Page 38 of Tales of a Deadly Devotion (Tales of a Monstrous Heart, #2)

‘ She has one,’ they shrugged but I didn’t miss how a coldness crept over their expression. How they rubbed at that summoning mark at their collarbone as if it irritated them.

The mere mention of the Countess coated my veins in ice. My beasts rippling beneath, making me clench my fists and turn my attention to those candles flickering weakly on the mantel. My nose suddenly filled with a cloying stink of roses. A repugnant sweetness mixed with the distant scent of decay.

‘Why would she need a relic?’ I asked.

‘How do you think she holds her flock to their blood oaths?’

My gaze shot back to them, falling to the mark that was poking out of the edge of their shirt.

Of course. There was no fey summoning that dark.

No magic that would trap a being as ruthlessly.

Why the menageries were full of Verr worshippers, why they used forsaken iron to chain us, drank our blood in some perverse amusement.

Our pain an aphrodisiac. The other dark incantations to make us do their bidding.

You already knew this, little rat. Did you forget?

I bit the inside of my cheek. The Keeper’s taunt wasn’t real. The ghost of him wasn’t here. I’d made that voice up to torment myself.

Dark magic was the only power that could suppress fey. Why it could now only be found in the vilest corners of the world. Why those mortal kings had craved it above everything else.

‘Those relics have been out there all this time.’ I swallowed. Being used on fey and the Council had never cared.

‘They hold power. Just like the one your Kysillian keeps.’ Those sharp amber eyes watched every one of my breaths, just like the predator they were. As if waiting for some dramatic emotion from me.

‘Kat doesn’t have any power like that.’ Her blade. A sword this creature before me should know nothing about, but whatever game the voyav was playing – they had no clear interest in Kat’s secrets.

They wouldn’t be lingering here with me if they did.

‘If she stopped pretending that blade doesn’t belong to her … she could.’

Kat didn’t seek power. No, she wanted to be left alone to read her books, to study and heal this world. Only that dream of a simple life had been taken from her.

I wanted to deny it. But Kat had always called it her father’s blade. As if she was simply minding it. Always hidden it. Knowing the brutality of such a weapon and what it meant.

I shuddered, remembering the stories the keepers had whispered.

Of vicious Kysillian beasts who seared creatures’ bones for nothing more than sport.

Why I’d recoiled from Kat the moment we’d met in that dank dorm room in Daunton – seeing those violet eyes.

Because my keepers had taught me that fear well.

Because the monsters we were taught to fear as children took different form depending on who was telling the tale.

‘You shouldn’t know about that blade,’ I wanted to snap but my anger exhausted me more than I cared to admit.

‘What will you offer for my silence, sweetheart?’ Then came the slight sultry lift of their lip.

Everything. Nothing.

‘None of this scares you?’ I bit back. Surely a voyav – a Verr like them – should be more worried about the chaos Kat could unleash. Of what Montagor’s madness meant. Of relics and seals being brought to light. Of all the unrest that was bound to follow.

‘On the contrary, I’d enjoy the view of this world burning down.’ There was nothing but truth in the handsome angles of their face as the candlelight flickered across it. ‘For what has it done for me, darling?’

Nothing. A little voice answered inside of me. My eyes reluctantly moving back to the marks across Thean’s skin. Evidence they were owned.

And from how long they lingered here, they couldn’t be that good a spy, not when it appeared they had no desire to leave. Not when all they did was taunt a worthless creature like me.

‘Found them,’ William announced, making me jump as he appeared – out of breath, with crates in his arms that looked like they’d been used to carry vegetables in the past, a small lantern dangling from his fingers, an ink smudge at his chin as he smiled.

‘These are open so we can go through them to start. I need to ask Emrys where he put the rest.’ He strode to a sideboard that was less cluttered than anything else and put the basket down, picking up the first compendium and handing it to me.

The leather peeled and cracked, rough against my palm.

A shudder rolling through me at the unpleasant sensation as I brought the yellowed spine to my nose.

Smelling the sweetness of fey magic mingled with the sharpness of decay, making me recoil.

‘Anything?’ William frowned.

I was aware of Thean’s presence right over my shoulder, the soft scent of brandy and the spice of their cologne. The creatures in me more curious of the voyav’s proximity than the cursed books before us.

‘The leather is made from wyvern hide and the pages are fey skin.’ I pushed the book back to William. Bile burning the back of my throat.

