Tales of a Monstrous Heart

Chapter One

Mortals came from the South Seas, seeking a magic of their own, to make deals with the darkness that slept beneath the earth, seduced by its lies and promises of power. Such greed unleashed that darkness onto the earth and curses came to life in monstrous forms. Still, those mortals were gluttonous for more, so they sold their souls for power. The world burned as punishment, and the cursed earth devoured them, becoming as gluttonous as those mortals longed to be.

– Compendium of the Lost, 1536

An ancient tale about the consequences of greed, and the beginning of the world’s end. A story made to scare children and keep them from the path of dark magic. I was too old to be entertained so easily, yet I turned another charred page of the story, seeing illustrations of the dark fiends in question, demons made of smoke and curses. Twisted into serpent-like shapes as they rose from the earth.

Verr. Creatures of the deep. Monsters that were nothing but fables now, but all stories start in truth, even if fragments of that truth are lost to time, carried away on harsh winds before campfires or slipping too easily from ailing memory.

There was truth buried in these ancient words. Another mortal king had longed to possess a magic of his own, sold his soul to conquer and devour the world. His forbidden spells and occult worship of those Verr had awakened that darkness beneath, had almost destroyed us all.

A story that had been repeated too many times by too many mortal kings, cursed with greed and a hunger for magic.

Despite how well I knew the history, my hand still traced over the dulling ink, thin paper rough beneath my fingertips. The words lit by a hovering ball of soft white light from my illumination spell, casting shadows across the charred stone walls of the ruins surrounding me.

The Grand Fifth Library. An abandoned quarter deep beneath the Institute of Magic made up of old corridors held together with roots, decrepit vaulted ceilings, crumbling statues and rot-devoured spell books.

My spell flickered weakly, casting long shadows across the stone, threatening to plunge me into darkness at any moment for relying on the spell too long. Forgetting my limits.

I withdrew my hand from the text, the enchantment I’d created to reanimate the destroyed pages dispersed, returning the book to nothing but charred, smoke-stained remains.

Nothing but a memory once more, a relic of the past. Just like the towering, dilapidated maze of bookcases surrounding me that held the fragmented remnants of scrolls from the Third Kingdom of Elysior centuries before, when these very halls had been alive with magic and study. A place dedicated to the exploration of the fey and all the powers they possessed, to understand what magic could do before mortals finally understood they could never possess magic as fey did. Not unless they defiled their blood and mixed with beings they saw so far beneath them. Fey they deemed feral and regressive with their strange, godless ways.

Then knowledge of magic wasn’t treasure, but chains to bind us to a mortal king’s will. To control. To take.

So, the mortals centuries ago began to gather magical texts, like old dragons collecting gold. To keep them from the fey that wanted to know their history, to connect with their ancestors. Those mortal kings brought down lesser fey civilisations, desecrated sacred grounds and built their new mortal Kingdoms on top of the remains. Then as their kingdoms failed, they rebuilt them. Pressing the ruins of their mistakes deeper beneath the earth with each new mortal King, until the next war claimed them too.

The endless cycle. The curse that the lands of Elysior were fated to endure.

I turned to the old tapestries, sagging with mould against the brick. Depictions of fey in the wildlands centuries before. The fight they’d put up trying to keep their magic, trying to stop a tyrant king who summoned dark power from beneath the earth with his madness. Who allowed the Verr and their old, cursed gods to corrupt this land.

That was how it began, this curse mortals had brought upon themselves by selling their souls.

Maybe they deserved it. Maybe we all did.

As if in answer to that dark thought, the orb of my spell flickered out, abandoning me to the dark. Weak slivers of moonlight pierced through the gloom from small cracks high above, where these ruins had managed to crawl back through the earth.

Remaining hidden in the dark had its benefits, but even the ghosts that lingered here couldn’t offer me comfort in this strange grave so far beneath the earth.

All that awaited me above were rejected applications. Either from the mages I tried to partner with, healing placements or teaching positions in the north. All too afraid to annoy the Council by agreeing to take a fey like me on.

A partnership … the last requirement to graduate from the institute. To grant me the freedom to wield my own magic under the protected title of Mage. Something no fey had survived long enough to do. Something I was currently failing at. Dreadfully.

The familiar pain of a headache clawed at my temples. How had I lost control of my own future so easily?

