Page 100 of Tales of a Deadly Devotion
‘What is it?’ I whispered, feeling an odd sensation move through me. Almost compelling me closer to a set of cupboards on the far wall.
Then her confused green eyes met my own. ‘It smells …familiar.’
Damp remains of burnt books rattled on the shelf making us both jump, leaves tumbling from where they’d rested on top. The cabinet clattered, doors knocking as if something small and feral was trapped inside. I went to grab Alma’s arm but she had already slipped easily into another form. Ripping through her leathers easily as a small wrywing appeared. Her spiked tail thumping against the wooden floor, a hiss leaving her maw as she bared deadly, sharp teeth.
The rattling stopped as if cautious of her threat, silence claiming the space before the door burst open. Dust plumed into the room but something else skidded across the ground, to land at the toe of my boot. A small cloth sack tied with fraying string. Alma hissed, circling it warily but I pushed her snout away.
‘It’s fine, Alma,’ I whispered, trying to nudge her meaty form out of the way.
Disgruntled, she leapt up, changing mid-air into a smaller wrywing, no bigger than a bird as she perched on my shoulder. Digging her talons a little deeper than necessary. Warning me against my own foolishness.
I knelt, unknotting the string quickly before reaching inside. Fingers closed around smooth leather and out came an old book. The dark navy of the cover burnt at the corners. The silver decorative border peeled and scratched away with time. The tome bound with worn string despite the rusted blood lock on the side.
A piece of paper pressed carefully into the string. Aged and creased. My magic stirred inside of me, but not in warning. A soft warmth, like a caress from within.
‘Kat?’ Emrys called, I could feel the brush of his magic up the side of my throat like a comforting caress. Alma growled but I didn’t stop. My fingers trembled as I unfolded the paper, the cracking of it too loud in the silence as the book almost slipped from my grasp.
It was in Kysillian.
The curve of her handwriting, the same she’d used to write all my stories. Every tale from my childhood. The uneven spacing of the letters as if she was only just learning. As if this tragic tale was only just beginning, but she knew we’d end at the same place.
Right here.
I had a dream.
I hope you see it.
I hope it’s real.
Such raw pain consumed me, my eyes stinging with tears at the sight of the gift she couldn’t have known I’d need. The only thing of her now that remained apart from me. Just these words on stained parchment.
Alma whined on my shoulder. Reminding me why we were here. I blew the dust from the cover, showing the carved letters on the front.
Only then did I understand why the house had offered it up so easily. It thought I was her, come back to collect what I left behind.
‘Is that—’ Gideon choked on the rest of the words.
‘The Compendium of Souls.’ I stood on unsteady legs, the silver lettering barely glinting as the filagree twisted to depict skulls trapped between thorny brambles.
Gideon stepped forward, eyes moving to Emrys. ‘We need to get that book back and—
A horrid pounding echoed into the room. Three strikes. So loud I jumped, stumbling into Emrys, whose arm came around my waist only to move me behind him. The lethal dark of his blade extending in his hand.
‘What the fuck is that?’ Gideon demanded, aether moving between his fingers, the shadow blade firmly in his grip. Alma leapt from my shoulder, twisting into a larger, more imposing wrywing – sharp claws gouging marks in the damp wooden floor.
The wooden boards beneath my boots began to tremble, thin streams of dust raining down as the abandoned clutter rolled to the shadowed corners of the room as if willing to hide.
‘Nothing from this realm,’ Emrys replied, eyes full black as the summoning of his magic decorated his skin like dark veins.
Another crash as something slammed the doors down the hall. From the whining of the wood around us, it wasn’t the house.
‘Did Greymark make a bargain with the darkness?’ Gideon snapped out of the side of his mouth, his metal fingers clicking together in irritation, gaze locked on the doorway.
‘If he did, I’m certain the demon that came for his soul wasn’t happy to find him hanged in a tree.’ Emrys slid another blade from the sheath at his thigh.
‘He wasn’t in the tree,’ I reminded them, clutching that book to my front like a shield.
Both brothers turned to me.
