Page 92 of Tales of a Deadly Devotion
‘Don’t look at her.’ Emrys dark command wasn’t entirely mortal. The skull snapped back to him. Quaking in the remains of the coffin. ‘Why didn’t he use the book?’
‘He didn’t have the time,’ the bones moaned, twisting as if writhing in agony. William looked peaky and I wondered if Alma being perched on his shoulder was the only thing keeping him upright.
‘Why?’ Gideon demanded with impatience.
The bones rattled, jaw snapping together, teeth tumbling free as if to keep the answer.
‘It vanished the same night the bride did. The bitch that killed the kingdom. The madness that lost him the throne,’ the remains mocked with a sing-song tone.
An icy fear bit into my bones, making me move back a step across the uneven ground. Heart slamming into my gut.
Be wary of how far you wander, you’ll tread paths you were never meant to take. A horrid warning I should have remembered. Another thing I’d lost. I shook my head, hair loose about my face, but there was no hiding myself. No hiding from this new horrid twist in the tale. Unable to understand why my past kept leading me to this present. How it could all be tangled together so easily.
The weeping bride. The King’s betrothed.
Liar, the wind seemed to hiss. An awful feeling moved through me. Slow and cold as if my blood had become congealed. Alma let out a warning caw, her head swivelling sharply towards me, but that ringing had started in my ears. Blocking out everything else.
You never speak my name. Never speak the truth, Tauria. Promise me.The memory of my mother’s voice. How clear it seemed, how it gave my magic the compulsion to rise. To incinerate those bones before they could go further. To keep my promise.
‘You’re lying,’ Gideon challenged with exasperation. Only for those bones to creak in answer with what I could only describe as laughter.
‘You can ask her yourself.’ One remaining skeletal finger raised and pointed right at me. ‘She’s right there.’
I could’ve sworn that skull was smiling with its next words.
‘Lady Leanna Grey.’
My mother’s name.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Kat
Madness comes in many forms. If the fey wished for sympathy, they should not have stolen the King’s bride. For what is he to do but be tormented by her defilement. Wondering what cursed corner of the earth they will leave her body to rot once they’ve had their feast.
Vengeance will be his – and every despicable creature of their line deserves his wrath for their complicity.
Correspondence from Lord Ramsey
How awful that none of the tales even remembered her name. She was nothing but the weeping bride. The girl that broke the King’s heart and drove him mad. Her memory bathed in the innocent blood he’d shed in her name.
Liar.The stories the King’s sympathisers peddled to ignite their cause in the last war. Of a virtuous beauty stolen by beasts. How long he hunted and killed to save his love. How the blood spilled was nothing but evidence of his devotion.
Only I knew the truth of that tale. I was made of it.
There was a girl who was to be sold to a mad king. A defiant girl consumed with rage and grief. One who wished for nothing but to tear this kingdom down. No matter the cost. Until it cost her everything.
A stillness enveloped Emrys and William as they watchedme. The necromancy spell dissipated as the bones rattled back in the box, back into cursed slumber.
Gideon was still muttering a curse at the grave. ‘Bloody stupid lying bastard.’
‘Kat.’ William’s tone was soft, cautious even. ‘Why did he call you that name?’
I shook my head, taking another step back, wanting to lie. Feeling its heavy weight on my tongue but as my eyes met Emrys’s … I couldn’t. My lies had led me nowhere but to ruin and I couldn’t play with them anymore.
‘That’s my—’ I felt as if I was suddenly underwater. Battling the waves to try to draw one breath deep enough to get the rest of the cursed words out. ‘That was my mother’s name.’
A name I was forbidden to say.