You never had control. The voice of doubt hissed in the back of my mind. A voice I’d given too much credence to recently.

A dull clicking echoed across the room, coming from one of the ruined desks in the shadowed, damp corner. A glimmer of silver from the fluttering of a tiny set of iridescent wings caught my attention.

A dust sprite perched precariously on a pile of damp-riddled books that I moved foolishly towards, its small rotund body too heavy for its thin, spindly legs. Its wings only ceasing their clicking to consider me. Large, interested eyes like pieces of coal, dominating its tiny, furry head, minuscule sharp teeth bared in a strange, slightly demented smile.

‘You shouldn’t be here,’ I warned, glad no one was around to witness the questionable interaction.

Dust sprites were rare. Most forms of such ancient magic had died in the wars, but that was the power of the pest: to form out of nothing but forgotten spells. Touching one would return it to its unanimated form, such was the fragility of their existence, and I was tempted to do just that.

A heavy, irritated sigh slipped between my lips. ‘I don’t need the kind of trouble talking to you will bring.’

The sprite didn’t appear to be in the mood for negotiation as it skittered across the desk. Sharp legs clicked loudly against the peeling leather of the desk’s top. A warning it couldn’t give with words.

‘Stop,’ I hissed, worried it would set off one of the wards.

The beast’s tiny body trembled in annoyance as it bared its sharp teeth again. Dark eyes glanced down to see the torn scribbled mess of papers I’d left on that desk – my notes on transfiguration and healing that had taken me all day to write. Things I needed for my latest application.

My last hope.

An icy sense of dread washed over me, just as the dust sprite glanced up at me again, something smug about the slight tilt of its head.

‘ No .’ The pleading whisper left my lips too late.

The menace snatched up my notes in its grimy, sharp mouth and scrambled away.

‘Stop !’ I shouted, rounding the desk and stumbling after it into the sinister remains of the library.

I needed those notes. Alma needed those notes.

The clicking of the sprite’s wings guided me around corners and between drunken, leaning shelves, every turn guiding me to a more dangerous section of the ruins, my boots skidding on the remains of burnt, ashy books. I stumbled over twisted roots growing out of the wooden floor or jutting dangerously from the crumbling brick.

Dust stung my nose as I rounded another dim corner, only to hear a clamour of motion as I came to a skidding halt behind a derelict bookcase.

Nobody should be down here, especially not me.

Then came a hissed curse, making me duck into the shadows and move the abandoned scrolls aside on the shelf, fingers tangling with thick cobwebs, to see what remained of the entrance to the restricted section beyond. Through the rusted, filigreed gates stood a lone, cloaked figure, lit by the sickly-green light of an eternal lantern.

There was an irritable clicking as the sprite tumbled onto the shelf next to me and dropped my notes. I eyed it accusingly, considering swatting the winged pest out of existence, but another hissed curse turned my attention back to the restricted section. The figure stepped into the stream of light as the hood of their cloak fell back onto their hunched shoulders, revealing Finneaus Ainsworth. Bright blond hair uncharacteristically unkempt and still wearing his evening robes beneath his cloak.

Master Hale had said Finneaus was failing his classes, and not even his father’s heavy purse could save him from the humiliation of being an idiot.

I watched as he hunched over what remained of a reading table, the lantern sitting precariously on the edge. Head bowed as he grasped at the latched cover of an ancient metal-bound book and pulled, as if he could tear it open by sheer force despite the rusted lock. The familiar ancient family crest of the stag catching that horrid green light.

The air grew thick in my lungs, the pinching irritation of a headache almost overwhelming. My magic flared in response, heating my blood.

I knew that book.

Commander Ainsworth’s compendium, a forsaken text the Council should have destroyed long ago. A book encased in forsaken iron – a cursed metal that ensured no fey could touch it.

The book had been missing since the old Institute had fallen centuries ago, buried beneath the new Institute where the Mage Council now sat, hiding behind the pretence that they’d reformed. That they’d turned their backs on their dark King’s rule for the mortals and fey of this world to exist in peace. Yet, here was a compendium that should have been destroyed long ago.

Finneaus continued to struggle with his great-great-grandfather’s book, not noticing the silver inscription on the spine, the warning. How a creature in service to the compendium’s owner was bound inside – one that would be over two centuries old, probably close to starvation and so rabid from its containment no simple spellcasting could contain such volatile hunger.

