Chapter Nineteen
If I was in any doubt of Emrys’s status as a renowned fighter in the wars, they were all erased as he bolted down the hallway, giving me no choice but to run after him. I lifted my skirts to an inappropriate height, catching up with him just as he jumped the banister of the main staircase, landing with the grace of a cat on the steps below.
Despite my natural urge to copy him, I flew down the stairs instead, gripping onto the banister and using it to launch myself down the hallway after him.
Despite my Kysillian blood, he was somehow faster. A crash and thud echoed down the narrow corridor, followed by a cry of alarm as the bells continued to chime. The repetitive slamming sound of a door guiding me until I turned the final corner to see the study doors opening and closing erratically.
Emrys skidded to a halt before me, flinging his arm out to brace it on the wood panelling, blocking my path as I ran into his forearm, almost winding myself where it caught my ribs. I held onto his shoulder and tried to catch my breath.
Then William was flung out through the study doorway, crashing into the wood panelling just in front of us before slumping painfully to the tiled floor.
‘William !’ I cried, ducking under Emrys’s arm and dropping to help the boy up.
‘I think something is wrong with Mr Thrombi,’ he groaned, rubbing his neck. Emrys came to my side, quickly assessing that William was all in one piece.
‘Are you all right?’ I worried.
‘Just need to catch my breath.’ His face was pale as he tried to drag in a deep breath while clutching at his side.
‘You should go and—’ My words died on my lips as something changed in the air. A horrid cold tension, a strange whistling as the bells silenced. Strong arms were around my waist and I was wrenched around, my feet leaving the floor momentarily only to stumble into the panelling the other side of the study entrance. A horrid crash and the splitting of wood filled the air along with another startled cry from William.
My back pressed against the wall, Emrys’s arms caging me in, his breath brushing against my cheekbone, one arm braced on the wall next to my head, the other still around my waist.His head was dipped, dark hair falling across his brow, and his eyes were so dark even the whites weren’t visible as he looked at me. I was suddenly unsure if it was just him inside there. My hands pressed against the bare warm skin of his chest where his shirt had parted.
‘Bloody saints !’ William cried, fracturing my thoughts, and I yanked my hands back and rose to my tiptoes to see over Emrys’s shoulder.
Three ceremonial swords from one of the display cabinets at the back of the study were now embedded in the wood panelling. Right where I’d been standing.
‘I don’t …’I began breathlessly, holding onto Emrys’s arm, trying to find the answer to what was happening – only to see him looking down at me, his eyes nothing but darkness swirled with grey like a storm on a winter’s night. A chill ran over my flesh from the volatile nature of the magic seeping from his skin.
His brows were creased, fighting to understand something before he pushed away from me. The air was colder in his absence as I ran my hands over my arms, checking that I was indeed all in one piece.
‘Whatever it is, it’s really pissed off,’ William offered as the study door continued to slam. The crashing carried on inside those bells chiming wildly.
Emrys reached into his trouser pocket, pulling out a round metal contraption no bigger than an apple, rusted and engraved with long strokes of a craftsman’s tool.
A containment orb. An object I’d only ever seen in a history tome. A piece of ancient technology made to stun dark magic into remaining in one form for a short period of time.
‘Did you stitch an endless charm into your trousers?’ I accused, confused by how else it could have fit in there with how snug they fit against his muscular thighs.
‘We can discuss my trousers later, Croinn,’ he commented dryly, turning sharply towards the study doors.
‘It’s not going to like that,’ William warned with a grimace, looking down at the containment orb, but it was quite clear Emrys was beyond caring. He twisted the metal orb twice, a clicking of gears began as he waited for a gap in the doors and tossed it carelessly into the study.
There was a moment of silence in the chaos before bright white light burst through the gaps in the door, forcing me to avert my eyes. Then the screeching began.
The study doors were thrown open, spots dancing in my vision as I leant around Emrys and there in the centre of the library was Mr Thrombi.
Or what had once been Mr Thrombi.
His body was hunched and convulsing. The crack of bone sounded with each jerked motion. His limbs longer than natural, with taloned claws, the fur around his hoofed legs peeling away, skin unnaturally trying to shed.
