Page 150 of Tales of a Deadly Devotion
‘Your mother was a zalec. A sorceress of the night.’ Ancient forgotten magic. Just like this fate. Nothing but a children’s rhyme not to go too deep into the forest. Of dark witches who sang to the moon and had death in their veins. ‘A child of the night who was too powerful for her kind. A wanderer, a creature without bounds. A raven-haired beauty who found a demon king in the darkness of the wood. Hiding in theshadows of the world who had slipped free of his bonds from beneath.’
Emrys’s breath stuttered as if he’d been struck. His eyes moving rapidly as they fought to sense the lie that wasn’t there.
‘Serus. Prince of the crescent moon. Son of the Old Gods.’ The fate nodded, amused with their tale. ‘She loved that darkness dearly and he loved her with the deadliest of devotion. Then a greedy mortal king trapped Serus with a curse and tried to twist that darkness to conquer this world.’
The fate flicked its long fingers in warning. ‘Your mother wouldn’t allow it. For her love to be defiled. For Serus to be used against her, nor her child. So she summoned and she tricked. She stole her beloved’s power back from that monstrous king – right in his bed, and wove it into her unborn son.’
My heart pounded against my ribs.
Why Emrys was different. He was born different, just as Gideon said. Serus had willed it so.
The fate’s head tilted as if with sympathy. ‘Madness cannot pierce your heart as it has all the others for there is nothing mortal in you, little prince. Nothing of that king’s seed, for that is not how you were made.’
Emrys wasn’t the King’s child. No. He was born of the Old God himself. Why he was nothing like Montagor.
‘What a fanciful tale you weave.’ The voice that left Emrys’s lips was not of this world, a coldness licking up my spine as I saw the darkness spread beneath his skin. Shadows curling in the corners of the room, a strange trembling in the stone beneath our feet.
‘She didn’t die pathetically on some birthing bed with neither name nor will,’ the fate scoffed, as if disgusted by the idea. ‘That King was dead long before you cut off his head ona battlefield,boy. She made certain of it before she followed her lover to where they could be together once more.’
The fate clicked their long fingers before they dragged them across the dusty stone, making strange rune shapes in the dust. ‘A bargain was made. One born of her love for the darkness beneath. For her dark prince and for the world that would not accept her.’
Then I understood the marks the fate made. From the dark sorceress’s text, of promises and bargains with death.
Savera Nor.An ancient bargain. A deadly devotion. His mother had given her life for his. For Emrys – a being that shouldn’t exist – because the children of the Old Gods couldn’t take mortal form while the earth was sealed. She’d willed it by sacrificing herself, her magic. Paying every price to save what she loved.
Emrys’s magic silenced in an instant as the weight of the fate’s words seemed to sink in. As he read those symbols so clearly. Understood them in an instant.
Blackthorn had lied to him. Lied so awfully and Emrys had never seen it. No. Because he was Verr, he was loyal to his core.
‘You wear her name well,Emeri.’ The fate’s haggard face softened as they pulled their gnarled hands back into their moth-eaten robes, those clouded eyes focusing on nothing but him.
Emeri.The name of a fey sorceress from long ago. Beautiful and wise who trapped demons in a lake and used their power to save her people. A blessed name from ancient times.
His mother’s name.
There was a tragic beauty to it. As I looked at Emrys’s face, all I saw was pain in those dark eyes. Blackthorn had known and not told him. Emrys had carried his mother with him all this time.
I moved closer, touching his face. Needing to help him with this pain but being unable to take it from him.
‘The Prince from beneath and his Starlight Queen,’ the dark creature mused, baring their teeth in some form of demented smile. ‘Be careful, little prince. Varin hunts viciously with that madness devouring his soul. He can hear another on the wind. Only he cannot see her as he sees you.’
‘Another?’ Emrys demanded but the fate clicked their teeth.
‘Can you not feel that she waits? That she calls?’ they reprimanded weakly before they flicked those long fingers in a dismissive gesture. ‘My bargain is made.’
The maze of shelves around us slipped away, revealing a passage. A way out, or a way to what we needed to find, I didn’t know.
Didn’t care. I wanted to get away from this. Only, the fate had made a bargain. Freedom for something we needed.
I stepped forward, gathering the length of that ancient chain as those sightless eyes took me in.
‘You’re free,’ I whispered as I let fire consume the chain, as I allowed the power of Kysillian flame to corrupt the enchantment wrapped around this being. To break the spell. As their bindings shattered and slipped from their form.
The fate’s head twitched just like I’d seen Emrys’s do when the darkness spoke to him.
Then I felt a sharp scrape against my mind. As if claws were trying to gain access, a magic I’d never felt before. My breath caught as I realised they didn’t wish to come in. They just wished to leave a message.
How powerful are your promises, Tauria?came the whisper of that strange voice. A warning almost.I’m sorry there wasn’t more I could do.
