Page 157 of Tales of a Deadly Devotion
I spat in his face. Rewarded with his choked surprise before a blow came across my face that sent me down to my side.
Light danced before my vision. The tang of blood in my mouth.
An animalistic roar erupted from the darkness. Emrys. The bitter vengeance of his magic lashing through the room but unable to strike. The stone beneath cracked deeper, a quaking as the shelves began to crumble around us.
Hands were on me, twisting my arms behind me as they dragged me back to my knees.
‘I’ve been seeking such sacred things for so long. Listening to those whisperings in my dreams, Emrys.’ Montagor straightened his coat and smoothed down his hair as if surprised by his own lack of control. ‘I followed where others wouldn’t dare.’
He turned to where Emrys was sneering, dark veins covering every inch of face. Four hunters had hold of him, struggling by the shadow of fear in their crazed eyes.
‘Where should it lead me but right back to you, brother.’ He smiled. ‘I know you have the Old God’s blade. Now the question is … how long will your pet have to suffer until you give it up?’
The blade. It had driven Montagor to Emrys. Driven him here.
The only way Montagor could win. If he took down Serus’s power – and with that blade in his chest, Emrys wouldn’t be able to fight it.
Shadows wove themselves between Montagor’s fingers. He moved them the barest inch and the shard twisted in Emrys’s chest. Making him roar again. Making blood spill and spread across the stone.
‘Stop!’ I screamed.
‘Listen to your pet, brother,’ Montagor mocked, his attention coming back to me. ‘Are you so righteous and loyal to Blackthorn’s commands you’ll let your Kysillian whore die for you?’
‘I need my hands to summon it,’ Emrys sneered in response. Not looking at me, at the horrid sob that left my lips. As I slipped in my own blood, trying to move.
‘I know,’ Montagor nodded. ‘You can suffer first for all the time you’ve cost me.’
He turned to see me, watched every painful pant of breath from my lips with cruel satisfaction.
‘I will say … after your performance in the Council chamber, you’ve given me the most alluring idea, troll.’
He grinned. Something about the hideous enjoyment of it was so familiar to me. Suddenly I was so small under that gaze. So weak and cold.
Then a dark summoning filled his hands as he spoke. A summoning I knew. One I could recount in my worst nightmares. Knew what was coming as the hunters released me. As horrid laughter filled the cavernous chamber.
Curse casting. Torture through summoning. A horrid roar came out of Emrys and that was the only sound before my own screams consumed every one of my senses as Montagor pushed that darkness towards me.
How easily it slipped into my flesh like a knife.
Agony tore through my limbs. As if my bones were twisting within my skin. Sharp brutal claws grating against my tendons.The horrid pain of my magic trying to rise but trapped too tightly within my flesh. The taste of copper on my tongue from my blood where I’d bitten down in the torment of it. Agony erupted in every part of my body, the wildest sounds escaping my lips until my voice broke.
Then it abated as if it had never been. Leaving me hollow with the barest brush of that pain rushing through me.
I panted, too shallow and sharp. Bloody spittle dripping from my lips. The air as thick as water in my lungs. Drowning. I was drowning in panic.
‘Valin!’ Emrys roared, almost desperately, but it wasn’t enough. He was weakened and so was his command.
‘Begging,’ Montagor laughed, his voice distorted with that darkness. ‘How unlike you, brother.’
‘Take it,’ Emrys commanded. Voice too hard. Words too sharp.
Take his power. Take everything if it gave me a chance.
Then those dark eyes met my own and for a moment they were so pale and clear. There was nothing but Emrys looking at me.
‘Aest’rea.’ His voice broke saying it but I wouldn’t have missed a word.
I love you.
