Page 61 of Tales of a Monstrous Heart
‘Am I not?’ the creature replied with a clacking of teeth. The wisps around its body growing darker.
Emrys froze, a tension rippling over him.
Dark fiends didn’t speak.
‘It shouldn’t be—’ I began, trying to understand, but it roared, dark wisps shooting out towards us. Emrys didn’t move to block the summoning. No, he pushed me out of its path. I went tumbling over my skirts and William’s sprawled legs where he still fought with the books that appeared to suddenly have a will of their own.
The tallet’s attack caught Emrys across his chest, throwing him back through the study doors, which were rendered to nothing but a splintered mess with the impact.
‘Emrys !’ William cried out as he struggled to catch more books. I pushed myself up, slipping on papers as I faced the creature just as it gave another victorious roar, spittle flying from its lips.
I pressed my palms together, allowing my magic to surge. Not my summoning glow but the wild flames, forming a crackling sphere of chaotic magic that was difficult to hold. But I needed to control it a moment longer, to make it unable to miss its target.
Sweat beaded my brow, but just as I felt the strain in my arms of holding it, the creature laughed and vanished.
Silence filled the space, the library creaking with unease and the roar of my magic in my blood the only sound. I moved cautiously further into the room, turning wildly in a circle, watching dust motes dance in the sunlight pouring in from the window.
‘Kat?’ William scrambled to his feet, books clutched to his chest as he panted for breath. ‘That’s … it can’t have …’
Run.A voice mocked in the back of my head.
The warning was enough. A horrid sensation brushed my neck like icy fingers, turning me, but it was too late. The thing had barely reformed in a swirl of black, acrid smoke, a laugh echoing in my ear, as dark energy struck me.
My feet left the ground, a cry escaping my lips as I felt solid impact and the shattering of glass. I hit hard ground, my momentum sending me rolling.
Grass tickled my nose and a horrid ache shot down my spine as I pushed myself up onto my forearms and shook glass from my hair.
Panting, I looked up to see the ruined study window. The bastard had thrown me through it.
Pain radiated through my limbs as I groaned and forced myself to my feet. Regretting every decision I’d ever made, I watched helplessly as the dark form of the tallet appeared at the shattered window, clinging to the frame, and with a hiss launched itself at me.
Faster than I thought possible, the thing made impact, sending me tumbling back to the earth. A tangle of limbs, a swirl of demonic smoke and the snapping of its teeth.
A scream filled my ears, shrill and feral. The creature’s claws scraped at the earth either side of me, its razor-sharp teeth gnashing too close to my nose. I pressed my palm against its face to hold it back. Its rotten breath washing over me.
I brought my foot up, managing to catch it in its middle. Kicking it off and over my head with a frustrated scream, I rolled and tried to get my bag open to get my sword.
‘Kyvor Mor,’ it hissed as it scuttled and twisted across the ground. My stomach dropped, fear freezing me in place. Kysillian words.
I watched it run its horrid grey tongue over its lip, smeared with red blood. I glanced down to see my palm covered in blood. My blood.
Kyvor Mor. Curse Killer.An ancient magic my father commanded, that he’d passed on to me. One this dark couldn’t know. Shouldn’t know.
The ground shook and before I could find my sanity, the soil erupted and a thick root wrapped with deadly thorns emerged from beneath, swatting the creature away from me.
William crouched a few feet away, hands pressed against the grass just beyond the window, sweat coating his brow. The pale freckled skin of his hands stained green with the ferocity of his magic.
The tallet clawed at the earth to catch itself, bones cracking as its head twisted unnaturally and it screeched again. It held itself low to the ground, ready for another attack.
The wind changed, growing sharper at my back. The ground rumbling beneath my boots – nothing to do with the earth or William’s magic. but something deeper. Older. The bitterness of old spells and forsaken curses echoed in my mind, almost in warning, forcing me to turn towards that feeling, only to see Emrys jump down from the ruined window frame with a lethal grace.
His shirt was torn, but there was not a mark on him … but those eyes were intent with fury. He threw out his hand and bright white energy left his fingers to strike the creature in the centre of its chest like a lightning bolt, sending it rolling across the loose earth, scattering it into nothing but dark shards of bone and dust.
The wind roared past me, almost dragging me across the distance and closer to Emrys, as if under his command, but the remains of the creature bounced, cracking and twisting back into formation, across the grassy earth.
‘It’s not dying !’ cried William as he flung his arm, another great root surging from the ground to try and trap the pieces of the creature before it could reform, but they darted past in smoke form, twisting violently in the air with a crackling hiss.
‘I can see that, William !’ Emrys snapped, that ethereal glow consuming his hands.
