Page 131 of Tales of a Monstrous Heart
He hesitated, his eyes moving to the corner where the portal rested beyond. ‘Only if you’re sure?’
‘I’m sure.’ I smiled, trying not to wince around the lie.
He left me reluctantly, the house releasing a comforting creak to spur him on. Seeming to understand I needed to be alone.
The Blackthorn study felt ominously quiet after the chaos, even as the house creaked and groaned, trying to converse with me in my loneliness.
How simple everything had been. How guilty Lord Percy was stood in that doorway and how easy he was to detain for Emrys as the servants rushed to put out the flames.
The guests had fled Fairfax Manor like rats from a sinking ship as the ballroom turned to cinders. Too fearful to even question how it had all come to pass.
I should have gone back into my bedroom upstairs. Tucked myself next to Alma and pretended to sleep. To hide.
Only I knew this wasn’t over. No matter how badly my limbs trembled, how content my magic was inside of me. Peaceful after its chaotic hunger had devoured that darkness.
I’d used my old bedroom to be rid of my ruined ballgown, to wash the stench of smoke off me and change into a thin nightdress. Skin too heated to be comfortable in anything else as I combed the ash from my hair that now hung loose over my shoulders.
I knew I needed to go back to Fairfax. Sit in that horrid room and wait for morning. Pretend I wasn’t unravelling, that I hadn’t let all my secrets out. To wait for the reckoning that would come from the council.
Too late, that creature mocked inside my mind, and it wasn’t wrong. I’d ways been too late.
Finneaus knew. He was in league with Montagor and he would have told him everything. He’d seen it. I’d burned him with it in my anger. The same wildness I should never have let the dark see.
Just as Lord Percy had mocked me with the same truth. How I could use magic when faced with Verr stone. Now what remained of Fairfax Manor was the proof they needed. No matter how that darkness had tried to return to Lord Percy. No matter how swiftly Emrys had acted.
It was too late. Just as the dark said.
My tears dripped into the teacup, a hollowness consuming my chest. Kysillians were vessels for Kysillia’s rage. The First Queen. Nothing but destruction encased within flesh, a last resort in case the darkness rose again. This was the reason those mortal kings and their saints had hunted us so fervently.
How they’d hunt me now. Just as my father said.
I got to my feet, pushed the untouched tea onto the table and wiped at my useless tears. Before I pressed my palms against the tabletop. I looked down at all those papers scattered across it. All the things I should have done. All the things I could never be.
The exhaustion of defeat made me bow my head, ready to give up … before I felt him. A sharpness to the air, a slight flicker of the fire. How the chill of his power manifested in the strange way it always did. An icy sensation drifting over my skin, turning me to the shadowed corner of the room to see him.
His shirt was torn open from the battle, hair swept onto his brow in disarray with ash smudges on his cheek. A hard set of defiance to his jaw.
‘You’re back.’ The words were too quiet, too foolish from my lips.
‘There wasn’t much to do,’ Emrys said. ‘The Council won’t be alerted until the morning.’ Emrys ran a hand through his dishevelled hair, moving easily through the room and towards me, but there was something distant about him. Something colder than I’d ever seen.
‘They’ll know soon enough.’ I straightened, curling my arms around myself. Knowing I had nobody to blame but myself as I looked to the fire. Worrying my lip as I tried to think of a way to twist the truth, to change the facts.
‘They can’t prove anything.’ His words were terse with defence. Unwavering. ‘A verbius is unpredictable in how it summons chaos. Elemental calling isn’t—’
‘You think Montagor needs proof?’ My words were sharp with disgust. None of them needed proof. I’d been born guilty. Too much chaotic magic in my blood and it wouldn’t be silenced now.
I’d been existing on nothing but borrowed time and bad luck.
‘They will listen to me, Kat.’ He strode towards me, hands curling into fists, resisting the urge to touch me.
I looked to the marks on his knuckles from striking something, hopefully Lord Percy’s face. I wondered just how he’d gotten the guards’ agreement. Wondered just how far he’d go. How easily he’d dismissed Montagor. He had power I didn’t understand, but it didn’t frighten me. Not as everything had before I’d come here. Before this strange forsaken thing between us.
‘They’ll …’ Fear clogged my throat. They’d test me again, call the truth seeker and then they’d cleanse me of my magic. Those where the consequences I’d ignored. The ones I’d seen numerous times before.
My struggle for words stopped as the warm stone flickered at my chest. Not as a warning but to catch my attention.
To remind me. How similar the glow of that stone was to the magic Emrys summoned, unfamiliar to me. My hand clutched it, a strange chill against my palm.
