Page 129 of Tales of a Monstrous Heart
One more badly cast spell on these lands and we could all be in trouble.Emrys’s warning came back to me as we now faced that reckoning. How powerful this darkness had been allowed to become. The fey blood that had paid for it.
A pattering of water at my cheek made me squint up to see the ceiling was almost completely gone, shreds of wood and glass hanging down. The flames consuming the ballroom.
That dark smoke surged in the centre of the room, popping and snapping as it twisted itself into wrywing form. Those wings lethal and wide, tearing effortlessly through the walls.
‘Bastard !’ Thean seethed, those shadow blades cut through the new dark formations that swarmed for the voyav, sensing he was something they knew: Verr, a piece of darkness they could devour too.
The weight of Emrys’s defence left my back as he rose.
‘Lavrov,’ he seethed, voice too dark. Too strange. That white light between his palms surged as the creature roared, coins bounding as the dark fanged things it made surged for him.
The room trembled, more debris coming down as the howling intensified. Sharp bright white light shot across the distance, the familiarity of Emrys’ energy wrapping around the creature, consuming it just as he’d unmade the tallet. Pinning the demon down.
Only I saw the glow, the manifestation begin to form within the Insidious thing. Thean was right. I’d taught it fire, but not just any fire. Kysillian flames. I saw it glow, giving me the barest moment before it erupted, sending those flames right for Emrys.
Kysillian flames. Flames no magic could smother. Volatile and ravenous.
A feral scream left me as I threw out my own power, pain searing through my limbs with the force of it, stopping the killing blow and sending the inferno of it to the other side of the room, turning the shattered furniture to ash and clouding the room with acrid smoke. The barely formed demon turned to me. A shriek of warning. Emrys called my name desperately as the dark sent another firestorm right at me.
I threw my arms out, fire roaring from my palms as I formed it into a barrier between myself and the darkness, using all my strength to push it back, my feet slipping on broken glass and rubble as sweat beaded my brow.
The roar of those flames, the sharp snapping crackle as they consumed me, pain searing up my forearms with the force to push it back. Muscles I hadn’t used in too long. Too weakened from pretending to be all the things I wasn’t.
Smoke clawed down my throat, too tight. Too close. A wildness awakened in me I hadn’t felt since …
A different pain consumed my chest, a creature made of ravenous grief and fear.
Suddenly I wasn’t in the ballroom. I was home. Feeling the cottage burn around me, feeling my mother’s hand turn to ash in my grasp. Watching her vanish into nothing but embers.
Unmade.
Tauria. Her voice so soft, now so loud in my head. Letting my control slip enough. The mimyk’s blow made it through, hitting me in the chest and sending me back. Forcing me to my knees as it hit right into the heart of me, a direct challenge to the magic in my blood. Breaking the rest of my control.
I panted wildly, clawing at the floor for breath, but there was only smoke pouring down my throat and the ravenous hunger of my magic as it burned in my veins.
Too tight. Too panicked. I’d let too much out. Felt it seeping through my defences, beyond my will. Someone was calling my name. Emrys.
Little troll.
I screamed. My palms burned, bowing me over, but there was no holding it in. Smoke and rage and grief consumed me. The image of my mother burned before me.
Murderer, that dark voice taunted.
‘Stop,’ I wanted to scream, but the word came panted through my teeth.
Whatever monster you wish yourself to be, I’ll still be here, loving you.The soft truth in those words chased the fear away.
Alma.
I squinted through the smoke to see a bedraggled William stumbling to his feet from the rubble, a cat clutched in his arms. Those feline eyes watching me.
Here.She’d always been here. Right in this nightmare with me.
I’ll keep us safe.Words I’d whispered to her as my monstrous magic devoured that nightmare of Daunton. How viciously it had swelled inside me. Just as it swelled now and all I could do was clutch my chest, try and drag in air, try to press it down.
It was too late and she saw it. In all her forms she could see it. See the monster in me.
She changed in a moment. Wings taking out the remaining garish pillars. She barely gave Thean a moment of warning before one claw gripped the back of that lace shirt, the other grabbing William’s jacket, and she shot skyward into the stormy night through the ruined roof.
