Page 49 of Tales of a Deadly Devotion (Tales of a Monstrous Heart, #2)

Chapter Twenty-Five

Kat

Madness comes in many forms. If the fey wished for sympathy, they should not have stolen the King’s bride. For what is he to do but be tormented by her defilement. Wondering what cursed corner of the earth they will leave her body to rot once they’ve had their feast.

Vengeance will be his – and every despicable creature of their line deserves his wrath for their complicity.

Correspondence from Lord Ramsey

How awful that none of the tales even remembered her name. She was nothing but the weeping bride. The girl that broke the King’s heart and drove him mad. Her memory bathed in the innocent blood he’d shed in her name.

Liar. The stories the King’s sympathisers peddled to ignite their cause in the last war. Of a virtuous beauty stolen by beasts. How long he hunted and killed to save his love. How the blood spilled was nothing but evidence of his devotion.

Only I knew the truth of that tale. I was made of it.

There was a girl who was to be sold to a mad king. A defiant girl consumed with rage and grief. One who wished for nothing but to tear this kingdom down. No matter the cost. Until it cost her everything.

A stillness enveloped Emrys and William as they watched me. The necromancy spell dissipated as the bones rattled back in the box, back into cursed slumber.

Gideon was still muttering a curse at the grave. ‘Bloody stupid lying bastard.’

‘Kat.’ William’s tone was soft, cautious even. ‘Why did he call you that name?’

I shook my head, taking another step back, wanting to lie. Feeling its heavy weight on my tongue but as my eyes met Emrys’s … I couldn’t. My lies had led me nowhere but to ruin and I couldn’t play with them anymore.

‘That’s my—’ I felt as if I was suddenly underwater. Battling the waves to try to draw one breath deep enough to get the rest of the cursed words out. ‘That was my mother’s name.’

A name I was forbidden to say.

What people refused to see. Never glancing past the hue in my skin or the vibrancy in my eyes. Never dwelling on any of my other features. How sharply they matched hers. Never caring for the mortal mother who ruined herself with a Kysillian brute.

‘No.’ The word was breathless through William’s lips, the coffin he was supposed to be holding with his magic-coaxed roots dropped back into the hole with a crash and eruption of dirt, sending him stumbling away from the hole.

The snow curled and twisted in the silence.

‘Lady Leanna Grey,’ Gideon snapped, turning on Emrys as if he was party to my secrets. He pointed a finger in accusation right at me, as if I was her. A ghost stood amongst these graves. ‘The weeping fucking bride.’

‘I thought—’ William stammered, running his hands through his errant curls as Alma cawed and flapped her wings.

‘You’re telling me Lady Grey disappeared and caused the rare fields massacre. Only to run off with a Kysillian ?’ Gideon’s aether crackled in the space between his clenched fists.

‘Not just any Kysillian, darling,’ Thean offered unhelpfully, from where they leant against a wonky gravestone, considering their nails with little care.

Gideon’s eyes darted to the hilt where it sat tucked into the belt of my skirt, the gold gleaming in the moonlight as if to taunt him. The fire that silenced that seal, one no lesser Kysillian could have survived.

They want your little pet, Serus . Montagor’s mocking words came back to me. Because the dark knew what I’d done. Wielded sacred steel and survived summoning Kyslor.

Knew my magic because it had tasted the fury of my fathers. Tasted the fury of my kin.

‘Kayin. King of the North,’ Thean concluded, confirming what I knew. They knew of my father.

Gideon seemed to sag with the weight of his rage, turning on his heel but he didn’t get half a step before he started to laugh, bitter and self-amused.

‘Trust you, brother , to drag me back into this. Only to find you infatuated with the only fucking creature that can open a seal. Not to mention the child of the fucking weeping bride!’

Alma gave out an angry caw, swooping to peck at his head.

‘Fuck,’ he snapped. Batting her off as she flapped her wings in irritation before hopping over to me. Shifting effortlessly back into her shaggy dog form, a growl peeling from her bared teeth.

Murderer. Liar. Coward . A thousand other words I could have called myself in many different tongues. I deserved every one of them.

