Page 132 of Tales of a Monstrous Heart
‘What did you wish for?’ I asked, wondering if he’d tell me. The stone didn’t have magic of its own. He’d given it something.
‘To keep you safe.’ There was no hesitation in those words, like he had no hope of keeping anything from me.
The stone couldn’t do that. Couldn’t protect me like that. No, but he could.
It had warned him. Every time. It was how he’d known to find me in those ruins. He’d known because he wouldn’t let me be hurt again. Just as he said.
Sensing my thoughts, something painful moved through his expression, his jaw tense before he turned to his desk, looking for something. A file he found at the bottom of the mess, holding it out to me but averting his gaze.
‘There was also this, for when the Council quieten down.’ His attention was locked on the fire, too distant from me and giving me no choice but to take that file from him. ‘I should have given it to you sooner.’
I flipped it open, only a few pages inside, all marked the same. The fey delegation symbol of the Kai, the golden winged bird of the north wrapped in the ancient runes of the earth.
Then my hand began to tremble, making the words not quite clear. Travel papers to the Northern Fields and anywhere beyond. Access to the teaching houses in the fey settlements, signed off by the remaining elders there.
Away from here.
‘You’d … send me away?’ I whispered, unable to bear the pain spreading too rapidly through my chest. The ground was not quite steady. Like it was crumbling beneath me, just like in those ruins.
‘It’s for the best.’ There was a distance in his voice I hated more than anything else. A stiffness to his shoulders, as if it took all his will not to look at me. He gave me his back, head bowed with more than just exhaustion.
‘I thought you said you couldn’t lie,’ I challenged coldly.
There was a warning in his stillness. ‘It’s safer, Kat.’
Safer. I shook my head, almost laughing at the cruelty of that lie. There was nowhere safe for me. ‘Tell me the truth, Emrys.’
‘The truth?’ His words were bitter as he ran a hand through his hair in frustration, looking at me darkly over his shoulder. ‘The truth is that I hate the fact you were safer in that Institute than you are with me.’
‘That isn’t—’
‘Croinn.’ The word was breathless from his lips as he cut me off, his eyes filled with defeat as he turned to me. I knew what he saw, the remnants of a scratch on my cheek from that darkness, the disarray of my hair and the tiredness in my eyes. Evidence of everything I’d done.
My gaze fell back to the papers in my hands. Everything I wanted. Everything I’d ever dreamed of away from all of this.
Only I didn’t want it anymore. I wasn’t the same person I had been. I’d come too far, seen too much.
I didn’t want to run. Not as much as I wanted this delicate and strange thing between us. Not as I wanted him.
I dropped the papers onto the table, unable to bear the weight of them.
‘They’re letting those fey die, Emrys,’ I said quietly, my voice whetted into something stronger. ‘I’m not going to run.’
Couldn’t. Not when I’d tasted that pain. Tasted what the Council ignored.
‘So you wish to stay and be the next victim?’ There was a thread of panic in those cold words, concealed in his anger. ‘This is beyond Council games, Kat.’
I levelled a glare at him. ‘I’m well aware.’
‘I didn’t suggest it was up for discussion.’ His words were terse with irritation as he made his way to the door, ignoring me as I called his name, striding into the dark hallway away from me, his hands flexed as his side as if quelling the urge to destroy something on his way.
‘Emrys !’ I snapped again as I followed, planning on chasing him around the whole bloody house if I needed to. The house, however, saved me the effort. The doorway shifted as he stepped through it. Not to the hallway but his room. Trapping him.
‘The house seems to have decided we’re not finished,’ I mocked icily, coming to rest inside the doorway. ‘For once I agree with it.’
His glared at the doorframe behind me with murderous intent. However, the house was clearly unimpressed as the door slammed shut. I didn’t need to turn to see it had vanished completely, I could see it in the tense lines of Emrys’s body.
There was a rigid invisible cord between us, filled with unspoken things, and it was ready to snap. I could feel it like a dark cloud overburdened with the storm it had been forced to carry.
