Page 67 of Tales of a Monstrous Heart
I wandered around the shelves, extracting the newest maps I could find, noting that Paxton Fields was a cluster of farms in the south, on a narrow strip of flat land between the South Wood and the lands of Fairfax Manor.
I opened older maps of the south and laid them flat, finding no such place as Paxton Fields or Fairfax Manor, just wastelandswhere the Battle of the South Wood had taken place centuries before. The lands must have been redistributed after the event, making me wonder what they’d been before, and why darkness would choose to manifest there.
I ventured further into the shelves, rummaging for war logs and Verr surges. I gathered the darkest and heaviest volumes in my arms and laid them out.
The Battle of the South Wood had been a massacre in the ancient tales. They said the ground split and such darkness poured free it was almost impossible to contain. Master Hale had his own historical records of it and some fragments of a surviving tapestry that depicted it.
I didn’t know much about the Fairfax family. They weren’t mages, at least not anymore. They were one of the older families who built its wealth on the backs of fey enslavement and the wars, having little skill or merit of their own. Now, they’d apparently chosen cursed earth to settle their name upon.
I turned another page again, not understanding why someone would settle on ground willing to kill them. Grounds where darkness lurked closer to the surface. Unless, of course, that was exactly what they wanted.
An anthrux wasn’t just a consequence of the earth and its creations; a spell had summoned it, and now I needed to work out which one. If someone in Fairfax was summoning, what were they summoning for?
There my theories took a manic turn as I pulled out all my notebooks and emptied my bag to see if any samples I’d collected from that cursed wood could hold an answer to the puzzle.
Yet I was unable to escape the guilt that if I hadn’t used my magic, maybe Mr Thrombi would still be here, maybe none of this would have happened.
Those thoughts plagued me, my shoulders becoming stiff as the study grew dimmer and dimmer. The books darker in matter. More fragmented history of the Verr, the ancient enemy of the Kysillians. Of the Verr’s dark deeds, their vicious will, and the cruel Old Gods they worshipped.
A simple tale. Perhaps too simple. For if darkness was returning, maybe such evils could never be beaten after all.
Rain began to pound relentlessly against the window from a storm I hadn’t anticipated. Thunder rumbled in the distance as I rubbed my neck. Turning another page to try and decode a brief section of curses before I finally relented. I needed William’s chatter to chase away my unease, and as I looked at the gloomy sky I knew I also needed to check on Alma, hoping Emrys’s tonic had helped her settle.
A soft rattling of bells came from the back shelves. The weak fire in the hearth flickered as if disturbed by the sound. I turned towards the shadowed maze of bookcases, now somehow more ominous.
‘Hello?’ I frowned. A silence followed that almost made me think I’d imagined it, but the soft jingle came again. Taunting.
‘William?’ I called. But only ominous silence answered. A flash of lightning broke overhead, making the shadows between the shelves appear endless.
Picking up the small lantern from my desk, I worked my way through the shelves, following the sound of those bells, worried Alma had changed again and lost her way or maybe the house wanted to show me something.
I moved further into the gloom, unease prickling against the back of my neck. My breath misting before me halted my steps, the hairs on my arms raising. Books on the shelf next to me began to bounce and shake, creaking deeply with distress.
Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw something move deep down the shadowy aisle. A centre of darkness that stood out more strongly than the rest, long and thin. I turned with the lamp, light stretching across the narrow passage, but there was nothing there.
Just the endlessness of darkness.
My magic rose in response, hot and relentless as it made my fingertips burn with insistence. Something was here.
‘Hello?’ I called foolishly, swallowing down my fear as my heart climbed further up my throat.
Breath stuttered through my lips. Magic rolling unsteadily through me as I tried to rationalise my growing anxiety. My magic bitting more sharply into my skin. Almost in warning.
That icy sensation streaked down my spine. A prodding pain at the base of my neck, making me grip it.
The crash of a book tumbling from a shelf made me jump, turning me around, and there it was. A dark, long, humanoid shadow pressed between another set of shelves, watching me between the volumes.
Terror seeped into my veins as I watched its shadowy fingers curl around the shelf as if to pull itself closer.
‘I’m surprised you don’t smell of him yet,’ came a voice from behind me, harsh in its coldness, that sent me spinning towards it with a cry of alarm. My lamp flew from my grasp to shatter on the hardwood, magic dispersing and plunging us into stormy darkness.
I stumbled backwards into the shelves, knocking free a stack of volumes that tumbled to the ground at my feet.
A roar of thunder and another flash of lightning illuminated the stranger.
Just a man. He had a shock of brown hair that had been slicked back so harshly that it reflected the dim light. His eyeswere dark, too harsh in his face. And they were solely focused on me. Something cruel in the severity of his features, too angular to be found handsome. His clothes were pristine, the intensity of his cologne so sharp I should have smelt him before I heard him.
‘What are you doing here?’ I demanded, forgetting myself as I pressed my trembling palm over my pounding heart.
