Page 140 of Tales of a Deadly Devotion
‘I amnottalking Emrys into letting you keep that thing,’ I protested. Aghast he’d even think it was an option.
The boy’s face fell. The fiend whined. Sulking.
Bollocks. How was I going to convince Emrys to let William keep afiendas a pet?
Thean sighed, pushing their hands into their pockets as they glared at the creature, which instantly cowered, lowering itself to the ground. Simpering. ‘The beast is completely null. I assume Emrys’s performance last night has rendered most dark summonings contained in this house quiteimpotent.’
The dark respects its master.What was more masterful than the power of Serus given mortal form?
‘The relic must have been powering it. Or corrupting it. Maybe they’re all like this really,’ William offered weakly, which didn’t reassure me one bit. ‘Didn’t you say skelmor were peaceful creatures?’
Then the thoughts began to click within my mind, turning like cogs. I’d used Kysillian flame to conceal the gobrite. The old texts talked of Kysillia’s flame cleansing the dark – only maybe it didn’t mean destroying it. The dark summoning of the gobrite had been changed by my flame. Brought into submission.
‘If we knew how to get the other books open, that might give us a clue as to why the relics affect them so much,’ William sighed.
Because the Compendium of Souls would hopefully explain this ancient magic better than any other tome. My magic sparked in my fingertips, stinging my thumb and forefinger where I had held my mother’s note.
A note she’d left, on the paper from that text.
‘It was open,’ I whispered.
The Compendium of Souls had been open. My mother had written a note from its page.
Lady Leanna Grey. A lord’s daughter.
There were no powerful compendiums in the Greymark line or mages. So why did the Mage King suddenly want her? Why would he want a consort of inferior blood? Whywould he care when he was bedding and sacrificing fey to try to reawaken the Old Gods?
I moved to the desk in the study, looking to the overlong family lines. Finding the Greymark one. How it twisted and weaved through all the others. Picking up the scraps at the end of every branch, as if they were always the last option.
A reluctant bargain.
They mixed with every line. Whored their daughters to keep favour in the courts. The fate my mother was destined to face.
Lord Turner said the King wanted the seals more than anything. More than any desire.
I turned to Alma. ‘In the Greymark house – you said the scent was familiar.’
She frowned. ‘Because it smelt like … you.’
Why would a king want an unknown girl for a queen?The question mocked in the back of my mind. Blood. The Greymark blood had mixed with every line. My blood.
Never speak my name.It was a promise my mother made me keep. Not out of fear for herself – out of fear they would know I was hers.
I turned, grabbing one of Thean’s blades and I pressed it to the heel of my palm. The barest bead of blood appeared. I dragged the Compendium of Souls closer and let a drop hit the cover.
No. It couldn’t be that simple. The answers couldn’t have been with me all this time.
The lock clicked, the book flicking its pages open of its own accord. Forcing me to move back as if a fiend could burst free at any moment.
Only nothing followed, just the answer sitting silently before us.
‘He wanted her to open the books,’ I whispered. All that pain for nothing but this. He would have broken my mother apart for nothing but this. For curses that should have been left to rot.
Blood from every line. I saw then how deadly she was, what my Kysillian side had concealed. Why my mother held her secrets so close to her heart.
The words lining those stained pages were a dark scrawl, strange and unknown to me. The wishing stone at my neck fluttered. Emrys’s magic concealed within it – an Old God’s magic. Magic that this darkness feared.
I pulled the stone over my head, letting it touch the page. Watching that bright white light illuminate the text.