Dark foam dripped from a mouth filled with too many sharp teeth as the creature continued to scream, clawing at its eyes as if the light had injured it. Tendrils of smoke rose from its greyish flesh, evidence of its dark power.
Books and papers lay across the floor in disarray, all the destruction leading to the shelves where the portium door was hidden. Where he’d come from.
‘A tallet,’ Emrys said.
A tallet. A curse come back to life. A formless being that possessed weakened prey. Stronger than death, as it sunk into the victims very bones.
Emrys turned to me, his lips thin and face drawn. ‘Did you use magic in that healing?’
‘Only a spark,’ I replied, confused as to how that would cause this. But before I could contemplate it further, the tallet dropped its hands, its beady black eyes focused on us, and roared. The bells on the chains guarding the darker texts began to jangle furiously, books slid across the room of their own accord towards the beast.
‘It’s trying to open the books !’ William lurched forward, catching three of the tomes and pushing them under his body so they couldn’t move towards the creature.
I shook my head. A tallet was a lesser demon. It wouldn’t know how to feast on the remains of dark magic.
‘It isn’t clever enough for that,’ Emrys replied, opening his palm. Appearing there in a wisp of smoke was a thin, sharp blade.
A shadowsbane. A magical blade forged to contain the demonic.
‘ Am I not ?’ the creature replied with a clacking of teeth. The wisps around its body growing darker.
Emrys froze, a tension rippling over him.
Dark fiends didn’t speak.
‘It shouldn’t be—’ I began, trying to understand, but it roared, dark wisps shooting out towards us. Emrys didn’t move to block the summoning. No, he pushed me out of its path. I went tumbling over my skirts and William’s sprawled legs where he still fought with the books that appeared to suddenly have a will of their own.
The tallet’s attack caught Emrys across his chest, throwing him back through the study doors, which were rendered to nothing but a splintered mess with the impact.
‘Emrys !’ William cried out as he struggled to catch more books. I pushed myself up, slipping on papers as I faced the creature just as it gave another victorious roar, spittle flying from its lips.
I pressed my palms together, allowing my magic to surge. Not my summoning glow but the wild flames, forming a crackling sphere of chaotic magic that was difficult to hold. But I needed to control it a moment longer, to make it unable to miss its target.
Sweat beaded my brow, but just as I felt the strain in my arms of holding it, the creature laughed and vanished.
Silence filled the space, the library creaking with unease and the roar of my magic in my blood the only sound. I moved cautiously further into the room, turning wildly in a circle, watching dust motes dance in the sunlight pouring in from the window.
‘Kat?’ William scrambled to his feet, books clutched to his chest as he panted for breath. ‘That’s … it can’t have …’
Run. A voice mocked in the back of my head.
The warning was enough. A horrid sensation brushed my neck like icy fingers, turning me, but it was too late. The thing had barely reformed in a swirl of black, acrid smoke, a laugh echoing in my ear, as dark energy struck me.
My feet left the ground, a cry escaping my lips as I felt solid impact and the shattering of glass. I hit hard ground, my momentum sending me rolling.
Grass tickled my nose and a horrid ache shot down my spine as I pushed myself up onto my forearms and shook glass from my hair.
Panting, I looked up to see the ruined study window. The bastard had thrown me through it.
Pain radiated through my limbs as I groaned and forced myself to my feet. Regretting every decision I’d ever made, I watched helplessly as the dark form of the tallet appeared at the shattered window, clinging to the frame, and with a hiss launched itself at me.
Faster than I thought possible, the thing made impact, sending me tumbling back to the earth. A tangle of limbs, a swirl of demonic smoke and the snapping of its teeth.
A scream filled my ears, shrill and feral. The creature’s claws scraped at the earth either side of me, its razor-sharp teeth gnashing too close to my nose. I pressed my palm against its face to hold it back. Its rotten breath washing over me.
I brought my foot up, managing to catch it in its middle. Kicking it off and over my head with a frustrated scream, I rolled and tried to get my bag open to get my sword.
