Page 59 of Tales of a Deadly Devotion
I worried about the things she wouldn’t say. How heavily they haunted her. Then I remembered what happened in that Council chamber. The tight overwhelming emotion that bloomed in my chest as I looked at his beautifully stoic face.
‘I shouldn’t have told her about Hale like that. She – she burnt the chocolates he gave her. I didn’t think.’ I ducked my head, hating how I’d hurt her. Shamed by my thoughtlessness.
‘Kat.’ His fingers came beneath my chin, gently coaxing me to meet his eyes again.
‘You didn’t tell me. About what you did for Alma.’ That he’d got her away from the Council, done it without a second thought.
‘She should never have been there,’ he answered so effortlessly. No. None of us should have been. He pulled back slightly to pull something from his pocket.
‘Here.’ A torn piece of cloth lay across his palm, stained with ash and blood. My blood. What they must have taken from the Institute after that creature in Hale had attacked me.‘It was in an old cemetery just beyond the Institute grounds. One of the old lord’s mausoleums had enough Verr artifacts to make the summoning.’
Blood summoning. One of the oldest offerings.
I pressed down my unease of Emrys being so close to the Institute again. So close to the remnants of Montagor’s attack.
‘It’d be safer if you destroyed it,’ he offered, jaw tense. Unsettled.
‘Surely Gideon won’t be pleased by that.’ I took the blood-stained rag from him and moving into the hall where the house had thankfully put my room – or his room – just next door. I went to the fire. My magic rising quickly, the rag combusting against my skin, rendering it to ash as I let it drop into the orange flames.
‘I think I’ve had as much of Gideon’s opinion as I can stomach for the evening,’ he commented darkly from behind me.
I turned, listening to the creak of the house as if it was taking a deep, relieved breath. Settling with all it cared for under its roof. Emrys considered the fire next to me with a tired, distant expression.
‘Do you want to be left alone?’ I was cautious of his emotions. Of the whirlwind that had been his life since I’d entered it. Also – that I’d stolen his room. Or the house had.
His answering smile was small. ‘Not by you, Croinn.’
He lifted his hand to push the hair back from his brow and it was then I saw the spotting of blood on his shirtsleeve, how the darkness shifted beneath his skin as if to catch my attention, shadows dancing over his knuckles.
‘You’re hurt.’ I crossed the space between us, hating the tension that came over his limbs as I reached carefully for his hand. The slight flinch, his eyes too alert in an instance.
‘You won’t hurt me, Emrys,’ I reasoned. Pulling back his sleeve gently to see the curved slash beneath. Not too deep.
‘Those back claws of the beast were surprisingly sharp.’ His brow furrowed, as if he’d forgotten he had the wound at all.
‘Thoseclawscould have anything on them,’ I corrected, looking at the wound more closely for any other sign of contamination.
I tugged him from the fire to where healing supplies lay scattered on the desk. The house materialising a bowl of steaming water and cloth without command. I made quick work of cleaning the wound and soaking a cotton ball in healing tonic as he perched on the desk’s edge like a well-behaved patient.
‘You’re lucky Gideon didn’t see it.’ I scolded him playfully, listening to his small huff of amusement. ‘Has he always been so …’
‘Difficult?’ He finished as the shadows cut across his pensive expression. ‘He has his reasons. Witch blood isn’t the kindest curse to possess.’
No. Most of the witches in the tales of old were driven to madness with the weight of their gifts. Most witches were renowned not only for their powers, but their prickly dispositions. Why most of them were dead – having crossed the wrong foe.
‘Lady Blackthorn was a witch then?’ I frowned, finishing cleaning the wound and moving onto applying the balm.
‘Of a long ancient line. One I doubt even she knew the full truth of. She was raised in the rebellion. Used by them. Even Emmaline was nothing more than a creation of their meddling. One of the Countess’ breeding experiments.’
Unease shifted through me at those words. My father had warned me of that. How the rebellion had its own breeding practices, mixing magic to raise more potent warriors for its battles. Horror stories I’d wished were just Council exaggeration.
Only the saint worshippers had to get their ideas from somewhere, and it was the ancient fey that had favouredpurity of blood first. That had put the survival of their own magic above all else.
I wrapped his wounds in a thin, clean bandage. Watching the shadow of his magic beneath his skin, twisting as if intrigued by my touch. Deep shadows lingered beneath his eyes, a strange tension in his limbs. As if small tremors were moving through him.
‘You’re in pain.’ I pressed my palm against his cheek, expecting to find he had a chill, only his skin was perfectly warm.
‘I can’t remember not taking it. The bark.’ Shame coated his words. How quickly he curled his hands into fists. How close to the surface that darkness was.