I should have retreated, made my way up into the Institute halls, returned to my room and changed before Alma caught me. I should have let the stupid fool open the book, let the creature steal his soul and then pretend to politely mourn at his funeral. I should have …

‘Bugger it !’ Finneaus hissed, the book clattering onto the table as he held his hand to his chest, blood running down his fingers from the sharp spine and dripping dangerously close to the cursed book.

Blood-sealed books require a sacrifice . That warning echoed in my mind as fear oVerrode my senses. Dark magic had a way of calling to us, even when we wished not to hear it.

‘What are you doing?’ I shouted, emerging from my shadowed hiding place. Finneaus let out a cry of alarm, spinning on his heel and almost knocking over his lantern.

His distress was quickly replaced by a sneer of pure disgust.

‘None of your business, troll !’ He shoved his injured hand into the pocket of his dark robes.

I ignored the slur , a vulgar summary of my bloodline. As a fey, I was used to prejudice. Being Kysillian only made it worse, everything from my pointed ears, gold-tinged skin, lavender eyes, and imposing height was met with disdain from mortals.

‘You shouldn’t be touching that book,’ I cautioned as softly as I could, hoping reason would get through to the spoiled halfwit.

‘You dare to tell me what to do?’ His thin lips curled. ‘If you’re looking for a reason to get expelled, Woodrow , I don’t mind providing one.’

‘I think you’re in graver danger of that than me, Finneaus.’ My voice held a calmness I wished I felt. No matter how much he hated me, once he dabbled in the dark magic that text contained, there would be no coming back.

‘We’ll see,’ he challenged tartly, but I could see the slight tremble in his fingers, the distant panic in his eyes. He’d already let it tempt him.

He wasn’t going to listen to me. Couldn’t. Not anymore. He was too far gone. The pull of the dark was always strongest to those with weak minds and desperate hearts. His bloody hand moved back to that book and – by the panic in his eyes – he wasn’t controlling his fingers as they reached out for it.

‘Don’t !’ I threw out a quick enchantment that was meant to send the book flying off the table, but my spell simply simmered on contact, like water on a hot stove. The lavender aura of the spellcasting scattering uselessly.

Thankfully it shocked Finneaus enough to stumble back from the book.

‘You almost hit me !’ he spat.

‘That book is cursed.’ I sneered my warning, struggling to rein in my temper.

‘This is my family’s text,’ he jeered, tipping his chin in defiance, despite the bright pink flush on his cheeks.

‘A lineage just as idiotic as you to curse their own books,’ I replied sharply.

Outraged, he charged towards me, despite the fact I was at least a foot taller. ‘You impudent troll .’

‘Listen you little—’ I began, resisting the urge to throttle him, only for the words to catch in my throat. A strange rattling came from the table, stopping Finneaus mid-stride. Bookcases began to tremble around us, the uneven floor shifted beneath my feet as the rusted gates gave a weary groan.

It was too late.

The buzzing of a hundred sets of tiny wings echoed through the chamber as a dusty wind ripped past us. Finneaus curled into himself with a shriek.

The dust sprites were fleeing, deep into the cracks of the stone arches high above, some diminishing into plumes of dirt in their haste as they brushed past my skin. Becoming unmade. There wasn’t a moment to mourn them. Not when my rage kept my gaze fixed on that table.

That cursed book started coming alive as it bounced and shook, trying blindly to open itself. It knocked the eternal lamp off the desk, glass shattered, and the flames spilled across the floor; devouring abandoned papers that littered the ground. Illuminating the horror of what was about to happen in that sickly-green hue.

‘What did your heathen spell do !?’ Finneaus squeaked, stumbling away from the mess.

‘This was you !’ I hissed.

The book thrashed desperately, moving nearer and nearer to the small pool of blood from Finneaus’s hand. It was then I understood.

Before I could act, the book finally landed on the droplets it sought, stopping its savage dance as black smoke seeped from its pages. Wisps of darkness twisted together to form a clawed hand that slipped from between the yellowed pages. It crawled upwards towards the cover and broke the lock with a careless flick.

A horrid, shrill screech tore through the room, reverberating off the arched ceiling as the book snapped open. Smoke burst forth from its pages in an almighty powerful storm that sent dust and ash swirling around the room, pulling my braid free and stinging my eyes.

