Page 92 of Tales of a Monstrous Heart
I weaved carefully through the damp, ignoring the ruined fey trinkets, shattered furniture, and the curses trying to lure me into madness. Towards a small pile of books in the corner, overcome with rot and moss.
One stood out more than the others, left on a table as if it had only just finished being read. The gold embossing still visible under the grime. I took hold of it carefully, allowing my palms to heat ever so slightly, remembering the lyrical mix of the incantation at the back of my mind, a song that didn’t need words to be formed.
Slowly, with a crack and the blue hue of my magic, the complete volume came back to life in my palm.
‘What are you doing?’ Emrys asked at my shoulder, curiosity oVerriding his concern.
‘Reformation.’ I smiled, holding the book out for him to see as I peeled the cover open, the crisp pages turning effortlessly.
‘How did you come up with that?’ His eyes were bright and clear with his confused amazement.
‘I took apart a looping spell and …’ I began, but something in his expression stopped me, something that felt more intense than simple admiration.
‘Never mind.’ I shook my head, turning my attention to the page of the book before me, finding it full of scrawls, sharp dark markings and demonic wishes. The ink had a strange red hue in parts. My magic rose in recognition of it without even touching the ink. Blood ink, made with fey sacrifice.
I recoiled, the book tumbling from my hands, falling to the earth as nothing more than a moss-covered piece of rot.
Here. The word brushed calmly over my shoulder. A comfort in it. Something small caught my eye in the dim light. Something brighter than all the other earth-toned colours around it.
‘Emrys.’ My hand reached out, catching his sleeve before I moved towards the corner of the room, right by the doorway into another. A small Nox offering leant there, next to an upturned volume of a book. Not a piece of damp on it.
I picked the book up, flicking through the pages to see one torn. Remembering the shape of the note Emrys had been left, I turned to him. ‘He was here. Thrombi was here.’
A darkness passed over Emrys’s expression that could have been a trick of the light. ‘Which means so is the anthrux,’ he said. ‘It’s a perfect nest. Enough dark spells to feast on.’
He frowned at the mess, troubled. A cold breeze swept through the room, rolling papers and leaves over our boots. I shivered, but Emrys’s head snapped to the side, facing down the hall as if someone had called his name.
He moved past me to the doorway to consider the darkness beyond. Frozen in place, his face bleached of colour, those scars more prominent down the side of his face, an odd tension coming over his limbs. Shadows seeming to pass over his skin.
‘Emrys?’ I asked.
But he didn’t move, no recognition that he’d even heard me. I reached out for his arm. He flinched at my touch, turning towards me, eyes impossibly dark.
‘Something else is here.’ Those words left his lips softly but there was a fear moulded into them that turned my blood cold. The dark played games with the truth. I remembered that.
‘We need to go,’ I urged.
He shook his head slightly, his hand dropping to capture my own as he turned and pulled me back the way we had come.
There was an urgency to him that made me hesitant to argue as we wandered back through the rooms, a horrid coldness following that had nothing to do with the wind. There was a pattering of footsteps that weren’t our own, a creaking of the trees but nothing lurking on their branches. The shadows became longer and darker.
The shattering of glass echoed down the hallway, stopping us as we reached the main hall. Emrys released his hold on me to turn towards the sound.
The birds above took flight, small feathers and dust rained down, making patterns in the sunlight. But there was nothing else. Silence from the shadows.
The stone around my neck burned with an intense warning that my magic followed.
The dark played games, wishing us foolish enough to let it feast. My father’s voice echoed through my memories as I slipped my hand into my bag, finding his hilt. I took it out, let itslip into a small blade against my palm, warm and ready. My magic welcoming it.
Steady is the heart. Swift is the flame.
I heard the slightest creak and tap of something on the wood. My magic barely rose in warning before I turned, forcing all my energy into my arm as I threw the blade. It sailed effortlessly through the air like an arrow, nothing but the sheen of metal as it travelled through the stream of sunlight straight into the dark. A loud thwack the only evidence it had made contact, and then came the screech and the scuttling of limbs.
Attached to the wall and hidden in the shadow was the creature. Covered in putrid grey scales, long and flat with arachnid limbs. No bigger than a city rat. It curled into itself with a cracking of thin bone, black blood dripping to the ground before it shifted to nothing but ash. The Kysillian blade protruded from the wall, gleaming in the limited rays of sunlight.
That horrid feeling dissipated, the light a little brighter as the stone around my neck went silent once more. I moved to retrieve my blade, having to jump over the gaps in the floor, listening to it groan in protest.
‘Remind me never to piss you off, Croinn,’ Emrys offered wryly, considering the darkness around us, hand extended to coax me back to him.
