Page 115 of Tales of a Deadly Devotion
Serus?A small strange voice called through my dreams. Icy pinpricks against my flesh chased me from my strange dreams. Waking me to find myself still curled in a collection of pillows, soft dawn light illuminating the specks of dust that danced through the old room.
Confused about where I was.
Then I saw the broad expanse of Emrys’s back as he sat up, hands in his hair, a slight tremor making the muscles twitch. The pale slashes of scarring across the taut muscle I hadn’t noticed before. How that darkness slipped and danced around them across his flesh.
I gathered the blanket to my front. Yet as I touched him, I could have sworn I heard a small curious voice whisper in the back of my mind.Serus?
Almost beckoning.
‘Emrys.’ Those tremors subsided under my touch but he remained so still.
‘He’s doing something.’ The words were harsh from his lips with an unsteady breath.
Montagor. Dread churned in my stomach as I leant closer, letting my hand rest at the nape of his neck. ‘You can hear him?’
His head made the barest twitch as if he wished to shake it. ‘It’s something else. Like a strange shadow in the corner of my mind. Something waiting.’
I moved closer. Pressing myself against the trembling might of him. ‘Has it always been like this?’
‘Once,’ he swallowed painfully, eyes closing as his dark fingers rubbed at his temple as if it pained him. ‘Nine years ago. Something changed. Even the bark couldn’t keep it at bay.’
He finally turned to see me, those eyes nothing but darkness. ‘Then Montagor came back.’
‘Came from where?’ I frowned, letting my hand cup his cheek in the small comfort I could offer him.
‘He was confined to a saints’ house in the south from when he was a boy,’ Emrys answered, a dark expression taking hold of his features. ‘He killed two governesses as a child and began to demonstrate … distressing behaviours. Father said the lords suspected it was a result of the summoning that created him, something … wrong with the blood mix.’
My frown deepened. ‘What about the wars?’
‘Montagor didn’t serve in the wars,’ he answered, making me jolt with surprise.
‘His records are in –were in– the Institute halls,’ I countered. I’d read them. The glossy stories of victory over the dark, which didn’t make sense when compared to the unhinged cruelty of the man. Why he’d ever turn on the King only to emulate him.
Emrys huffed out an unamused laugh, jaw tight with disgust. ‘A fabrication to get him a place on the Council. He was crazed. Inhuman. Then nine years ago when I felt something … he appeared in the Council chambers soon after with his new title. Unaffected and devout to serve.’
I didn’t miss Emrys’s slight flinch or the tension in his body. The prickling of his magic against my skin, as if reaching out for comfort. I slid my hand into his own where it had fallen into his lap as if with defeat.
‘I thought someone had broken a seal. Only nothing followed. Just this …’ A strange dark shame burnt in those eyes before he broke my gaze, looking to the dim sunrise through grimy windows. ‘Something … something felt wrong. Yet, the sensation left as quickly as it arrived.’
There was no hiding his pain, nor how that darkness moved across his knuckles as his grip on my hand became tighter.
Something had changed in Montagor and whatever existed in Emrys had sensed it.
‘A summoning?’ I frowned. What kind of summoning could ease his madness. Or at least have given it a new direction?
Nine years ago Elysior was at peace, or supposed to be. How would a dark summoning have happened? If Montagor had a relic all this time … why wait until now to use it? No. He must have only just found it; only just been given the urge he needed with Fairfax’s obsession with that seal.
‘You think he felt it too?’ I asked. That it drew Montagor back to some semblance of mortal sanity.
Emrys nodded, turning more to see me. ‘I think it made Varin take notice. Made him wish to seek power. To return.’
Varin. One of the princes from beneath.
‘Do you think there are others?’ Other Old Gods given mortal form? Yet if there were, why didn’t they seek powerand violence as Montagor did? Were they as peaceful as the other Verr Emrys had found? As Emrys himself?
Acarus, Duar, Than and Orus. The Old Gods’ names tumbled through my thoughts, then of course Acara, the seer – sister of Serus.
‘None from the King after Montagor, Blackthorn made certain of that. I don’t know how anyone else could attempt it without me sensing it. Even with the bark.’ His words were quiet, shamed. When those eyes lifted to my own they were a solemn grey. ‘I wasn’t myself. Gideon put up with me for a few years but I don’t think either of us were ever the same after the war. We went as brothers with a family to defend and we came back … something else.’