I felt it on my skin: a pinching and twisting coldness. Lungs full of the sulphuric stench of dark magic.

The book gave another bone-chilling screech that left a ringing in my ears, and in response, magic burned molten in my veins, willing me to set it free, to fight whatever was trying to tear its way out of those pages. The tips of my fingers glowed with their own soft lavender light.

I curled my hands into fists to resist it. Sweat beaded on my temples. I couldn’t lose control again, not here and not in front of the Dean’s son.

There was a cracking of ancient bones, as a shadowed hand reached out of the book and dug its nails into the tabletop. A dark, gelatinous substance spilled from the pages, dripping onto the wooden floor as the creature unfurled, dragging itself out of the text.

‘Bloody saints,’ Finneaus whispered, his voice breaking with fear, as if the useless words could help. The stench of the coward’s urine quickly followed, which helped greatly in catching the fiend’s attention.

It was eyeless, with rows of sharp, yellow and uneven teeth that clicked together as it crouched on the desk. Long spider-like limbs stuck out from a dark, humanoid body, only slightly bigger than Finneaus’s narrow frame. Its slitted nostrils flared as it scented us, large sharply pointed ears twitching with every sound. One flap of its dark sinuous wings sent a gust of wind so powerful that it knocked the dilapidated bookcases to the ground and sent papers flying through the air. Its long leathery tail snapped out behind it like a lethal, barbed whip.

Finneaus tried to run, but stumbled over his own feet, landing on the floor. The creature snapped its head towards the sound, launching itself at him within the space of a panicked heartbeat.

‘Woodrow !’ he cried as the creature tore across the floor.

My magic flared viciously in my palms with no spell or incantation leaving my lips. This was blood magic, forbidden and relentless.

Kysillian fire, bright blue and purple flames roared from my hands to form a blockade between Finneaus and the beast, twining effortlessly with the flames of the eternal lantern, turning them deep blue, commanding them to do my bidding.

The creature recoiled from the heat, screeching and clawing at the floor as it was denied its feast. Lethal claws making deep gouges in the damp wood.

It roared, wings slapping sharply behind it, fanning the ravenous flames as they began to climb up the only tapestry still pinned to damp stone. The remaining woodworm-eaten bookcases crashed down in the force of the demonic wind, covering Finneaus in a cloud of dust and ash as heavy volumes hit the damaged floor beside him. There was a terrible splintering as the unstable floor broke apart to form a deep hole. He squealed, clawing at the slanted floorboards, but slid into the dusty abyss with a scream.

‘Finneaus !’ I rushed for him but the creature emerged from the cloud of centuries-old grime and lunged.

I blindly sent out a blast of magic, but as with all dark creatures, the longer they existed, the more they learned, and the dark fiend was learning too quickly about its prey.

About me.

I only managed to catch it on its shoulder, the bone cracking out of place as it darted past my panicked, sloppy spell. It crashed into the old fireplace, bricks crumbling down around it. The room shook with the impact, almost sending me to my knees.

‘Finneaus !’ I coughed the dust from my lungs, leaning over the edge of the opening to find his prone form below, moaning as planks of wood and old plaster covered him. He’d landed on a settee in what looked to be a common room one floor beneath the library.

Clearly, bigoted fools had all the bloody luck in the world.

‘Bastard,’ I hissed under my breath, allowing myself the mere moment of relief that I hadn’t accidently been involved in the demonic murder of a councilman’s son.

The rest of the fireplace crumbled with a worrying crash. I turned, just as the creature’s scaled tail whipped for my head. I ducked out of its path, hearing the impact as it cut through the wall behind me and showered me in sharp brick shards.

I darted beyond its reach, rolling the wild flames of my magic between my palms, as the thing scuttled towards me, belly low to the ground.

I summoned more fire against my palms, illuminating the room in a fierce lavender glow, making the other fire in the room roar in unity. The sharp features of the demon grew all the more horrifying in my magics light, before I threw the fireball outwards, hitting the creature’s sinuous wing, searing a hole through the dark flesh. The fiend screamed, mangled wing sagging as it turned sharply in defence.

The potency of the spell left me breathless, too distracted to notice the long serpent-like tail strike. It caught my side, throwing me across the room. I crashed into the table, shattering it into large splinters. The impact winded me as I rolled across the rubble-covered floor. The creature was on top of me in seconds. Its jaw opened with a screech, flashing razorlike teeth as the back of its throat began to glow with demonic black fire.

