Page 143 of Tales of a Monstrous Heart
Forgive me.My father’s voice came next, whispered against my ear, the roughness of his beard, damp with tears.
Then that darkness abated so I could see him in my memory, kneeling before me on the sand, the ships sailing in the distance, and shouting for him to hurry before the storm came. How viciously the rain pelted my skin, filling my bones with a coldness I’d never lost.
Forgive me, Tauria. He had whispered into my hair, his hold tight. Making impressions in my very bones, making certain I wouldn’t forget his love.
Not for leaving me. No. For teaching me this fear. Fear that had kept me safe, kept me hidden, but I would hide no longer. I was a being with a monstrous heart, and now I’d show them just how monstrous I could be.
I opened my eyes, seeing that creature once more, feeling its talons digging into the skin of my chest, the drip of dark sour rot from its fangs.
Live.My mother’s command. I felt the chaotic fury of my magic rise in response to her words, along with vicious undeniable strength from my Kysillian blood. I thrust my hand up, catching the galmoth by the throat, twisting viciously until the bone protruded from its neck.
The dark smoke was unable to change in my hold as it tried to show me another nightmare, the demon peering down at me with fear in its deathly eyes.
It could show me nothing else. I had no fear left.
I screamed into its face; rage untethered. Just as I had into Master Daunton’s as he tried to strike me one last time, tried to take more from me, tried to destroy me.
My power poured from my hands, engulfing me in an inferno. Everything around us was thrown backwards with the turbulent flames. Plumes of dead earth and dark fiendswere cast back. The creature screeched, clawing at my flesh and snapping to try and get free. But I let the fire’s intensity rise, shooting down its throat to melt its cursed flesh and bones. Hotter and wilder until it became nothing but ash in my grasp. Yet the magic kept going, kept building. My blood singing with the power of it. The beginnings of a storm that had brewed for too long surged around me.
My magic. Just as monstrous as me.
The cracking of the earth grew louder beneath me with every drop of blood that ran from my fingertips, from the bite at my shoulder, as molten fire consumed my veins, feeling the warmth of the magic that slept within them. The same fire that had formed the First Queen, Kysillia. The seal beneath my feet held that same warmth, dirt obscuring the ancient marks.
Reimor.
Kysillians had never been cowed by the darkness. That’s why the dark fiends and the mortals that worshipped it hunted us so desperately. Kysillians had sealed this earth before, sealed it even in a place as dark as this, and so I could again.
Tauria. Chaos of the Heavens. Why my father chose that name for me.
I screamed as that agony raced through my body, the metal shattering like delicate glass beneath my bare bloody feet. That dark smoke seeped through, forming claws that grabbed my ankles, pulling me down and clawing at my flesh. Refusing to let me go. Starved of its vengeance.
Then it began to crawl across the earth wildly towards Emrys. To take him too. To feast.
‘Kat !’ Emrys called, but I could only see a blurred image of him. Darkness crept into my vision, bright white light flaring before me the only evidence of his presence.
Control and devotion to something greater than yourself.I remembered those words as my father pressed my hand onto the stone statue of Kysillia, at the temples of old. As I promised never to fear myself, or the blood in my veins.
I was a liar, but I’d be a liar no more.
Kysillia might have given us her name, but she gave us something else, too: a power only her blood could wield. The power to destroy magic.
I heard the screeching roar of the fiends, saw them scurrying and running for that hole in the ceiling. To the outside. Then came the memory of pain, of those fey above, overwhelming me with the agony of it.
The carefree grin of William, the lack of fear in Alma’s eyes. Safe. Finally.
Only for me to remember those boys in the village foolishly hunting mort berries. The desperation of Mr Thrombi trying to save his village. The sad ghostly face of that girl in the wood. Trapped. The phantom press of a blade against my throat, the horror and agony of her death. Of all their deaths.
Then I knew, I couldn’t let this darkness out. Couldn’t let it touch this world. I felt the demonic wind whip around me, the thunderous roar of Emrys’s magic. Undeniably his, and dark beyond measure.
Verr couldn’t lie.
The most beautifully chaotic thing I’ve ever seen.He hadn’t lied about any of it. He couldn’t.
Tears ran down my cheeks as I felt myself reaching the depths of that abyss of chaos inside of me, knew there was no surviving this. Not for me. Just like my father. To be consumed by the fire we protected.
I understood my curse then. No matter how I loved something, it would never be enough to keep it with me. I wasn’tmade for living. Yet I looked to Emrys’s demonic light one more time, arching through that darkness, trying to find a way through despite the fiends and my flame.
I won’t leave you alone to that darkness, Kat.
