Chapter Twenty
Fools will tell you to court fear. They will tell you it makes you stronger, but all it does is rot you from your bones out. What do beings like us have to fear? We, the creatures who hold chaos in our hearts and destruction in their will.
– The Ballad of Kysillia – Unknown
Those ancient myths pierced through my thoughts as I sat in the warmth of the kitchen, hands curled around another cup of tea. At ease slightly now that Alma slept soundly upstairs, exhausted from being an ancient dark-fiend-eating beast. The biggest she’d been. Just how monstrous could her magic be and how many impossible, forbidden things could it do?
It was the reason they’d hunted her and why they would hunt her again.
I kept those worries buried at the back of my mind as my eyes drifted over the notes I’d spread across the table. Looking for anything to distract myself with but still that unease didn’t dissipate.
Then came the brush of Emrys’s magic over my skin, a moment before the dark form of him ducked into the kitchen, his eyes moving to me first as if I was the only thing he was looking for.
He’d changed. His shirt buttoned to the collar and cravat in place. Sleeves fastened at his wrists, but his waistcoat was open.
‘Are you going somewhere?’ I asked with a frown. Despite there being no windows down here, I knew it must have been late.
He shook his head with a small smile, moving to sit opposite me, our knees brushing beneath the table. ‘How is Miss Darcy?’
‘Recovering.’ I sighed, rubbing my brow. She’d managed to devour one chocolate against my advice before she fell asleep, clutching the box. ‘I’ve given her the transfiguration tonic. So let us hope it works for her.’
‘I’ve never seen a being change that easily,’ he said carefully, cautious of how I’d take his interest in those secrets.
‘You’ve seen one before?’
He shook his head, dark hair falling onto his worried brow. ‘Only lesser fey, and larger folk that could change shape in defence. Or Verr beings when they twist their summoning curse.’
Unease flooded through me as I took another sip of tea to try and get the lump out of my throat. Not knowing exactly what Alma was or the origin of her power.
‘My father told stories of beings in the Western Mountains that could take on the form of dragons and other winged beasts,’ Emrys continued softly, reaching to move some of the small notes I’d been reading. Notes I’d read far too many times about transfiguration. ‘I think even they had limits.’
Then he moved one hand, holding his palm to face the ceiling. Without command a book apparated, resting there, the old brown leather cover creased, buckles cracked and peeling. The pages curling with age.
Stunned, I could have sworn I saw phantom tendrils of black smoke weave between his fingers, but in a blink they were gone. Just shadows from the fire perhaps?
He held it out to me. The clasps were heavy but lifted easily enough and as I turned the page, the faded ink showed depictions of the Western Mountains and beings that took on the form of scaled beasts.
‘Did he have any more books like this?’ My voice was quiet with wonder as I turned over the pages, running my fingers down the illustrations as a man took monstrous form with wings.
‘We can look.’
We . The word brought a smile to my lips at just how much more trouble we could find, how much we’d already stumbled into already and how unbothered by it all he seemed.
‘How did you keep her hidden?’ His voice was guarded, eyes an unsure stormy grey. As if worried such a subject would bring me nothing but pain.
‘Master Hale offered to take her in if I agreed to be included in the treaty. He didn’t know the full extent of her powers then.’ I let my shoulders droop into a shrug. It sounded so much worse when I said it out loud ‘Nobody is going to look twice at a fey maid. I think the other maids were too scared of her temper to question anything.’
The truth was harder. That when men came wandering drunk from the councilmen’s parties seeking maids to fondle, they had the misfortune of running into Alma.
Turned out men who needed to save their purse by marrying a lord’s daughter didn’t want to explain to their new wife how they were no longer in possession of their bollocks; losing them to a maid who grew claws in the shadows of the stairwell.
Word must have travelled fast because no men wandered the kitchens anymore, and the maids gave Alma a wide berth, either scared that the story was true or that she was mad enough to make it up.
Emrys’s gaze moved back to my notes, and he gave a small smile as if sensing Alma’s cunning. ‘More unsavoury reading?’
He moved the papers aside, revealing the cover of the numerous copies of The Crow’s Foot I’d piled together, looking for clues.
‘William thinks there could be a vesper demon killing lords.’ I sighed, leaning forward to look again at the articles covering the missing lords, all of whom hadn’t been heard of since the war. They could all be in hiding perhaps, or all murdered in conspicuous ways. ‘However, there is nothing to say their ring fingers are missing.’
Vesper demons loved trophies. Ring fingers being their favourite, wearing the bones like jewels around their necks. It seemed bad luck was the only reason for the lords’ murders. One had been killed in a brawl, another for gambling debts and the third by an enraged mistress. Nothing had been taken from the bodies. However, the lack of the Council’s care about it sent a shiver down my spine.
