Page 111 of Tales of a Monstrous Heart
‘They appeared pleased to have you back.’ He was nothing but a pillar of moody charm and confidence mere hours ago.
‘Fools are easily pleased.’ There was a sharpness to his smile as he continued to watch me with caution, as if I’d brought some form of danger with me.
‘Lady Lovell seemed especially entertained.’ I hated the words the minute they left my lips.
His gaze sharpened, but he simply took another sip of his drink, eyes moving to the fire. I should have left him then, but my feet didn’t move. Couldn’t, when there was such a sadness lingering around him, a loneliness I knew too well.
All I could see was him crouched before me in those horrid ruins. Feel the brush of his thumb against my cheek.
It’s not real, Kat.The softness of those words. Unbothered that I’d struck him, that my fear had driven me mad. Staying with me in that darkness so my demons wouldn’t feast. I wouldn’t now leave him with his own.
‘My father used to send me to dinners like that to spy for him. Setting up matches to gain their trust.’ His words wereblunt, half murmured, and I wondered if he knew I was still here, lingering in the dark, listening. ‘I became so good at it I almost forgot what parts were for his game.’
His eyes came back to me, burdened with that sorrow. ‘A useful pawn in all this madness. A willing traitor, an easy whore and a brutal killer. How proud he must have been.’
A small, haunted smile came to his lips as he took me in, standing in disarray in my robe. Those dark eyes moving from my bare feet to where my loose hair was tangled around the points of my ears.
‘Perhaps Master Hale hasn’t forgiven me at all and you’re his final revenge against me.’ He pushed himself to his feet with graceful ease, leaving his drink behind as he crossed the distance to stand before me, ducking his head to look into my eyes. ‘Sending you to torment me, Croinn.’
‘You really are drunk,’ I replied calmly, despite the rapid beating of my heart under the intensity of his gaze and his proximity. The horrid things he’d just confessed, the pain that lingered in those words as I dropped my gaze to the table next to me, seeing it littered with samples and notes.
‘What are you looking at?’ I moved around him, considering the mess, the files littered across the surface he’d just finished working on.
‘The body from that Verr pit.’ He reached around me, turning over a file and showing me the notes. ‘Mr Peter Catron. He’s a threll. He wrote numerous articles.’ He nodded towards another paper, an article fromTheCrow’s Foot. ‘He was adamant he’d seen a dark entity. Claimed it came from the soil and shadow.’
My eyes scanned the new notes. Thrells were ancient beings, as ancient as Kysillians or Verr. Elemental summoners. They held water magic, able to command storms and rains forharvest, though I hadn’t heard of any being able to command such feats anymore.
‘Zorval,’ I whispered, reading the word twice to make sure I hadn’t made it up in his report.
A poison to fey, made to show their true potential during one of the old mortal king’s purges centuries ago. If you held ancient blood, you survived the poison, only to be killed by the King’s order. Mercy for the madness of the magic you possessed. It was how they’d eradicated most of the Kysillians centuries before.
Only the poison didn’t kill Mr Catron, which meant he had ancient blood. Ancient enough to be worth something.
The cause of death suddenly didn’t matter to me, not when I noted Emrys’s lack of surprise.
‘You’ve seen it before?’ I asked. A being with ancient blood was dangerous in the wrong hands, especially if a Verr could feed from them.
The image of that ghost-girl came back to me so clearly, the sadness in her eyes. A being who should be nowhere near land this cursed. Something making her stay.
‘What about an aurrak?’ I pressed, catching Emrys’s attention at the ancient name.
His brow furrowed, eyes darkening as they moved about my face in confusion. ‘How do you know that?’
‘You’ve found one,’ I pressed; he must have. ‘She’s here. I’ve seen her. In the forest.’
He returned his attention to the table, pulling at papers until he passed me a journal. A small magical sketch of the girl. She’d sat for it in her serving attire, as many fey did for advertisements at large households.
It was her. The same solemn eyes, striking features and straight hair.
‘Drained of blood. Her body was found dumped at one of the borders a few months ago,’ he said, and I felt that pain deep in my heart. Felt the warmth of it running through my fingers.
‘Blood worship fuels the Verr,’ I whispered, closing the journal, unable to look at her anymore.
Verr were nothing more than a story. A fear the rebellion peddled in their gossip sheets to draw more fey and mortals to their cause. That was what the Council said, but faced with the truth, I couldn’t deny their lies went deeper than even I had anticipated. The Nox offering at the forest’s edge was attracting fiends, not deterring them, because this type of darkness was half starved of magic. Just like the fiend in that book in the library. Those fey never stood a chance.
‘It’s only going to get worse.’ I looked at the mass of cases on the table. It was a sign we were on the brink of an abyss, only this time nobody was paying attention.
‘Lord Percy has a very expensive mistress and has run his inheritance into the ground. He moved in with his uncle under the guise of being the executor of his will. The west wing burnt not a month later.’
