement painful. “She did.”
Eve’s expression sharpened. “Which coven?”
The question hit like a blade.
I could have kept avoiding it. Kept pretending I was still just the Salem outcast who happened to be hanging around Ravenholde because I liked the company.
But it was too late for that. Lucinda had made sure of it.
“The Ravenholde coven,” I whispered.
Eve went still. “What?”
Nishi’s head snapped toward me. “You were in Lucinda’s coven?”
“I didn’t say it was voluntary,” I rasped.
Eve stared at me like I had spoken a different language. “I thought you were part of Salem. I thought that’s where your bond was.”
“I was,” I said. My throat burned. “Technically.”
Faith’s grip on my shoulder tightened. “Salima. What does that mean?”
“It means Salem never wanted me,” I said, and the bitterness in my voice surprised even me. “They kept me because I’m useful. Lucinda knew that. She threatened to send me back to Salem if I didn’t let her add me.”
Eve’s eyes widened. “She threatened to send you back.”
“Yes.” I tried to take a full breath. My lungs refused. “And I let her. I let her bind me because she dangled something I’ve never had. A place.”
Faith’s face softened, and I hated how much that mattered. I hated that it made my chest ache for reasons that had nothing to do with magic.
“I’ve never belonged anywhere,” I whispered. “Not really. And then I got here, and you all treated me like I wasn’t a monster. It was worth it to stay with you.”
Silence hit the clearing, heavy and sharp.
Even the trees seemed to listen.
Aurora swore again, quieter this time. “Lucinda is going to pay.”
Eve’s hands curled into fists, then forced themselves open. Anger rolled off her in waves, hot enough to make the air feel thinner.
“She didn’t just sever you,” Eve said slowly, like she was thinking through the mechanics while fury threatened to eat her alive. “She did it to teach us a lesson.”
My chest flared, confirming it.
Nishi’s gaze narrowed. “A deliberate act of retribution?”
Faith’s eyes flashed. “So we go find her.”
“No.” Eve shook her head once, sharp. “Not yet. Not like this.” She leaned closer to me. “Salima, your necro power was already volatile. You told me it needs structure.”
“It does,” I managed. “A coven bond stabilizes it.”
“And right now you have none,” Eve said, and the words sounded like a diagnosis.
The dead tugged again at the edge of my awareness, curious, patient.
I shuddered.
Eve noticed. Her gaze flicked toward the treeline. “They feel you.”
I forced a nod. “I’m loud right now.”
Faith’s jaw clenched. “Tell me what you need, Eve.”
Eve inhaled, and when she spoke her voice was all business, the tone she used when someone walked into The Blue Moon with a curse in their soul and a smile on their face.
“I need supplies from my shop,” she said. “Salt. iron filings. crystals. specific herbs. I’ll need to focus magical energies.”
Aurora’s gaze swept the clearing again. “This place won’t work? I could retrieve the items you need so you don’t need to move Salima.”
Eve shook her head. “This place is saturated. The relic was just destroyed here. There’s still residue. And there’s a reason Lucinda chose a violent severing. She wanted Salima unstable.”
Faith’s expression went murderous. “So you fix it.”
Eve looked at Faith, then Aurora, then Nishi, like she was seeing them as more than allies for the first time.
“I can,” Eve said. “But I can’t do it alone.”
Nishi’s head tilted. “You’re not formally bound to a coven.”
“I wasn’t,” Eve corrected. “I am now, to you Faith and Hunter.”
Faith didn’t hesitate. “Whatever you need we will do it.”
Aurora’s eyes narrowed. “What are you asking?”
Eve’s gaze returned to me. “A coven bond is structure. It is a network. If Salima doesn’t have one, her power will keep unraveling until it tears her apart.”
My throat tightened. The heat in my chest flared again, like it was impatient with all this talking.
Eve’s voice sharpened. “We do this soon, or we bury her.”
Faith’s hand tightened around mine. “We’re not letting her die.”
Aurora nodded once, grim. “Tell us what to do.”
Nishi’s eyes were hard, but her voice was steady. “Do whatever you need to do.”
Eve swallowed, then shifted into motion. She pulled a small pouch from hert pocket and sprinkled salt in a rough circle around me. The crystals in her jewelry caught moonlight as she moved.
“This will buy us some time, but not much,” she said.
The salt hissed faintly when it hit the damp ground, reacting to the lingering residue in the clearing.
My skin prickled.
The dead tugged again, frustrated now, like the salt had slammed a door in their faces.
Faith looked from the salt to Eve. “We need to get her to your shop.”
“Yes,” Eve said. “The Blue Moon is warded. The apartment above it is stocked. I can set a circle properly there.”
Aurora glanced toward the trail leading back to the gravel parking lot. “We drive?”
Eve’s mouth tightened. “We have to.”
Nishi’s gaze sharpened. “Portal travel?”
Eve hesitated, and that hesitation scared me more than the pain.