I looked, waiting for Emrys’s dry remark about William’s reading material, only to see his face blank, jaw tense and eyes darker than before. Gaze locked on those pages.
‘Emrys?’ A sudden icy chill had seeped into the warm bricks of the kitchen. The fire sat lower in the hearth as shadows seemed to stretch from the corners of the room.
‘That creature spoke.’ His voice was as cold as the air, distant as those dark eyes met my own. ‘What did it say to you?’
Kyvor Mor. The words hissed through my mind in that cruel mocking voice.
‘I didn’t learn all my Kysillian words. Not the ancient ones,’ I lied too easily.
Guilt gnawed away at my ribs but I wrapped my arms around myself, rubbing my forearms as my eyes fell back to the horror in those papers between us.
‘Poor Mr Thrombi.’ I sighed, hating that he didn’t have a chance. That none of them did. ‘He didn’t deserve to die like that.’
‘None of them do.’
I moved the papers aside to pull the file from beneath. ‘I wrote up my half of the report about it but I know it won’t do anything.’ It had felt better to write it all down. But Emrys didn’t reach to take it from me.
‘This is darker than I anticipated,’ he said. ‘You shouldn’t—’ He shook his head, moving to leave, the rest of the words lost in the tension that had taken over him.
Forgetting myself, I reached across the table, taking hold of his hand and stopping his retreat.
‘Please, Emrys,’ I whispered, as he paused, looking at only where I touched him. ‘I want to help.’
Something moved through his eyes, a tension in his jaw as if he’d refuse, but then he relaxed back into his seat. Before I could apologise and pull it back, he turned my hand gently in his own.
His focus was on the small bandage around my palm from where the window’s glass had cut me. His thumb ran over the small scars on my fingers from being caught by a training blade. Small insignificant things. Marks I’d seen catch the light on his own hands. Fighter’s marks. Reminders of how my mother would tend to them, while singing folk tales of the north. Then how Alma had to do it instead after our sparing sessions.
‘You fought remarkably.’ He offered the compliment quietly, as if it was the most ordinary thing in the world to say.
‘My father taught me.’ I smiled, hoping he couldn’t feel the uneven nature of my pulse, unsteady at the rough feel of his thumb against my skin. ‘You don’t have to keep complimenting me.’
His attention came back to my face, tracing every inch of it so carefully.
‘Stop impressing me then,’ he challenged, his crooked smile almost boyish. A warmth sweeping through my chest, a comforting swell just like that my magic offered.
‘I’ll try my best.’ I smirked, for once allowing his words to nestle into some quiet lost place inside of me.
‘You drew these?’ He asked, turning around another open book. An old journal filled with the stories I’d written from memory. The Kysillian histories, describing How Kysillia had battled the Old Gods, the Alder Kings and the endless night. How she had won these lands. The Kings of her blood following in her teachings, the rising of the Verr and the sealing of the earth.
‘With the first pen and paper I managed to get hold of.’ I smiled at the rough and rushed nature to some of them. ‘I suppose I was afraid I’d forget.’
All the tales. From the First Queen, Kysillia, who was gifted chaos and flame from the heavens, all the way through to the Seven Kings of old, the kingdoms that stretched across Elysior and all the magic that had been here.
Stories lost after the Kysillian Kings fell centuries ago and the world tumbled into chaos with mortal power. When most captured Kysillians were chained in mines, including my father’s mother. Forced to work until their bodies gave up. That’s why they called us trolls, for how long we were forced to exist in the dark.
The illustrations accompanying the stories had gotten better over time, closer to the ones I remembered, no matter how the pages curled with age or the misspellings and mistakes.
I’d kept it because it was all I had. The memory of those stories. The voice of my father telling me them.
I’d told every single one to Alma, whispered in the dead of night at Daunton. Making her promise to tell them if she made it out instead of me. To make sure they escaped even if I didn’t.
I shook away the darkness of the thought. Focusing on the warmth of Emrys’s calloused hand against my own. It was then I noticed a smudge of grey at the cuff of his shirt, perhaps a nasty bruise forming.
‘You have—’ I began, leaning forward to better see the mark, but he suddenly remembered himself and let go.
‘I should go. We’ll look for those books in the morning.’ He cleared his throat, fingers raking through his hair.
‘We should be focusing on the tallet,’ I pointed out, despite how my other hand lingered on the pages of the book he’d given me. Eager to read every word.
‘After.’ There was a slight command to that word. Reminding me of the balance to this darkness. Indulging too long wasn’t good for either of us.
As if knowing he’d won that tiny battle, he slipped from the bench, checking his pocket watch as he crossed the kitchen.
‘Goodnight, Emrys,’ I called quietly after him. He paused on the stairs, looking back at me almost reluctantly.
‘Goodnight, Croinn.’ His voice was hoarse with his response before he left me there, tracing the shape of those dragons from ancient tales, none of the words going in when all I could think of was him.