Page 156 of Tales of a Deadly Devotion
There was an endless roaring in my head. A horrid wailing. A banshee screeching for a feast. Only to realise it was coming from me.
The only way to kill an Old God is with their own blade.
Blood slipped too easily between Emrys’s fingers. His back arched, lips parted in a silent scream of pain as he fell to his knees.
‘Emrys!’ I cried out, lurching for him, only for something sharp and ice cold to strike my thigh. Sending me down to the dusty ground with a cry of agony. A metal dart protruding from my skin, my blood or Emrys’s staining my slip.
No. My limbs suddenly too heavy and tight. I grasped at my thigh as agony poured through my limbs, fingers meeting cold metal. Sticking out of my flesh, blood rushing between my fingers.
No.
I tried to summon my flame. It spluttered uselessly. A chasm opening in my chest with distress. My magic severed from me as only coldness slipped into my blood and I panted for breath.
They’d taken my flame.
Emrys. I needed to help Emrys.
Hands grabbed me, my arms twisted and pulled behind my back. That pain in my thigh intensifying. I kicked and fought. A scream tearing from my lips, shouting Emrys’s name but my strength was gone.
Wild red-rimmed eyes of hunters, skittered laughter and the horrid screech of fiends. Darkness swirling around the outskirts of the room, a dark summoning awaiting command. Prickling my skin. Endlessly cold without my flame.
My arms held too easily, legs useless as fingers gripped my hair, wrenching my head back.
An inhuman roar came from Emrys’s direction. The scuffle of feet before the horrid sound of a fist meeting flesh. The bitter bite of Emrys’s magic trying to reach me but it was the barest brush against my skin. Too far away. As if that shard was like having a dart buried in his own skin.
The shard of an Old God’s blade.
‘Emrys!’ I kicked at my captors, anything to cross that distance between us.
‘I wouldn’t,’ came the calm and careful voice that made terror take a vice-like grip on my heart. That stone fluttering wildly against my breast. Illuminating Montagor from the gathering of shadows that clung to the corners of the vast chamber we’d found ourselves in.
No.
Something cruel was carved in the severity of his features, too angular to be found handsome.
‘Such a wild and savage thing,’ Montagor taunted as he crossed the distance between us. His eyes full black, veins spreading from their corners as if a dark fiend took up residence under his skin. Eyes sunken as if he’d devoured nothing but dark magic and hate. A calmness to him as he straightened his gloves before crouching before me.
One captor released their grip on my hair, but my head fell forwards weakly. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t summon.
‘The ancient blade has debilitating effects, I’m told,’ he continued, either oblivious to my fear or relishing in it. ‘You should thank your pet, Emrys, for giving me the idea. Those golden beasts needed some way to bind our kin after all. Before they sent them beneath.’
Montagor peered down his straight nose at me, those gloved fingers taking hold of my chin brutally. ‘They used our own power against us.’
‘I’m going to kill you.’ Emrys surged against the two hunters who held him, teeth bared, a feral sound ripping up his throat. He almost broke free despite the wound in his chest, more blood seeping down his front. A wildness in his dark eyes that he didn’t care. Cared about nothing but the distance between us.
‘I wouldn’t move too much,’ Montagor cautioned dismissively over his shoulder, his predatory focus coming back to me as he reached for the curve of my cheek with his finger. I wrenched back, despite the pain and the absence of my flame. It wasn’t far enough.
He grabbed my loose hair, twisting it around his fist. Using it to tug my head brutally to one side. I bit back my cry. Breath panted through my teeth.
‘If you lay another finger on her, that darkness won’t recognise you when I’m finished with your bones.’ The voice that came from between Emrys’s clenched teeth wasn’t of the mortal realm, his magic like midnight smeared across his skin. The blade kept his magic trapped within, but barely. I could see the dark corners of it, swirling in warning.
Montagor ignored the viciousness of Emrys’s resistance, bringing the fistful of hair to his nose.
Holding it for too long. Dragging too much in as revulsion crawled up my throat. Then he drew his blade from a sheath at his side, pressing it against my throat. Hard enough that I felt the warm trickle of blood down my skin. He dragged that blade against my flesh, up to the tip of my ear.
‘Say please and I might let you keep them, troll.’ He almost brushed those words against my lips with his closeness.
He wanted to hear me beg. Only, I was done begging.
