Page 14 of Tales of a Deadly Devotion (Tales of a Monstrous Heart, #2)
Chapter Nine
Kat
The dark calls all things back in the end.
I could taste bitter earth. Feel the phantom sting of a blade across my throat. The agony as it cut to the bone. The burning scrape of that darkness against my skin.
A horrid scream.
Emrys.
His roar of agony as that darkness tore him open.
The warm splatter of his blood. Claws ripping through his heart. Seeking something within .
You thought you could keep him, Tauria? A dark voice hissed against the shell of my ear. Lurching me into waking once again. A horrid repetitive fate I’d found myself in. Nothing before me but the darkness of the night. Alone in this room.
Moonlight seeped through the curtains, casting strange dark shapes across the floor that seemed to move out of the corner of my eye.
My heart pounded, sweat dripping from my temples as my fists clutched the sheets.
Seeing things that weren’t there. Haunted by the phantom sting of a blade across my throat.
The agony as it cut to the bone deep in that pit.
All the fey that had died there before. Every single one remained with me even now. Just as those in Daunton had.
The covers suddenly felt too heavy. Trapping me.
I pushed them off, my legs almost folding beneath me as I slid off the bed. Reminding me just how weak I’d become.
Thankfully, the house took pity on me. The lamps in the room flared to life with a comforting glow. Chasing those shadows away as my fingers curled around the bedpost. Pressing my forehead against the cool wood, trying to steady my breath.
‘Thank you,’ I whispered, dragging the robe from the foot of the bed and pulling it on, having to take two breaks on my short walk to the door. But I needed to move, to prove to myself I could get away.
The house groaned and creaked in question.
‘I’m fine,’ I smiled weakly, ignoring the twinge at my ribs as I made my way to the door that the house opened without complaint.
However, instead of the hallway, I entered a room I’d never seen before.
One the house clearly wished for me to see now.
Small and circular as if it sat at the top of a tower.
Thick wooden beams above me, with dried herbs hanging from rope as if we were in the garden of a witch’s den.
The air thick with potent magic and fresh ink.
One large table sat at its centre, cluttered in the same manner as all the other tables in the house; the walls lined with shelves stacked too high and bookcases bursting with dusty tomes and scrolls.
My gaze fell on the books left open on the table.
The dark shadows painted on the page. Verr stories and ancient symbols all tangled together within the illustrations.
It was in my hands before I could think better of it, cracked leather cool beneath my palms as I considered the words written there.
Writings of witchcraft and the dark arts of their alchemy.
The princes of beneath. Nightmares and endless darkness hungry to feast.
The sound of someone clearing their throat made the book slip from my palms, crumpling the papers on the desk as I turned to see an unfamiliar figure filling the doorway behind me. His dark blonde hair tousled, a frown on his strikingly handsome face as if burdened with worries beyond his age.
A coat was draped over one arm, his white shirt wrinkled and untucked, his hands filled with leather-bound volumes.
There was something familiar about him. About the inquisitive sharpness of his magic.
The sad, almost otherworldly nature to his haunting blue eyes.
Eyes I’d seen in the portrait hanging above the stairs and a face I’d seen in the Council records.
Wondering if now I was seeing ghosts too.
‘Gideon Swift.’ The name slipped carelessly from my lips, lingering in the quiet, magic-singed air between us.
‘Miss Woodrow,’ was his simple, unsurprised and inexpressive greeting. As if we’d met before, or he had stumbled upon half-dead women in their dressing gowns all the time. ‘You shouldn’t be out of bed.’
I picked up the book I’d dropped, smoothing the papers with my trembling fingers. ‘Nobody stopped me.’
Liar. Alma would have skinned me alive – and from the sharp look the healer gave me, he knew that.
‘I should be surprised you’ve got the energy to try to escape again but Kysillians are known to be … unyielding.’ He dropped the books he carried and his coat onto the table between us with little care, a low stoop to his shoulders. ‘Even when faced with the challenge of death, it seems.’
‘I don’t feel unyielding.’ No, the taste of failure was bitter on my tongue as another sharp cramp came at the base of my spine, making me brace my hands on the table’s edge.
He eyed me with something between concern and irritation as he pushed the hair back from his forehead. Only his hand wasn’t made of flesh… but golden metal.
It was intricately carved, a faint glow bleeding from between the gaps in the small mechanisms that made up the finger, knuckle and wrist joints.
