Page 91 of Tales of a Deadly Devotion
This was far darker than my worst fears. Unease curled within me at how little I knew, how useless all my knowledge had become.
‘I suppose we have much to discuss then.’ Emrys pulled the witch’s finger free from his pocket before turning to his brother with one raised dark brow. ‘Just an awakening command?’
‘This is my first venture into necromancy. However, the bastard will be compelled to answer and he won’t like it,’ Gideon offered dryly, but there was concern in his features as he pulled back from me. ‘So, let’s hope the fucker isn’t possessed – or worse … hungry.’
‘Hungry?’ William squeaked but Emrys continued, letting his pale summoning light imbue the finger as he held it over the remains.
I stood, letting the diary become nothing but a pile of ruined papers in my hands once more.
Emrys spoke over the remains but I didn’t understand the terse incantation. Bright magic illuminated his hand. Demon fire. The witch’s finger glowing before it shifted into nothing but ash. Sliding off Emrys’s palm like dry earth and onto the remains.
A silence followed. Nothing but the whistle of the wind and the irritated rustle of Alma’s wings.
‘What now?’ William whispered. Then the bones choked and appeared to gasp for air. Making William practically leap out of his skin with fright. Much to Thean’s amusement.
Alma pecked one of his horns, ruffling his hair. Whether in reprimand or in comfort, I didn’t know.
‘Here we go.’ Gideon stepped closer, blue witch aether in his palms, focus deadly.
‘I demand to speak with Lord Turner,’ Emrys said, not moving from where he was crouching over those bones. The pale summoning between his fingers not dissipating and small dark veins beginning to appear along the edge of his jaw. As if ready for a challenge.
‘A Blackthorn,’ the bones croaked, the jaw snapping open and shut as if trying to cough death from its non-existent throat.
Emrys turned his magic over in his hand with relaxed ease as if it was a deadly blade. A different creature than the one I knew. A predatory nature to his movements and a dangerous focus in his dark gaze.
‘Maybe your father made good on his promise to disturb my rest after all,’ the bones groaned, a weariness in them as a strange mist filled in the gaps, so the remains could sit up. Head hanging oddly like a disused doll.
‘Lord Ramsey’s diary,’ Emrys began with ease as if he spoke to the dead every day. ‘He had quite an obsession with the Alder Kings, it seems. What was he after?’
The bones let out a wheezing laugh, rattling with it. ‘To replace what was lost. For we know the old mad kings hungered for one thing.’
‘A seal,’ Gideon answered. ‘Lord Ramsey never found one.’
The bones seemed to jump and twist as if reluctant but the croaked words tumbled out ominously all the same. ‘He found something greater. The book.’
‘Which one?’ Emrys demanded, demon fire flaring in his palms in threat, giving the angles of his face a lethal edge.
The bony fingers clawed at the wooden remains of the coffin until they snapped and tumbled across the wood. A futile resistance. ‘The only one that matters. The Compendium of Souls.’
The Compendium of Souls. A forsaken tome. A myth. Said to have been touched by the saint himself, hidden away and buried with him. The history of the Verr, the path to all their incantations and the seals that killed them. The history of the old kings.
Emrys didn’t show a flicker of either interest or surprise. ‘The King was seeking the book.’
In the wars there were stories the mad kings hunted the ancient fey brutally for their knowledge. Because their blood went back to the time of the Verr – back to the magic that those mortal kings sought to awaken once more.
‘The King possessed the book,’ the bones croaked. ‘There was nothing he wished to possess more. No desire more deadly than his for that book.’
That wasn’t possible. If the King had the book he would have opened it. All this would have ended long before it began. Montagor wouldn’t be seeking the blood to lead him here. To lead him to any clues for it or a way to open it.
Emrys’s brow furrowed with doubt as he turned to see Gideon, who looked equally concerned, peering down in disdain at the remains over his brother’s shoulder.
If the King had the book, why did none of the lords know of it and why didn’t Montagor possess it?
‘He didn’t use it.’ The words slipped free before I could stop them. The skull twisted towards me, the pits of endless darkness that were its eyes staring. Something in the endlessness of it made fear prickle the back of my neck.
There you are.That darkness seemed to whisper in the back of my mind.
A horrid sound rumbled from it, a growl.
