Page 48 of Tales of a Deadly Devotion (Tales of a Monstrous Heart, #2)

Any hope I had that the next steps in locating what Montagor was looking for would be easy were lost as we were greeted by a night bitter with frost, thick fog curling over the crooked tombstones and the lumpy frozen dirt path that curled upwards towards the hollowed-out abbey just beyond.

Nothing but shards of rock held together with ivy and hope that the wind didn’t blow too strongly in its direction.

Fat snowflakes fell from a bruised night sky, every tree withered and twisted. A strange gloomy silence that accompanied most forgotten places.

Relmort Abbey. One of the saints’ most prized places of worship where it sat on the cliffs in the west. The wind was sharp and lined with salt, stinging my cheeks, making the snow dance before us.

The stained glass was long gone and the saints’ emblems worn from the stone, the faces of the statues chiselled smooth by fey – but I could imagine the grand depictions of their Elysior kings. How they’d brought civilisation to these lands and culled the beasts who once called it home.

Nothing but a tomb itself now. Forgotten and alone. A fitting end for their tyranny.

Small glimmers of white flashed in the corner of my eye. Roaming spirits lost across this unhallowed ground.

I pulled my cloak tighter against the night chill.

Alma butted my thigh with her snout in her new dog form.

Her dark, curly fur catching the snow. William had been thrilled at her choice in creature for this evening.

Something about her sudden decision to shift made me think she was hiding though – and, because she was Alma, wondering just what she was hiding from was a hopeless endeavour.

Her secrets woven too tightly around her ribs, stored deep like small nuts for winter.

I’d never asked for them. Knowing that her secrets were part of her defence.

Her safety. No. I didn’t need her secrets.

I just needed her to know I’d be listening, even if it took her decades to let one slip free. I’d be here. Waiting.

I let my fingers run through the soft fur at her head before she darted off with a bark.

‘I told you we should get a dog.’ William grinned, skipping slightly to keep up with Alma’s trot as she sniffed at the overgrown weeds lining the path.

‘Not this again,’ Gideon grumbled, digging his hands deep in his fine grey suede coat pockets. Snow clumping on his tense shoulders, his eyes scanning the graveyard before us.

The pale light from the Portium door in the dilapidated mausoleum behind us illuminated the path, making us cast long shadows across the terrain.

‘I didn’t think there were any necromancers left,’ I whispered, tucking my hands deeper into my cloak as I looked up to Emrys as he kept pace next to me. No more relaxed than his brother.

‘There shouldn’t be,’ he answered, looking at where my cloak was wrapped about my body as if concerned it wasn’t enough to deal with the damp, winter air. ‘The more worrying thing would be how Thean has kept a necromancer from the Countess.’

He eyed the voyav where they led our small party to the centre of a cluster of worn stumps I assume used to be gravestones. A voyav that had remained aloof since their warning by the fire.

Necromancy. A magic that valuable would turn the rebellion’s tide against the Council.

To tell the Countess would be to enslave that being with the same blood vow that Thean seemed to chafe against. A necromancer was old blood – old magic – and whatever loyalty Thean Page had, they seemed to respect such a being’s freedom.

Or perhaps they were simply waiting for their usefulness to run out.

‘Bloody bastard couldn’t be buried indoors?’ Gideon griped as he came to a stop, shooting another hateful glance at Thean. ‘You could have found the bastard yourself.’

‘My skill is murder, little witch, not scrying.’ Thean shrugged, but their amusement had dissipated with the statement, making me unsure if they could actually have done it on their own. The being was still as much a mystery as the unfortunate night we’d met them.

Rooting in his pockets, Gideon pulled out the worn coin.

It now emitted a strange ghostly glow. He flipped it, letting it drop to the frozen earth.

It spun for a moment before it rolled and jumped.

Settling finally on a low mound where a small sad stone marked the place, as if nobody had bothered to remember the burial plot.

‘There he is,’ Gideon sighed, turning to hold his arm out to William. ‘If you wouldn’t mind, William.’

The boy nodded with determination, stepping forwards and kneeling next to the coin as his palms glowed green and he pushed his fingers into the lank, frosty grass.

He closed his eyes as his summoning grew, making his fingers glow green too, a small rumbling coming from beneath our feet before a harsh misted breath left his lips.

‘There are slabs on top,’ William huffed, sweat at his brow despite the cold. His fingers flexing as the ground rumbled from the roots he summoned to assist him.

