Page 121 of Tales of a Deadly Devotion
‘They’re digging,’ she panted, sweat from the flurry of her flight making her dark curls stick to her brow.
‘Digging?’ William repeated, voice far too high in pitch to be calm.
‘In the ruins in the woods. Twelve hunters. Four dogs.’ She nodded. ‘They have fey locked in the main hall and some in caged wagons.’
‘They’ve found something,’ Gideon cursed. ‘The lords of old buried their treasures.’
‘Why?’ William’s fingers were buried in the soil between his knees as if seeking some comfort from the earth.
‘In case a Kysillian came by with a firestorm.’ Gideon’s eyes met my own. ‘We all know how well those flames suppress Verr summonings.’
Of course. It was why the King wanted Kysillians gone before all others. Kysillian flame was the only thing that could compete with such destructive dark summoning. Why the Countess held those blades like a trophy. Protection from the dark magic she played with.
‘We need to summon Priscilla,’ Gideon added irritably, tugging at his hair in frustration as he peered around the cottage again.
‘Her Reavers won’t enter territory so close to the lines held by the rebels,’ Emrys warned, his eyes not leaving the hunters that moved distantly down the narrow streets, tone flat with rage.
We were on our own.
‘We need a distraction,’ I offered. Distraction to get those fey to safety, somehow. To pull the hunters’ focus away. Knowing we were running out of time. There weren’t enough hunters here and if Montagor was interested in what could rest here, he wouldn’t be far behind. He never was.
‘Can we just have a moment to—’ Gideon didn’t have a chance to finish before Alma shifted again. The cloak droppingto the cobbles before her crow form took off into the skies, before she shifted into her wrywing form with a loud roar. Silver scales gleaming in the low winter sun.
‘Bollocks,’ Gideon snapped, pulling his blade from his belt and glaring at Emrys. ‘This is like the fucking east hills all over again.’
‘How would you know, you were busy crossing swords with two guards in the armoury,’ Thean snorted, picking at their nails with their dagger. Only their eyes tracked the form of Alma as she swooped behind a tree line.
‘I was gettinginformation,’ Gideon bristled, ignoring the panicked shout of hunters.
‘Vigorouslyfrom what I heard, little witch,’ Thean added unhelpfully with a sly smirk.
Emrys – thankfully – ignored their bickering as he dug a hand into his jacket pocket. ‘William. Get the fey out and open the wagons.’
He pulled out a portal stone and a rune marker, handing them to William. Everything the boy would need to make a usable portal for a short period of time.
‘Where are they going?’ William nodded, face serious and determined.
‘The eastern fields,’ Emrys replied. ‘Stay out of trouble.’
‘I’m sure Priscilla will fucking love you dropping them on her doorstep,’ Gideon griped as William darted around the side of the cottage and into one of the other alleyways. Emrys’s jaw was tight with worry, those dark eyes watching him go.
‘I’ll help William with the portal stone,’ I offered. Worried about leaving him on his own, and knowing Emrys’s focus needed to be on the hunters and what they were doing. Not on the boy he cared for like his own son.
Without another word I followed William down the other side of the alley. Silently jumping over scattered market baskets where someone had dropped their wares. The hunters arriving too swiftly. Then I turned another corner and saw William’s fiery head crouched in the bushes.
‘William,’ I whispered, still managing to startle him as I stopped to join him in his hiding place. Considering the town square ahead of us. Quaint, surrounded by small cottages with smoking chimneys and narrow cobbled streets. The kind of village my mother would illustrate in her stories for me.
Two guards stood watch of a caged wagon, fey men inside. Beyond them, the main hall doors rattled slightly. Voices crying and shouting to be let out, before one of the guards kicked the doors to silence them.
A few kelsh fey men knelt at the side of the wagon. They had patches of a scaled texture on their arms and face. Earth summoners, mostly land workers now. Small black horns protruded from their brows. From the bulk of them, it was apparent why they all had bleeding wounds. They’d been hit with verium. Their hands behind their heads, faces bloody as if they’d put up resistance. One I was certain they’d pay for the moment the hunters got what they wanted. They wouldn’t leave witnesses. Not to this.
A boom shook the earth and made me grip William’s shoulder as smoke rose over the small cottages from the direction we’d come. At the same time a large flock of birds rose from the surrounding wood. Followed by the roar of Alma’s wrywing form in the distance.
I suppose that was the sign we were waiting for. The guards watching the wagons turned, distracted.
‘I’ll knock them out.’ William buried his hands in the dirt beneath the bushes. His fingers giving off a faint green glow, eyes shut tight with concentration.
Then the ground quaked for a different reason. William sucked in a breath through clenched teeth, his shoulders bunched with the might of his summoning. His roots exploded from the earth across the yard. Screams filled the air from startled fey. The hunters flew into the air, only to land with a sickening crunch against the cobbled road, necks no longer at the right angle.