‘My mother didn’t have that book. No matter what that thing said.’ I knew she didn’t. She would have told me. Woven it into her bedtime stories as she did everything else, so I’d understand.

‘Are you sure about that?’ Gideon challenged. Only for Emrys to take another step forwards, his magic making the air even more frigid.

‘You’ll mind your tone when you speak to her,’ he warned. Unease rippling between himself and his brother, as I heard Gideon’s aether spit in response even though his eyes softened as they looked at me. Making me wonder if they saw that grief in me. The burden of it.

‘My mother wasn’t his bride. She never agreed to any of it.’ My breath caught, my magic rising with fury as if it remembered too. ‘It’s all a lie.’

Gideon seemed to chew on that, unable to look at me as his gaze moved around our strange gathering. ‘Does anyone else have any other family secrets that could make this fucking day any more abysmal.’

Alma let out a bark, earning herself a glare.

‘This is good, isn’t it?’ William worried his hands, his smile uneasy on his lips. ‘It means Kat could know where it is.’

‘I—’ Words stuck to my tongue. Because I had nothing, I knew nothing. Even after everything, I didn’t understand any of this.

‘She could have taken it with her when she vanished,’ William offered.

‘She wouldn’t have brought a book like that to the north. She wouldn’t have wanted it near my father.’ Or me. Not that piece of her past.

‘You’re sure?’ Gideon folded his arms, brow raised.

Emrys came closer to my side. ‘I won’t warn you again, brother.’

I shook my head, trying to piece together how she could have had something that dark. Could have known it and not told me. ‘Any cloaking charm wouldn’t have survived.’

‘Survived what?’ William frowned, lips pursed in confusion.

She was alive when you burnt her, little troll. I shook my head, dispelling that dark voice.

‘Me,’ I answered, voice unwavering because I’d made a promise not to be afraid of those truths. Not anymore. ‘She died holding me. My magic consumed her remains; a command my father had given it.’

Perhaps another reason he’d asked for my forgiveness. I’d lost my voice screaming for it to stop but it wouldn’t. Not until she was nothing but ashes in a storm wind. The whole cottage, every piece. It would have destroyed any protective charms, even one strong enough to conceal that book.

I knew there was nothing left. I’d crawled through the ashy remains of my childhood. Held it between my palms. Was haunted by it every night since.

Gideon went so still, as if the pain in my voice saddened him as much as it tore open something in my chest. A wound I’d ignored for too long. ‘It destroyed every part of her. As if knowing what horrid things they’d do with even one piece.’

How they’d desecrate the body of a woman who made her own choices. Who loved a Kysillian male and birthed his child. Now it made so much sense. Why my magic would want to protect her even in death, because if she knew where that book was …

My eyes moved to the disturbed grave, the loose mound of soil. They’d bring her back somehow. They’d use whatever dark summoning cost them their souls … because this madness had no cure.

I looked up into Emrys’s dark eyes, blurred with my tears. ‘I know it wasn’t there. My fire would have undone any charm protecting it.’

‘It’s all right, Croinn.’ He reached for my hand so easily. As if this dark secret between us was nothing at all. As his fingers slipped between my own, tight and forgiving.

‘The book wasn’t in the King’s possession when he died.’ Emrys turned his attention back to Gideon, who’d braced his hands on his hips, glaring at the frozen earth as if it held the answers. ‘He didn’t utilise it during the wars.’

‘Which means she stole it just before she ran,’ Thean finished, looking unbothered by the entire mystery as if waiting for us to catch up.

‘There was nothing in the Ainsworth compendium, William?’ Gideon seemed to chew on his irritation.

‘The gobrite’s residency ruined most of the text. Chewed right through the bloody pages.’ William shifted nervously. ‘So, the Compendium of Souls could be anywhere.’

It could have been, but in all of my uncertainty, there was one thing I knew more than anything else. I knew my mother. Knew every story she told.

‘There is only one place she would have gone.’ The only place she would have returned to. If only to say goodbye to the ghosts that lingered there. ‘The Greymark estate.’

Where it had all begun for her, and where it had all ended. She spoke fondly of the woodland house. The only place in the world she’d felt safe before my father. Before her monsters arrived to turn it into a nightmare.