‘Someone doesn’t want him dug up,’ Thean observed dryly from where they leant against a grave, clearly unbothered by who they stood on top of. Alma gave a small growl. Probably at the voyav’s commentary that might distract the boy.

‘They do it so they don’t walk after death,’ Emrys answered, brows knotted with thought.

The warning in his words sent a chill down my spine. And that was the last warning before the ground shook and William gave another heave as the roots pierced the frozen earth.

Alma let out a bark, clearly deciding she wanted a better view as she leapt and shifted into a crow, perching on the boy’s shoulder.

The soil shifted, undulating and spilling until the rotten casket rose. Willaim recoiled, landing on his backside as he panted with bright rosy cheeks. Alma gave a disconcerted squawk from being jostled around.

‘Well done, William.’ Emrys smiled tightly as he stepped forwards and used the heel of his boot to knock the remains of the coffin’s measly lid off.

A skeleton lay inside. The innards of the coffin gleamed in the moonlight, covered in a strange waxy substance – I assumed it was the remains of the lord’s body fat that had decayed.

I’d read a paper on how grave robbers sold it to traders to extract the residual magic for unsupported healing tonics in the outer markets.

A shudder moved through me at the thought, at how desperate this world had become.

Rusted blades and other trinkets appeared to have been dumped with little care. A rustle from the stray papers left at the bottom of the coffin, worm-eaten.

Alma hopped onto the edge of the coffin and then inside, picking through the remains. I knelt in the loose soil, gathering up the pages I could salvage.

‘They look rather useless,’ Thean cautioned with boredom.

I took hold of the pages. The corners were charred, the paper coated in bright white ash from a summoning.

‘They destroyed it,’ I murmured to myself before I allowed my palms to heat ever so slightly, remembering the lyrical mix of the incantation at the back of my mind, a song that didn’t need words to be formed.

Slowly, with a crack and the lavender hue of my magic, the pages were fully restored between my palms.

Pages of Lord Ramsey’s scribbled madness.

‘How the fuck did you manage that?’ Gideon was suddenly perched over my shoulder, eyes moving too quickly as if his thoughts wouldn’t catch up.

‘I made a reformation incantation.’ I offered the diary up for his consideration. He carefully turned the page, gloved finger running over the scrawl inside.

‘The bastard is talking about the knights’ trove; about the Alder Kings.’ Gideon pointed the words out to Emrys, whose eyes seemed to darken in answer.

The Alder Kings, rulers of the endless dark. Ancient demons with no form. The rulers of this land long before stories had existed. Old stories, too old for me to understand.

This was far darker than my worst fears. Unease curled within me at how little I knew, how useless all my knowledge had become.

‘I suppose we have much to discuss then.’ Emrys pulled the witch’s finger free from his pocket before turning to his brother with one raised dark brow. ‘Just an awakening command?’

‘This is my first venture into necromancy. However, the bastard will be compelled to answer and he won’t like it,’ Gideon offered dryly, but there was concern in his features as he pulled back from me. ‘So, let’s hope the fucker isn’t possessed – or worse … hungry.’

‘Hungry?’ William squeaked but Emrys continued, letting his pale summoning light imbue the finger as he held it over the remains.

I stood, letting the diary become nothing but a pile of ruined papers in my hands once more.

Emrys spoke over the remains but I didn’t understand the terse incantation. Bright magic illuminated his hand. Demon fire. The witch’s finger glowing before it shifted into nothing but ash. Sliding off Emrys’s palm like dry earth and onto the remains.

A silence followed. Nothing but the whistle of the wind and the irritated rustle of Alma’s wings.

‘What now?’ William whispered. Then the bones choked and appeared to gasp for air. Making William practically leap out of his skin with fright. Much to Thean’s amusement.

Alma pecked one of his horns, ruffling his hair. Whether in reprimand or in comfort, I didn’t know.

‘Here we go.’ Gideon stepped closer, blue witch aether in his palms, focus deadly.

‘I demand to speak with Lord Turner,’ Emrys said, not moving from where he was crouching over those bones. The pale summoning between his fingers not dissipating and small dark veins beginning to appear along the edge of his jaw. As if ready for a challenge.

‘A Blackthorn,’ the bones croaked, the jaw snapping open and shut as if trying to cough death from its non-existent throat.