‘ Kyvor Mor ,’ it hissed as it scuttled and twisted across the ground. My stomach dropped, fear freezing me in place. Kysillian words.
I watched it run its horrid grey tongue over its lip, smeared with red blood. I glanced down to see my palm covered in blood. My blood.
Kyvor Mor. Curse Killer. An ancient magic my father commanded, that he’d passed on to me. One this dark couldn’t know. Shouldn’t know.
The ground shook and before I could find my sanity, the soil erupted and a thick root wrapped with deadly thorns emerged from beneath, swatting the creature away from me.
William crouched a few feet away, hands pressed against the grass just beyond the window, sweat coating his brow. The pale freckled skin of his hands stained green with the ferocity of his magic.
The tallet clawed at the earth to catch itself, bones cracking as its head twisted unnaturally and it screeched again. It held itself low to the ground, ready for another attack.
The wind changed, growing sharper at my back. The ground rumbling beneath my boots – nothing to do with the earth or William’s magic. but something deeper. Older. The bitterness of old spells and forsaken curses echoed in my mind, almost in warning, forcing me to turn towards that feeling, only to see Emrys jump down from the ruined window frame with a lethal grace.
His shirt was torn, but there was not a mark on him … but those eyes were intent with fury. He threw out his hand and bright white energy left his fingers to strike the creature in the centre of its chest like a lightning bolt, sending it rolling across the loose earth, scattering it into nothing but dark shards of bone and dust.
The wind roared past me, almost dragging me across the distance and closer to Emrys, as if under his command, but the remains of the creature bounced, cracking and twisting back into formation, across the grassy earth.
‘It’s not dying !’ cried William as he flung his arm, another great root surging from the ground to try and trap the pieces of the creature before it could reform, but they darted past in smoke form, twisting violently in the air with a crackling hiss.
‘I can see that, William !’ Emrys snapped, that ethereal glow consuming his hands.
A dark fiend that couldn’t be killed with fey magic.
There was a dark magic long ago that fed on fey magic, and used it to become stronger, one that was supposed to be dead, buried beneath those Kysillian Kings’ seals. Just like that anthrux should have been.
Reimor. This creature should be beneath the earth.
I looked down at my muddy palms, seeing the glow of my magic waiting there, the heat of it still not content even with what it had already done.
I shouldn’t be able to resurrect a cursed being with nothing more than a flare of energy. My hands curled into fists as I forced myself to remember the things I longed to forget.
They hunted us for a reason. We are a being without limit, and if you show them such limitlessness, they’ll come for you too.
A warning I’d promised myself to never forget. I’d given it that strength from my magic, from the endlessness of it. But magic wasn’t the only gift I possessed.
I reached for my bag, rummaging for the sword just as another screech filled the air … one not of a demon. The sun was blocked out for a mere moment as a long shadow moved across the uneven grass.
‘Is that a wrywing !?’ William called in disbelief.
The dark scaled body of a wrywing came diving from the skies, landing between us and the creature. The dark scales rippling across its body like armour and its wings flared wide, deadly sharp talons at the point of each joint catching the sunlight. The ground shook as the wrywing’s large, clawed feet dug into the turf, its wings slapping behind it in threat. The updraught almost sent me tumbling backwards.
It roared and turned its head, looking down its lethal scaled body at me with familiar green eyes. The spiked tail swishing from side to side with annoyance. Sharp teeth bared in its large snout as scaled nostrils flared with irritation.
‘A-Alma?’ I whispered in horrified confusion.
The wrywing form of Alma turned its attention back to the tallet as it charged again – only the wrywing was ready, and the pair becoming nothing but a whirl of scales and smoke as they fought. A wrywing: a natural enemy of the dark, able to devour dark spells and creatures made of it.
‘Kat !’ William cried, giving me just enough time to duck as another large root soared past to help the wrywing, knocking the tallet back so Alma’s deadly jaws could snap around its clawed hand.
The dark fiend screamed as I raced across to Emrys, ducking and dodging as clumps of earth and roots sailed past me.
‘She hasn’t been that big before !’ I half screamed in hysteria, stumbling to his side.
