Page 130 of Tales of a Deadly Devotion
Dark storms came across the battlefields of the west.
Blood and screams. Tearing through the innocent and leaving nothing but terror in their wake.
Wild fiends locked in weapons. Bringers of nothing but death.
‘Emrys!’ Gideon cried a moment too late as the static of his aether hummed in the air. That vorg flared a blinding bright green. It imploded with a scream from the rebels closest to it.
The force tore me from Emrys’s grip. My back hit stone, debris striking my skin. A cry burst from my lips. There was no demon fire, nothing but the looming demonic storm freed from its trap.
Pale grey smoke and sulphuric dark flames. Sharp flashes of teeth and claws. Too many tumbled together, screeching and making the ground quake. Undulating and twisting with a deadly ferocity.
A demonic storm. One that stole my breath. Smothered my air before I could summon. Whipping all around me. Sparks flaring and guttering in my palms. Screams filled the air, chaotic shouts but I couldn’t see what was happening.
The terrified shriek of William.
Someone screaming my name.
Then there was nothing. Only darkness and pain as I drowned in the pressure in my lungs.
I tried to summon my magic, but no flames would catch. The icy bite of fear stung my heart. Then that dark storm brushed my exposed flesh. Like a hundred icy blades piercing at once. Asearing pain coming from the scar at my neck as if the galmoth’s fangs had dug in once more. I bucked wildly as agony tore through me, screaming until my throat was raw with it.
Please, I pleaded helplessly in the back of my mind. Then bright white demon fire stung my eyes, air rushed down my throat. Clean and sharp. Filled with nothing but the scent of beasam bark.
The ground cracked beneath me. Deep fissures as the fine dirt began to bounce with the ferocity of the quaking. A boom made my ears ring as if thunder had broken above. The darkness abated in an instant, suddenly swirling across the courtyard from my panting form like a storm cloud.
The village came back into focus, cobbles and dirt splattered with blood. Lifeless eyes looking at me. As the cloud of forsaken smoke continued to undulate and scream. Being pulled by some invisible wind as flashes of bright ethereal light came from within it. Whisp-like claws attacking itself, as it was pulled in and in on itself.
Smaller and smaller. That pale demon fire at its centre growing brighter. Until a dark figure could be seen in the middle of it. That pale summoning like bright white fire all around him.
Emrys. Burning the creature from within. Until with one final demonic scream, that storm fractured in a deadly boom. The force of it almost sending me back to the ground. The fiend becoming nothing but thick ashy clumps that rained down on my prone form like snow. I panted, palms braced on the cobbles beneath me. Looking up at the imposing bulk of Emrys.
His hands were still outstretched, that blinding light between his fingers where he’d unmade it. Darkness rippled and danced across his pale flesh. Making his features sharper, deadlier. Something else was in there looking back at me.
Nothing but darkness in male form.
Serus.
The wishing stone practically trembling against my breastbone, as if even the power contained there wished to be free and return.
The distant moans of the rebels caught my ear as they regained their feet.
‘Emrys?’ I stumbled to my knees and then my feet, ignoring Gideon’s call of warning. The stillness in Emrys felt like a threat. I reached for his hand. His skin was ice cold, almost making me pull back, my magic flaring in answer.
Only for his dark shadows to strike out, wrapping twice around my arm to keep me in place.
He looked down at where my touch curled over his own wrist. Blankly as if he didn’t recognise me.
The breeze didn’t stir his hair. He didn’t even breathe. So still and strange.
The Old Gods know no mortal vices. They know no pleasure or pain. Only power.Horror clawed at my heart at that ancient hymn.
‘Emrys?’ I called again, only he didn’t move. Didn’t look at me. So still and so lost. Until movement came from behind. Those deadly jet-black eyes focusing on something over my shoulder. A strange sound rumbling in his chest in threat. I turned to find Gideon there, William tucked safely behind him.
A warning crackle of magic was building around us as the rebels took stock of what stood before them. A rumbling like a storm rolling overhead as the sky darkened.
‘It’s us, Emrys,’ Gideon warned, but I saw the flash of panic in his blue eyes. The movement from the rebels rising around us made the ground shake again, made that darkness in Emrys lash out and bite. Curling around my wrist almost painfully.
Those demonic eyes darted over every perceived threat, his lips pulled back in a feral display. A crack as the earth beneath his boots split, strange ethereal runes glowing up from the quaking earth.
