Page 93 of Tales of a Deadly Devotion
What people refused to see. Never glancing past the hue in my skin or the vibrancy in my eyes. Never dwelling on any of my other features. How sharply they matched hers. Never caring for the mortal mother who ruined herself with a Kysillian brute.
‘No.’ The word was breathless through William’s lips, the coffin he was supposed to be holding with his magic-coaxed roots dropped back into the hole with a crash and eruption of dirt, sending him stumbling away from the hole.
The snow curled and twisted in the silence.
‘Lady Leanna Grey,’ Gideon snapped, turning on Emrys as if he was party to my secrets. He pointed a finger in accusation right at me, as if I was her. A ghost stood amongst these graves. ‘The weeping fucking bride.’
‘I thought—’ William stammered, running his hands through his errant curls as Alma cawed and flapped her wings.
‘You’re telling meLady Greydisappeared and caused the rare fields massacre. Only to run off with aKysillian?’ Gideon’s aether crackled in the space between his clenched fists.
‘Not just any Kysillian, darling,’ Thean offered unhelpfully, from where they leant against a wonky gravestone, considering their nails with little care.
Gideon’s eyes darted to the hilt where it sat tucked into the belt of my skirt, the gold gleaming in the moonlight as if to taunt him. The fire that silenced that seal, one no lesser Kysillian could have survived.
They want your little pet, Serus. Montagor’s mocking words came back to me. Because the dark knew what I’d done. Wielded sacred steel and survived summoning Kyslor.
Knew my magic because it had tasted the fury of my fathers. Tasted the fury of my kin.
‘Kayin. King of the North,’ Thean concluded, confirming what I knew. They knew of my father.
Gideon seemed to sag with the weight of his rage, turning on his heel but he didn’t get half a step before he started to laugh, bitter and self-amused. ‘Trust you,brother, to drag me back into this. Only to find you infatuated with the only fucking creature that can open a seal. Not to mention the child of the fucking weeping bride!’
Alma gave out an angry caw, swooping to peck at his head.
‘Fuck,’ he snapped. Batting her off as she flapped her wings in irritation before hopping over to me. Shifting effortlessly back into her shaggy dog form, a growl peeling from her bared teeth.
Murderer. Liar.Coward. A thousand other words I could have called myself in many different tongues. I deserved every one of them.
‘My mother didn’t have that book. No matter what that thing said.’ I knew she didn’t. She would have told me. Woven it into her bedtime stories as she did everything else, so I’d understand.
‘Are you sure about that?’ Gideon challenged. Only for Emrys to take another step forwards, his magic making the air even more frigid.
‘You’ll mind your tone when you speak to her,’ he warned. Unease rippling between himself and his brother, as I heard Gideon’s aether spit in response even though his eyes softened as they looked at me. Making me wonder if they saw that grief in me. The burden of it.
‘My mother wasn’t his bride. She never agreed to any of it.’ My breath caught, my magic rising with fury as if it remembered too. ‘It’s all a lie.’
Gideon seemed to chew on that, unable to look at me as his gaze moved around our strange gathering. ‘Does anyone else have any other family secrets that could make this fucking day any more abysmal.’
Alma let out a bark, earning herself a glare.
‘This is good, isn’t it?’ William worried his hands, his smile uneasy on his lips. ‘It means Kat could know where it is.’
‘I—’ Words stuck to my tongue. Because I had nothing, I knew nothing. Even after everything, I didn’t understand any of this.
‘She could have taken it with her when she vanished,’ William offered.
‘She wouldn’t have brought a book like that to the north. She wouldn’t have wanted it near my father.’ Or me. Not that piece of her past.
‘You’re sure?’ Gideon folded his arms, brow raised.
Emrys came closer to my side. ‘I won’t warn you again, brother.’
I shook my head, trying to piece together how she could have had something that dark. Could have known it and not told me. ‘Any cloaking charm wouldn’t have survived.’
‘Survived what?’ William frowned, lips pursed in confusion.
She was alive when you burnt her, little troll.I shook my head, dispelling that dark voice.