Emrys turned his magic over in his hand with relaxed ease as if it was a deadly blade. A different creature than the one I knew. A predatory nature to his movements and a dangerous focus in his dark gaze.

‘Maybe your father made good on his promise to disturb my rest after all,’ the bones groaned, a weariness in them as a strange mist filled in the gaps, so the remains could sit up. Head hanging oddly like a disused doll.

‘Lord Ramsey’s diary,’ Emrys began with ease as if he spoke to the dead every day. ‘He had quite an obsession with the Alder Kings, it seems. What was he after?’

The bones let out a wheezing laugh, rattling with it. ‘To replace what was lost. For we know the old mad kings hungered for one thing.’

‘A seal,’ Gideon answered. ‘Lord Ramsey never found one.’

The bones seemed to jump and twist as if reluctant but the croaked words tumbled out ominously all the same. ‘He found something greater. The book.’

‘Which one?’ Emrys demanded, demon fire flaring in his palms in threat, giving the angles of his face a lethal edge.

The bony fingers clawed at the wooden remains of the coffin until they snapped and tumbled across the wood. A futile resistance. ‘The only one that matters. The Compendium of Souls.’

The Compendium of Souls. A forsaken tome. A myth. Said to have been touched by the saint himself, hidden away and buried with him. The history of the Verr, the path to all their incantations and the seals that killed them. The history of the old kings.

Emrys didn’t show a flicker of either interest or surprise. ‘The King was seeking the book.’

In the wars there were stories the mad kings hunted the ancient fey brutally for their knowledge. Because their blood went back to the time of the Verr – back to the magic that those mortal kings sought to awaken once more.

‘The King possessed the book,’ the bones croaked. ‘There was nothing he wished to possess more. No desire more deadly than his for that book.’

That wasn’t possible. If the King had the book he would have opened it. All this would have ended long before it began. Montagor wouldn’t be seeking the blood to lead him here. To lead him to any clues for it or a way to open it.

Emrys’s brow furrowed with doubt as he turned to see Gideon, who looked equally concerned, peering down in disdain at the remains over his brother’s shoulder.

If the King had the book, why did none of the lords know of it and why didn’t Montagor possess it?

‘He didn’t use it.’ The words slipped free before I could stop them. The skull twisted towards me, the pits of endless darkness that were its eyes staring. Something in the endlessness of it made fear prickle the back of my neck.

There you are. That darkness seemed to whisper in the back of my mind.

A horrid sound rumbled from it, a growl.

‘ Don’t look at her. ’ Emrys dark command wasn’t entirely mortal. The skull snapped back to him. Quaking in the remains of the coffin. ‘Why didn’t he use the book?’

‘He didn’t have the time,’ the bones moaned, twisting as if writhing in agony. William looked peaky and I wondered if Alma being perched on his shoulder was the only thing keeping him upright.

‘Why?’ Gideon demanded with impatience.

The bones rattled, jaw snapping together, teeth tumbling free as if to keep the answer.

‘It vanished the same night the bride did. The bitch that killed the kingdom. The madness that lost him the throne,’ the remains mocked with a sing-song tone.

An icy fear bit into my bones, making me move back a step across the uneven ground. Heart slamming into my gut.

Be wary of how far you wander, you’ll tread paths you were never meant to take .

A horrid warning I should have remembered.

Another thing I’d lost. I shook my head, hair loose about my face, but there was no hiding myself.

No hiding from this new horrid twist in the tale.

Unable to understand why my past kept leading me to this present.

How it could all be tangled together so easily.

The weeping bride. The King’s betrothed.

Liar , the wind seemed to hiss. An awful feeling moved through me. Slow and cold as if my blood had become congealed. Alma let out a warning caw, her head swivelling sharply towards me, but that ringing had started in my ears. Blocking out everything else.

You never speak my name. Never speak the truth, Tauria. Promise me. The memory of my mother’s voice. How clear it seemed, how it gave my magic the compulsion to rise. To incinerate those bones before they could go further. To keep my promise.

‘You’re lying,’ Gideon challenged with exasperation. Only for those bones to creak in answer with what I could only describe as laughter.

‘You can ask her yourself.’ One remaining skeletal finger raised and pointed right at me. ‘She’s right there.’

I could’ve sworn that skull was smiling with its next words.

‘Lady Leanna Grey.’

My mother’s name.