‘Bloody saints,’ William cursed, looking down at the thing in horror as it fell open between his palms. I expected a retort from the voyav but, as I turned, I saw those amber eyes were focused on the text. Eyes moving across the cracked page with an intensity that unsettled me.

The beastly magic within me almost wanting to growl in warning.

‘How can they be hidden in books?’ I demanded, suddenly the focus of those strange, beautiful eyes. Feeling their body brush against the length of my own. Only their focus was still stuck on those pages and the books William had brought.

‘The same magic that forms a Kysillian sword. Which I know you’re familiar with.’ The words were short and businesslike, but their eyes were moving too fast, as if a thousand thoughts had consumed them. Knowing something they didn’t say. ‘Between here and nothing.’

‘Why would Verr use Kysillian summonings?’ William mused.

‘You think Kysillians came up with it all on their own?’ Thean snorted. ‘The conqueror always writes the history of the conquest, darling.’

Thean flipped the book between us, dust rising from its pages, to the centre. As if they’d read it before, landing on the middle page as it was spread before us.

On the revealed page were no words.

Just an image. Sketched like the tapestries of old I’d seen in the Institute. Only older. Darker.

Women holding children, bowed over. Clutching their young to them as fire rained down from above.

Using their bodies as shields. Their mouths open as if they were screaming.

As they cowered on the ground. Dark marks on their skin, showing they were Verr.

Golden flames shaped like ravenous jaws surrounding them.

Large forms painted in gold holding swords to smite them. No matter how small and defenceless they were.

The Kysillians purged this world of the darkness that could end it . The story echoed in my memory. Only there was no darkness on this page. Just innocent beings. Punished for something they couldn’t change. Their blood.

‘If they were monsters to be purged, then perhaps we are too,’ Thean added so softly, the words barely brushed the shell of my ear. Making it twitch as if my beasts were listening too. ‘Are we all born cursed? Or have we simply forgotten who made us that way?’

Verr were monsters forced beneath. I’d seen the fiends their magic created. Yet as I looked at that picture … they’d been beings. Just as Thean stood before me now. Just as Emrys existed.

Not fiends, shadow beasts or monsters. Women and children.

Beings that looked just like us. Like fey.

It didn’t make sense. I couldn’t process the horror of the image before me as I slammed the book.

My uselessness led too easily to defence as my heart pounded against my ribs but not with rage.

Some strange emotion I couldn’t understand, but before I could ask, the voyav stepped back.

‘I’ll leave you to your reading.’ They straightened their jacket and moved to leave.

William startled. ‘Thean—’

‘Where are you going?’ The demand slipped out before I could swallow it.

‘To call in a favour,’ they replied from the doorway, hands tucked carelessly into their pockets. ‘Worried I’ll meet a gruesome end?’

Thean lifted a mocking brow, smile sly and calculating. My heart fluttered and I told myself it was in irritation, from whatever form my anger wished for me to take.

‘Only that you’ll deprive me of the pleasure of doing it myself.’ I smiled sweetly, turning back to the books William had gathered. Ignoring how the boy’s gaze shot between me and the voyav. Ignoring the voyav’s quiet laughter as they left. Somehow knowing they’d won.

I didn’t hate the image of their smile that came to my mind. Not with how rare they seemed to be. Like a strange gift I shouldn’t want.

‘Should we let them wander the house?’ William asked out of the corner of his mouth, nervously as if the voyav was still listening. Wiping his hands on his apron as if the compendium had dirtied his hands with the sorrow it contained.

No, Thean was gone. I knew by how my beasts settled and curled within me. Bored now.

‘We have bigger problems than a bothersome voyav,’ I sighed, dragging the crate closer to peer inside. ‘We need to find whatever bastard bloodline those lords share.’

Whatever Thean was up to, they meant no harm. My beasts might have been vicious but they’d warn me of that. They always had. Even if I’d never had a chance in how their vengeance came.

William pulled a stained scroll from the basket, brandishing it like a sword with a grin. ‘I found this family tree of the old houses. This should narrow—’

Only the scroll unfurled from his fingers at its own will, the page snaking across the table, knocking books free. Then onto the floor, rolling and rolling until it slid out of the door as if it were trying to escape.

William’s mouth hung open, looking down at the endless lines and lines of names. Centuries’ worth. ‘Bloody saints. It’s going to take forever.’

Forever was something I feared we didn’t have.