‘The family sold off their estate decades ago. It was torn down.’ Gideon’s answering tone had at least softened slightly.

I shook my head. ‘No. The northern house. The one bordering the south woods.’

Emrys considered my words for a moment, rubbing his jaw before he shrugged. ‘It’s a good place to start.’

‘And here I was thinking I’d get some fucking rest tonight.’ Gideon pinched the bridge of his nose. Alma barked her annoyance at him.

‘Surely it’s already been raided to death?’ William worried his lip.

‘Old houses have tricks of their own,’ Emrys offered. ‘Especially one left alone that long.’

It was a start. If Montagor was looking into the past – he might not be searching for the Compendium of Souls, might not even believe it existed but if we could find it … it would give us an advantage.

‘Let’s get back in the bloody house. I’m sure it’ll be perturbed to be missing out on all the family revelations,’ Gideon commanded with a clap of his gloved hands, taking William’s shoulder and guiding him down the path towards where the doorway hummed.

Alma gave me one assessing look before trotting off after them. I didn’t see Thean leave as I turned to Emrys.

‘I should have—’ The words felt too heavy on my tongue as I looked down at the horrid remains of the diary in my other hand. How I’d made another mistake so easily. ‘I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.’

‘I know, Croinn.’ He gathered me to him so gently, until my unsteady breath brushed against his throat. Needing him even closer. His arms strong bands around me that felt unbreakable. ‘It doesn’t change anything.’

‘Even if I lied? Even if they were right about me all this time?’ My voice was so small. So fearful.

Murderer. Liar. Coward , repeated through my mind. All their mocking slights.

That I was some foul thing. Impure. A liar. That panic wouldn’t leave me. Even if I didn’t regret any of it. That this thing inside of me was smothered for a reason.

Yet, the smallest smile came to his lips as his thumb traced my jaw.

‘That they should fear you and the chaos you create?’ He smiled, so softly as his knuckles traced the edge of my jaw. Then his fingertips finding that sharp point of my ear. ‘They should. They deserve every ember of your wrath.’

Then he lent closer, until there was nothing but the faint alluring beasam bark and him. Until his arms were around me and my cheek was pressed against the safety of his chest. ‘You burn, I burn, Kat.’

A promise. That no matter where I led us, he’d come with me. Even to that ruin.

‘Gideon has a right to be annoyed with me,’ I offered, wondering how I’d fix that.

‘We’ll agree to disagree on that.’ Emrys kissed my forehead before he gently untangled us and coaxed me back down the path and into the waiting portal.

Despite my relief to be out of the cold, commotion awaited as we returned to the warmth of the house.

‘Don’t say another word,’ Alma snapped, wearing a robe that was far too big for her. Her clawed nails out and pointed right at Gideon’s throat. ‘I’m coming with you. If it’s there and it’s as dark as those creatures, I should be able to sniff it out.’

Because Alma had been one and she never forgot a scent.

Gideon just cast his frustrated gaze to the ceiling. Clearly resigned to his fate of nothing going how he wished before he dropped his focus to where Thean had draped themselves in the closest chair.

‘William,’ Gideon warned, ‘watch Thean.’

The voyav bristled, eyes sharp as they finally paid attention to their surroundings. ‘You can’t seriously think I’m staying here?’

‘I don’t want William alone. Not while Montagor has a relic,’ Gideon challenged; however, he didn’t hide his enjoyment at the voyav’s annoyance.

A relic not even the house could defend against.

‘Also, the south lands are currently in turmoil with rebel attacks. I’m certain you’re not too keen on running into your friends right now?’

The voyav showed no reaction. Simply leant further back into the cushions and crossed their legs with a dancer’s grace. ‘Hurry back then, little witch, I could get up to an awful lot of trouble unsupervised .’

‘You’ll be staying right where I can bloody see you,’ William warned like a stern housekeeper.

The voyav grinned wickedly at the boy’s attempt at firmness, swirling one of the cushion tassels around their finger. ‘We’ll see, darling, you might get distracted by the delivery boy again.’

‘Thean,’ William half whined. His face going beetroot.

‘Since it appears we’re off to war again – I’ll get the gear,’ Gideon sighed, resigning himself to the madness of what was about to unfold.