Blessed metal. The same compound that created Kysillian steel from beneath the sacred mountains high in the north called Lae’mor. Its golden hue was unmistakable. My magic rose inquisitively in response, just as it would for my sword. Sensing something so familiar.
‘That’s blessed metal.’ I instantly regretted my curiosity as he flinched, his whole body going rigid. He dropped his hand, trying to hide it behind his back, his eyes scanning the mess of papers between us before they landed on a discarded glove that had seen better days.
‘Sorry,’ I added quickly, shamed by my prying.
‘ Car Lorve.’ The Kysillian word fell easily from his lips as he pushed his hand into the glove, flexing his fingers before pressing it close to his side. As if he could conceal the truth of it. ‘Came in quite handy when I lost my arm and half my leg in the north fields.’
I winced at the ease of how he said those words. The north fields massacre had been the last of the Mage King’s battles.
Car Lorve – metal weaving in Kysillian.
‘All the magic smiths have been dead two centuries.’ I frowned, the last Mage King had tried to revive the art in order to take the north from rebel hands, to reach the northern mountain pass and the fey elders that resided beyond, with all the ancient magic they guarded.
Imbuing metal or any natural resource with magic was a dangerous art and one that had deadly consequences – consequences most of his men discovered too late.
‘Emrys sourced what was needed and found the final parts in the cellars beneath the house. Blackthorn lords have a useful tendency to hoard, it seems.’ He rolled his wrist, the slight whirr of the metal muffled beneath the glove. ‘He did his best but the mechanisms tend to misbehave.’
‘I didn’t know there were cellars beneath the house.’ I frowned, only for a drawer in the sideboard behind Gideon to bang as if the house was excited.
‘I wouldn’t get curious,’ Gideon warned, pressing his knuckles to the drawer to stop its rattle, as if silencing an overexcited child. ‘The old witch who made it left traps down there and I’m certain some of the locks are due to expire in the next century.’
‘That doesn’t worry you?’ I grimaced as a tugging ache came at my ribs. Making me wonder if I was due another tonic.
‘You seem to be in some discomfort,’ he observed, ignoring my question.
‘I’m fine,’ I lied. No matter the discomfort. I didn’t want to go back into the dark of that room. Not to sleep. Not to see all the things I couldn’t change. ‘Thank you for your concern.’
He considered me with mild irritation. As if he was tired with my presence but didn’t have the energy to dismiss me.
However, he was mistaken in thinking his annoyance was the worst I’d experienced.
‘I see from Thean’s irritating observations you’ve a habit of causing trouble.
I wonder what great offence my brother committed to be burdened with such a problematic partner mage. ’
‘I received my partnership on merit, Master Swift,’ I corrected. No matter how much I doubted the truth in my own words.
‘Of course.’ He smiled, eyes falling to the stone around my neck that had tumbled free of my dressing gown.
My hand itched to move and hide the gift, but I curled my fingers into the fabric of my dressing gown instead.
Refusing to be goaded. Ignoring the pounding of my heart, and the flutter of something in my stomach at the memories of Emrys giving it to me.
Seeing its light reflected in his eyes as he’d kissed me in that bed.
‘That stone once belonged to Asterin Everard. She was the first witch of the Blackthorn. The one whose soul created this very house to keep those of her blood safe.’
A flush of embarrassment came to my cheeks. At the importance of it, and why Emrys had given it to me, but I swallowed down the emotion, refusing to be lulled into more foolishness.
‘Some records refer to it as the Blackthorn star. Quite an impressive gift to bestow on a simple partner mage . Wouldn’t you say, Miss Woodrow?’
‘You can call me Kat.’ I tipped my chin, refusing to be provoked. ‘Emrys decided I needed all the help I could get.’
A humourless laugh slipped from his lips. ‘You’ll find most protections fickle in the presence of my brother. You can take me as an example.’
Brother ? Only it didn’t seem real. Especially since this man looked nothing like Emrys, acted nothing like him and neither did his magic. It was uncomfortable, sharp and prodding. Demanding to know things with its irritable pinching.
He dropped into the only chair in the room not cluttered. ‘How do you feel? Magic madness is said to have consequential effects, especially on the mind and control of blood magic.’
‘Fine,’ I answered. Not trusting myself to say more.
His frown deepened with his frustration. ‘Surely a woman as intelligent as yourself knows not to lie to a healer, Miss Woodrow.’