Page 50 of Tales of a Deadly Devotion
‘No matter how far this world takes him from us, he loves us beyond anything else.’ Her voice broke with the pain of her grief but I felt her smile against my skin. ‘That truth remains. Aest’rea. Always.’
Always.
Aest’rea.A promise in Kysillian that mortal words had no equivalent. A love eternal. In every life.
I watched my tears splatter onto the blade now. Saw the murky reflection of myself in the golden metal. I knew the depth of their love because I felt it in the weight of my grief. How it had changed me forever. A small darkness in my heart that would never leave. One no joy could erase.
My first blessing was to be their daughter. To be loved.
Always.
‘Isn’t this a depressing sight,’ came the silky, irritating voice of Thean Page.
My head shot up, turning to see the voyav still in male form in the study doorway. White shirt rolled to the elbows and creased as if they’d been hard at work. Their strange auburn hair left long and tied back at the nape of their neck. Thatdark make-up lining those sharp amber eyes. A furrow at their brow with either disgust or confusion but I didn’t care.
I wiped the tears irritably from my cheeks and got to my feet. Clearly the voyav had somehow survived Emrys’s temper.
‘If you want to end up back in your deathbed, you’re going about it the right way, darling,’ they sighed, as if my mere presence was exhausting.
‘Unless you missed it … it appears I’m rather difficult to kill.’ I flipped the blade, letting it shift to become a throwing knife, glinting in the firelight. Ignoring how my hand trembled with the barest motion. ‘I’m fine.’
Thean inclined their head. ‘Is weeping on the floor a recent hobby you’ve decided to indulge in? If so, you should know it’s quite … pathetic.’
‘What do you want?’ I demanded, reaching down to snatch up my training attire.
‘I was looking for your handsome dark lord.’ They shrugged, moving closer, keeping to the shadows cast by the shelves as if the weak sunlight could render them to dust.
‘Not here,’ I answered.
‘Maybe roll around naked in the rain again. That seemed to summon him quickly enough,’ they offered dryly. ‘Besides, you should be counting your blessings.’
‘What blessings?’ I snapped, annoyed I was being goaded so easily.
‘That he’s not here, otherwise you’d have to lie and we know just how much you hate that.’
‘Lie about what?’ I demanded petulantly, despite the sinking feeling in the centre of my chest.
Their fanged smile was so cruel. ‘The things the dark told you.’
Serus,that mocking voice called. That darkness was calling his name. Reverent in its hunger.
What the dark wants, it never let’s go.Emrys had spoken those words and now the memory of them struck like a fist to my chest.
The thought of it made the wound at my neck sting. I flinched but refused to touch it. Not needing any further warnings against my own foolishness.
‘The dark does like to mock before it bites.’ Thean’s smile taunted me. Treating me just like the idiot I was. ‘It knows, doesn’t it?’
Yes.That word wouldn’t leave me, sticking to the roof of my mouth. The dark knew Emrys was there, and it was seeking him out.
It wouldn’t stop.
‘You knew that seal was down there,’ I accused. Remembering all their taunting at Fairfax, how unsurprised Thean seemed. How could they not when they were made of that same darkness. ‘You didn’t warn us.’
‘Now, where would be the fun in that?’ The voyav’s lips pursed with mock sympathy.
Heat flushed my veins, my grip tightening on my blade and then it awakened something else inside of me. ‘You didn’t tell me.’
‘You didn’tlisten.’ The voyav shook their head. ‘It appears you’re nothing but another Kysillian drunk on their own importance.’
