Page 5 of Tales of a Monstrous Heart
Fragments of pages fluttered down, dust swirling in the air, as small embers shifted in the darkness like fireflies.
I hung my head, dragging myself to my knees, winded as I wiped sweat from my brow. The fiery magic in my blood was almost unbearable as it simmered, waiting for another command. There was little relief in the ache of my muscles as my magic sank slowly back into my bones but, still, I held out my burning palms, let the sweat slide down my temples and back. Pulling in a dust- and decay-coated breath, silently commanding my magic to silence the flames around me. I pressed them into nothingness, the stench of charred wood and forgotten things my only reward.
Then the distant echo of the Institute warning bells obliterated the silence.
Bollocks. I’d set off the wards with my chaos.
I knew what came next. My heart sank with the thought of the Council’s punishment as I rested my burning palms on the damp wooden floor. Hunched over, arms trembling from the effort, watching through the curtain of my matted hair as the two-headed demon hissed and screeched as it still fought to escape, gnawing hopelessly at the still molten bars.
Perhaps I had made a mistake. I should have let the dark fiend finish me off. It would have been a more peaceful fate than the one I was about to meet at the hands of the Council.
Or worse … Alma.
Chapter Two
Only fear can bind your hands.
My father’s warning echoed in my memory, too late to be of any use. I wasn’t afraid; it was everyone else’s fear that held me back. Their fear of my Kysillian blood, and the madness I must have inherited from my mortal mother, who had chosen to lie with a monstrous fey. To ruin herself.
Thankfully, on this occasion, my inferior, chaotic blood wasn’t my crime. No, that was my reckless pursuit of a dust sprite and trying to help a fool from getting soul-snatched.
The fool in question was safe in the healing wing with a rag over his bloody nose, a hideous black eye forming and one arm in a sling. I shouldn’t have taken satisfaction in his discomfort, but I indulged myself as I sat alone in the east wing hallway, the old wooden bench creaking beneath me. It was supposed to be for nothing more than decoration, carved with hideous depictions of mortal saints, but I was too tired to stand. Too drained to even think of the waiting rage from Finneaus’s father and the rest of the Council. Not allowing myself to begin to wonder how they’d twist my most recent in discretion against me.
My magic surged in annoyance, flushing my cheeks. The cool night air from the open arched windows down the longdim hallway doing little to calm the heat of it. The lanterns high above flickered with sharp crackles of bright orange light. Each reminding me what I’d done.
Dejected, I dropped my focus back to my filthy hands – smeared with dirt and the blood of the creature – as they lay in my lap. No evidence of the chaotic magic I possessed in my aching fingers, only the slight weak tremble as they gripped my torn and ash-smeared notes that I’d recovered from the ruined shelves. Useless now. What healing house would take in an apprentice as destructive as me?
‘Thatthingshould be on trial for an assassination attempt,’ Master Grima’s voice hissed down the empty stone corridor from one of the Council Mage’s offices just beyond. The door left ajar, so I could hear every word and be humiliated some more. Their shadows moving across the slash of warm light that spilled across the floor.
‘Unjustified claims fuelled by nothing more than prejudice,’ Master Hale snapped, voice brittle with age. Guilt pierced my chest. How quickly he’d come back to the Institute from his visit to the South Courts so late at night. He’d gone there to fight for more fey liberation, and I was here, causing nothing but trouble in his rare absence. Forcing him to return. To clean up after me once again.
‘This is ridiculous ! She should have been cast out a year ago !’ Madame Bernard interrupted, shrill and vicious as always. ‘The volatile creature should be cleansed. Immediately.’
I flinched at that.Cleansed. What happened to reckless fey like me with no control of their magic: spellbound to never use magic again. To be stifled and slowly driven mad by the loss of it, just like those forced to work the farms off the southern shores or indentured to the workhouses.
‘Unless you’re trying to convince the records department she’seighteenfor the third year in a row?’ Master Grima mocked. I could almost picture the thin-lipped sneer on the Head Librarian’s face.
Shame burned through me. The lies Master Hale spun, the desperation to keep my ward status, so the Council didn’t have full control.
‘It is possible. Fey don’t keep birth records,’ Master Hale half spluttered with indignation.
True. However, I knew I was twenty-three and so did Master Hale.
‘She still has applications for partnerships pending with—’
‘They’ve all refused her !’ Madame Bernard chortled darkly. I couldn’t hide my wince at her joy, the certainty that the game was over.
They knew.
All my worst fears confirmed, my time really was up. No Master Mage wanted to partner with a fey, especially not a woman, andcertainlynot a Kysillian like me.
After all their attempts to ruin my chances of independence, the Council had finally won. In my defeat I let their shrill hateful voices become nothing more than a distant hum in my ears, unable to bear the desperate weak defence from Master Hale.
I looked down again at the unusable notes in my hands, blinking back the threat of useless, stupid tears.
Demure. Quiet. Still.Master Hale’s voice commanded in my head. One of the first commands he’d given me. My only defence against the council’s hypocrisy when I’d arrived at barely twelve years old.
Despite spending over ten years here, nothing had changed. Not their hatred, or the fragile Peace Agreement my presencehere had promised. All I could do was pull in another calming breath, knowing my temper wouldn’t gain me any ground. That was what they wished to see. A Kysillian out of control. Wild and undisciplined. A female to be restricted and controlled.