I wedged my forearm beneath its leathery chin, deadly teeth gleaming in the light of my magic. I grunted and kicked to keep it at bay as I reached blindly into my enchanted bag at my hip, digging past books and papers, feeling the warm hilt of my father’s sword. I wrenched it free, the blade materialising upon recognition of its true heir. The gold gleaming, long and lethal.

I drove the blade up, plunging it into the creature’s throat. Its flesh sizzled and melted around the steel, dark gunk running down my hand, pungent and rotten.

The fiend tore itself back, retching black smoke and glutinous dark blood. It howled, wings beating wildly, as it rose clumsily, high into the darkness of the vaulted stone ceiling, claws catching on the remains of a rusted chandelier above.

It perched there as that sulphuric stench of its blood made bile burn the back of my throat. It shook its head, jaw snapping open wider than before, revealing where I’d maimed it as black sour blood rained down. There was a deafening shriek, followed by a cracking and twisting of limbs as its head began to split into two.

The chaos of duality. The words of Insidious Theory came to my mind, a warning lost in time.

I turned to see where the cursed compendium had fallen and spotted it beneath a collapsed side table. I rolled, got my trembling knees beneath me and ran, skidding to a halt to stand over the book, ignoring the horrid burning sensation that came over my skin from being anywhere near the forsaken metal that covered it.

The pages were yellow with age, the symbols inverted and twisted. Ancient scripture with dark intent for only the darkest creatures to feast upon. An Insidious beast.

Unable to be killed, only contained.

The demon roared; the ominous cracking continuing as the chandelier groaned under its weight. I cast my father’s sword aside, allowing the more potent gift he’d given me to flow through my veins and materialise in my hands.

Fluid flames of indigo, sapphire and lavender twisted between my fingers as ancient words echoed through my mind. That’s all magic was, a turbulent dance between knowledge and imagination. A song in the blood awaiting command.

Nothing is stronger than your will. My father’s words whispered in my memory.

No, it wasn’t.

I let my chaos free, aiming the fire skyward with a scream of exertion, heating the chandelier from beneath. It glowed molten red, the creature shrieked, trying to pull away, but it was instantly trapped within the liquid metal that stuck to its flesh.

Kysillian fire. Pure and beyond the corruption of dark magic.

The fiend tried to pull away, wings flapping harshly, but the harder it fought, the more the metal fused to it. Two heads screaming as black smoke curled around it, as it tried to change. Tried to shrink to escape.

My arms trembled from the weight of my spell until another backdraught from the fiend’s fight sent me tumbling backwards, almost extinguishing my flames.

The ceiling groaned, plaster beginning to rain down before the chain of the chandelier snapped, crashing down in a tangled burning mess. I covered my head as sharp debris struck my back and shoulders, curling into a ball, panting as dirt and debris coated my tongue.

Only when the trembling of the weakened floor stopped did I look up, squinting through the dust to see the creature thrashing inside a newly formed metal cage of the chandelier’s remains, still glowing red, the beast now no bigger than a small bird to try and avoid the molten bars.

Fragments of pages fluttered down, dust swirling in the air, as small embers shifted in the darkness like fireflies.

I hung my head, dragging myself to my knees, winded as I wiped sweat from my brow. The fiery magic in my blood was almost unbearable as it simmered, waiting for another command. There was little relief in the ache of my muscles as my magic sank slowly back into my bones but, still, I held out my burning palms, let the sweat slide down my temples and back. Pulling in a dust- and decay-coated breath, silently commanding my magic to silence the flames around me. I pressed them into nothingness, the stench of charred wood and forgotten things my only reward.

Then the distant echo of the Institute warning bells obliterated the silence.

Bollocks . I’d set off the wards with my chaos.

I knew what came next. My heart sank with the thought of the Council’s punishment as I rested my burning palms on the damp wooden floor. Hunched over, arms trembling from the effort, watching through the curtain of my matted hair as the two-headed demon hissed and screeched as it still fought to escape, gnawing hopelessly at the still molten bars.

Perhaps I had made a mistake. I should have let the dark fiend finish me off. It would have been a more peaceful fate than the one I was about to meet at the hands of the Council.

Or worse … Alma.