Page 37 of Tales of a Deadly Devotion
There wasn’t just one prince beneath the earth, and I feared Montagor was another summoning. The dark tongue Emrys had used in his presence.
‘When a member is accused ofimpropriety. Yes.’ Montagor practically preened, looking down at his nails with feigned boredom.
‘Shouldn’t you be busy investigating the western road?’ Gideon interjected coldly.
Montagor sat forward, his smile cruel at the challenge. ‘We already hanged twelve rebels at dawn. Fey are easy enough to catch. The true culprits … guilt will draw them from their nest soon enough. I’m sure.’
As if it were nothing but one of their grand hunts. A game to catch deer for a feast.
I felt that healing tonic threaten to crawl its way back up my throat.
‘However, we have more pressing matters. Such as a dead lord,’ Montagor continued, that smile never wavering. ‘Suspicious is it not, Miss Woodrow, how the destruction at Fairfax is so similar to the chaos that consumed Daunton’s estate? How peculiar that you were present for both events.’
I heard the mutter of the masters, felt the burn of Gideon’s suspicious gaze on the side of my face. Could do nothing, not even allow the brush of Emrys’s magic to calm me as fear pierced its talons into my heart.
Smoke filled my nose, bitter with the stench of burning flesh.
Murderer.
‘I’m certain I don’t need to remind the Council the punishment for wild magic. For lying to this Council under oath. I can assure you it’s far worse than a simple cleansing, Miss Woodrow,’ Montagor continued, relishing in what dregs of my fear he could sense.
The orbs that sat in the room remained white. Truth. Although I didn’t need the orb, I knew the price. It was death.
I ignored the thunder of my pulse and how my palms became slick with sweat. The trap they’d set and how I’d let my anger walk me right into the centre of it. Just as they predicted.
‘I’m not in possession of wild magic,’ I replied. Truth – but there was no relief to be found from it. Not when I knew I possessed something far worse.
Kysalor.Fire that eats the world. What lived in me wasn’t magic. It was too old to possess a name.
‘I’m also certain we can agree Daunton received what was deserved in the end.’ I kept my voice level, ignoring the bile that built at the back of my throat as his name slipped between my lips. ‘Death by fire is still the punishment for torturing beings with curse casting, is it not?’
There was no comfort in that truth. Not as I said those words aloud for the first time. Admitted what he’d done. What I’d allowed him to do to me. Felt the turbulent rage in Emrys’s magic. Saw a few of those lanterns splutter out as if disturbed by a deadly wind. The sun slipping deep behind clouds high above us.
Those scars on my back almost ached with the memory of it, as if I could feel the groove of each one he’d burdened me with.
I returned Montagor’s stare. I was finished with my fears. As I stood burdened with all the things I’d never said. The weight of my guilt like stones in my pockets.
I’d felt the pain of those fey. Saw their deaths. Tasted the foul tang of it. The bitterness of that fear that would never leave me.
I hadn’t saved them and everything in my blood would mourn them until I was no more.
Only fear can bind your hands.I’d allowed it to do more than bind my hands. I’d allowed it to gag and smother me. Drag me down into the foulness of cowardice.
Master Ainsworth cleared his throat impatiently. ‘Miss Woodrow—’
‘You wish to hear my testimony.’ I eyed the orb again, ignoring the sharp stab of my apprehension. Remembering every other time they’d subjected me to such things. Theexhaustion and cruelty of it. ‘Did you seek Lord Percy’s under the watch of the Truth Seeker?’
‘As protocol dictates,’ Master Grima drawled, tapping his quill on the waiting parchment before him. The powder on his face congealing around his temples with his sweat. Unfortunately, the globe before him stayed a clear white with truth. ‘He had some …interestingallegations to report.’
‘Miss Woodrow is in no condition to—’ Master Hale began to interrupt.
‘Very well.’ My voice was a knife through his attempt to defend me. He’d never bothered before. Not here. Not as they’d clawed through my thoughts. Undeterred by my fear. By how small and lost I’d been.
It is what they need, Katherine. No matter that I was too young to have my mind dissected like it didn’t belong to me. Agreeing because my fear of what they’d take if I didn’t was greater.
I moved to the desk and pressed my palm to the glass orb. Never breaking the Council’s stare.
I felt Emrys’s lethal power simmer with displeasure from the distance between us. The lanterns dimming as Montagor’s smile grew cat-like out of the corner of my eye. Seeing me as a mouse in a trap. Probably expecting me to gnaw off my own limbs to escape.