‘I’m slightly occupied right now, Croinn,’ he growled back as he ducked to avoid another surge of dark energy from the tallet, dragging me down with him.
‘What if she can’t turn back !’ I worried. Ignoring the current chaos and the dart of dark magic that barely missed my ear as I continued to watch the beastly form of Alma snap and wrestle with the dark being.
‘Just give me a minute and we’ll sort it out,’ Emrys hissed through tight lips.
Alma threw the tallet to the ground, sending dirt into the air as roots protruded, wrapping around its limbs to trap it with William’s help.
Except it untangled itself too easily. Knew the magic, was somehow stronger than …
Emrys had asked if I used magic in my healing. My magic. Not a summoning.
A tallet, a curse that possessed and fed off the magic it found. I’d fed it my own. It wouldn’t die because there was no power stronger than a Kysillian flame. Only that which was trapped beneath.
The wrywing gave out an annoyed cry as another of its bites did nothing. Then I realised just how useless my fear had made me. I pulled my father’s blade from my bag, the hilt glowing hot against my palm.
Magic isn’t the only gift we possess . Those words came back to me so softly on the wind, like breath against the shell of my ear. The sword heavy and waiting for command.
As if sensing something shifting within me, I felt Emrys’ dark eyes roaming over my face.
‘What are you—’ he began, but I was already running, faster than I ever had in my life, ducking and sliding beneath the large monstrous roots to reach the centre, where William’s magic was struggling to contain the tallet as Alma’s sharp tail failed to land another killing blow.
I allowed my magic to streak down my arm, to wrap around my very bones, giving me strength as I felt the blade shift, becoming a throwing knife. I released it. Let it whistle like a flaming arrow through the carnage to bury itself in the creature’s chest right where its heart should be. Dark, sour ichor seeped from the wound and down its grey flesh.
It froze mid screech, those demonic eyes fixed on me, mouth open as it tried to roar. I hurtled into it, hand closing around that knife as its teeth snapped an inch from my face. I yanked the knife free. The creature hissed and fell back, smoke rising to try and escape, but the blade lengthened once more just as I turned, raised it and in one clean swipe slashed deeply across its middle, making its clumsy body heave and pulsate.
I drew my arm back for another strike, only for Emrys to be there, bright white light between his palms and wrapping around the creature, it screamed but glowed with that same light.
Emry’s eyes blazed ethereal white for the barest moment, a word I couldn’t hear leaving his lips, and then the body of that cursed creature crumbled in on itself to become nothing but dust between us.
Unmade by him.
I lowered the blade, that horrid bitter dust coatind my lips as I panted for breath. Looking down at the sword in my grasp, as it shone in muted sunlight. Another piece of my chaotically dangerous magic and the legacy of my blood. Something the dark should never know, and I’d given it away foolishly.
Kyvor Mor.
‘Kat.’ Emrys took hold of my arm, turning me harshly towards him. Expression stony as his now dark eyes ran over every inch of my face. No traces of that strange magic.
‘An anthurx bite doesn’t possess the power to summon a tallet,’ I whispered, watching the dust of the creature catch on the breeze over his shoulder.
‘A tharox does,’ he replied carefully, that tension still not leaving him, displeasure pressing his lips together as he took in the tears in my clothing.
‘They haven’t been seen since the second age of the fey rulings.’ I frowned. ‘He shouldn’t have died like that.’
Carefully, Emrys pressed two fingers under my chin. There was an icy chill from the remnants of his magic that made my breath catch, mud flecks in his hair and tension in his jaw.
‘You have a scratch on your cheek.’ His thumb ran gently over the edge of my jaw. There was a stillness to him.
‘I’ll survive,’ I whispered unsteadily. ‘Why does this feel worse than we could have anticipated?’
‘Because you’re too clever to fool.’ He considered me for a long moment, lips parting as if he wished to say more, before a strange expression crossed his face. His eyes dipping to my hand where it hung at my side.
He captured it gently, turning it over to see the slice from the glass. The blood that the tallet had tasted. His eyes appeared wholly black again in a moment.
A whoosh came from above, breaking us apart before the wrywing made impact with the earth, its whole body trembling as its wings snapped shut.
‘Bloody saints !’ William cried, as the earth trembled with the force of the landing, making him stumble and land on his backside in the long grass. The roots he’d summoned were withering and slipping back beneath the earth like serpents.
‘Alma.’ Her name left my mouth in a breath of relief, only to be twisted into tight-chested fear as I rushed for her, seeing her begin to morph and change in a painful twisting of flesh and bone.
The sharpness of her naked spine was stark as she remained on all fours, retching. Her clawed fingers digging into the soft earth as she choked for breath. The long grass hiding most of her.
Her dark hair in disarray, curls stuck to her temples and skin glistening with sweat as she dragged in deep uneven breaths.
‘Alma?’ I dropped to my knees at her side, my sword – now nothing more than a hilt again – tumbling across the grass as I took hold of her arms. Watching with bated breath as her head came up, eyes luminous but mortal, cheeks rosy with exertion, the impression of dark scales still just under the skin’s surface, but her wobbly, exhausted smile of relief stood out most of all.
‘I think you fixed me again,’ she winced. I threw my arms around her as a relieved sob crawled up my throat.
‘No. You fixed yourself,’ I whispered into her hair, trying my best not to crush her as she held on. Thankful to whichever ancestors were watching over us as I took in the carnage before us, the unturned earth slowly seeping back into place under William’s influence, the large gouges from her claws growing new grass.
‘You changed form !’ I laughed, unable to help my excitement.
‘Let’s not do it again for a while.’ She grimaced. ‘I’m nothing if not efficient at cleaning up your messes.’
‘I should be taking care of you,’ I argued, pressing my hand against her chilled forehead.
‘Please don’t. I’ll be dead by the end of the week,’ she quipped, sounding annoyed by the mere suggestion as she tried to sag weakly back towards the ground as if content to sleep there curled up like a stoat. ‘Where are my chocolates?’
I couldn’t help the laugh that escaped my lips as I held her even tighter.
William came to a skidding stop before me, his gaze darting between us in confusion. Of course, he’d only seen Alma as a cat or a mouse, not a mythical beast. His cheeks flared bright red when he came to his senses, and pulled his long work coat from his shoulders, crouching to drape it over her.
‘Hello, Alma,’ he greeted a bit sheepishly, the wind playing in his copper hair.
‘Hello, William,’ she replied, forcing her tired limbs into the sleeves of his coat, and I was thankful she was petite enough for it to cover everything.
‘Are you all right, William?’ I asked, concerned about his dishevelment and damp brow; the streak of mud across his cheek and the red welt underneath.
‘Nothing a good rejuvenation tonic can’t fix.’ He smirked. ‘You must be famished, Alma. Let’s get you something from the kitchen. Some bone broth should do the trick.’
He held out his arm, and to my surprise Alma took it easily, steadier on her feet than I had expected as she rose.
‘I think we all might need something a bit stronger than broth, William,’ Emrys added, suddenly at my side, moving forward to help Alma. ‘Miss Darcy,’ he greeted with the politeness of a dinner guest.
‘Lord Blackthorn,’ she replied, and in true Alma fashion, despite being without her clothes, and with the indentations of those scales still on her cheek, she raised her chin in challenge, boldly meeting his eye.
‘We better get inside before the house locks us out.’ William sighed with a grimace as he surveyed the damage. ‘I’m sure it’s furious.’
‘I’ll have a word,’ Emrys muttered with genuine exhaustion. Offering his arm to help Alma, she took it despite the claws that remained on her own. William moved to support her other side as they made their way across the uneven terrain.
I bent to retrieve my father’s sword, smiling as I heard William already engaging Alma in a conversation about wrywings, and she didn’t appear to be in too much distress about it as Emrys led guided them through the debris.
Kyvor Mor , came whispered into my mind. Almost as if on the wind.
Unease ran down my spine, but as I turned there was nothing but grey dust tumbling through the long grass. The remains of the creature that had taken over Mr Thrombi quickly disappearing. The remains of something that shouldn’t exist. Something too dangerous for this world.
Just like me.