Chapter Thirty-Two
Please .
The ghost of that word occupied my thoughts in the dark of the night. Desperation pressed into it. Then that pain that had overwhelmed me, the warmth of blood between my fingers.
Real. It had been so real.
Rolling over in the lumpy bed, there was nothing but the damp darkness and the pounding of the night rain rattling the thin window to greet me. Weak, cloudy moonlight seeped through the threadbare sections of the curtains. Shadows slid ominously across the walls as trees swayed in the storm winds beyond the house.
Alma had asked if I wanted her to stay, even if she had to be as small as a mouse not to get caught by a maid, but I didn’t want her suffering the dank confines of Fairfax Manor. This was my own punishment for bringing us all here.
Unable to bear another moment of my own restlessness, I got out of bed and found my robe. Thankful at least that I had a way back to the study through the wardrobe.
I wandered easily through the study bookshelves in the darkness, only stopping as the muted orange light of the fire reached me. It appeared I wasn’t the only one struggling to sleep, haunted by too many things I couldn’t change.
The familiar form of Emrys was slumped in a chair before the fire. His eyes narrowed at my presence, seemingly awaiting my arrival. As if there was a meeting I’d missed.
‘You’ve decided to torment me some more then, Croinn?’ he called conversationally, continuing to enjoy his drink. His untucked white shirt was rolled to his forearms and unbuttoned so the firelight could play off the sparce dusting of hair on his chest.
‘Are you drunk?’ I asked, moving further into the room to stand at the cluttered table at its centre.
‘Unfortunately not.’ A dry, mirthless laugh left his lips. ‘Tonight served as a reminder how blessed I should be for the war in saving me from such an existence.’
‘They appeared pleased to have you back.’ He was nothing but a pillar of moody charm and confidence mere hours ago.
‘Fools are easily pleased.’ There was a sharpness to his smile as he continued to watch me with caution, as if I’d brought some form of danger with me.
‘Lady Lovell seemed especially entertained.’ I hated the words the minute they left my lips.
His gaze sharpened, but he simply took another sip of his drink, eyes moving to the fire. I should have left him then, but my feet didn’t move. Couldn’t, when there was such a sadness lingering around him, a loneliness I knew too well.
All I could see was him crouched before me in those horrid ruins. Feel the brush of his thumb against my cheek.
It’s not real, Kat. The softness of those words. Unbothered that I’d struck him, that my fear had driven me mad. Staying with me in that darkness so my demons wouldn’t feast. I wouldn’t now leave him with his own.
‘My father used to send me to dinners like that to spy for him. Setting up matches to gain their trust.’ His words were blunt, half murmured, and I wondered if he knew I was still here, lingering in the dark, listening. ‘I became so good at it I almost forgot what parts were for his game.’
His eyes came back to me, burdened with that sorrow. ‘A useful pawn in all this madness. A willing traitor, an easy whore and a brutal killer. How proud he must have been.’
A small, haunted smile came to his lips as he took me in, standing in disarray in my robe. Those dark eyes moving from my bare feet to where my loose hair was tangled around the points of my ears.
‘Perhaps Master Hale hasn’t forgiven me at all and you’re his final revenge against me.’ He pushed himself to his feet with graceful ease, leaving his drink behind as he crossed the distance to stand before me, ducking his head to look into my eyes. ‘Sending you to torment me, Croinn.’
‘You really are drunk,’ I replied calmly, despite the rapid beating of my heart under the intensity of his gaze and his proximity. The horrid things he’d just confessed, the pain that lingered in those words as I dropped my gaze to the table next to me, seeing it littered with samples and notes.
‘What are you looking at?’ I moved around him, considering the mess, the files littered across the surface he’d just finished working on.
‘The body from that Verr pit.’ He reached around me, turning over a file and showing me the notes. ‘Mr Peter Catron. He’s a threll. He wrote numerous articles.’ He nodded towards another paper, an article from The Crow’s Foot . ‘He was adamant he’d seen a dark entity. Claimed it came from the soil and shadow.’
My eyes scanned the new notes. Thrells were ancient beings, as ancient as Kysillians or Verr. Elemental summoners. They held water magic, able to command storms and rains for harvest, though I hadn’t heard of any being able to command such feats anymore.
‘Zorval,’ I whispered, reading the word twice to make sure I hadn’t made it up in his report.
A poison to fey, made to show their true potential during one of the old mortal king’s purges centuries ago. If you held ancient blood, you survived the poison, only to be killed by the King’s order. Mercy for the madness of the magic you possessed. It was how they’d eradicated most of the Kysillians centuries before.
Only the poison didn’t kill Mr Catron, which meant he had ancient blood. Ancient enough to be worth something.
The cause of death suddenly didn’t matter to me, not when I noted Emrys’s lack of surprise.
‘You’ve seen it before?’ I asked. A being with ancient blood was dangerous in the wrong hands, especially if a Verr could feed from them.
The image of that ghost-girl came back to me so clearly, the sadness in her eyes. A being who should be nowhere near land this cursed. Something making her stay.
‘What about an aurrak?’ I pressed, catching Emrys’s attention at the ancient name.
His brow furrowed, eyes darkening as they moved about my face in confusion. ‘How do you know that?’
‘You’ve found one,’ I pressed; he must have. ‘She’s here. I’ve seen her. In the forest.’
He returned his attention to the table, pulling at papers until he passed me a journal. A small magical sketch of the girl. She’d sat for it in her serving attire, as many fey did for advertisements at large households.
It was her. The same solemn eyes, striking features and straight hair.
‘Drained of blood. Her body was found dumped at one of the borders a few months ago,’ he said, and I felt that pain deep in my heart. Felt the warmth of it running through my fingers.
‘Blood worship fuels the Verr,’ I whispered, closing the journal, unable to look at her anymore.
Verr were nothing more than a story. A fear the rebellion peddled in their gossip sheets to draw more fey and mortals to their cause. That was what the Council said, but faced with the truth, I couldn’t deny their lies went deeper than even I had anticipated. The Nox offering at the forest’s edge was attracting fiends, not deterring them, because this type of darkness was half starved of magic. Just like the fiend in that book in the library. Those fey never stood a chance.
‘It’s only going to get worse.’ I looked at the mass of cases on the table. It was a sign we were on the brink of an abyss, only this time nobody was paying attention.
‘Lord Percy has a very expensive mistress and has run his inheritance into the ground. He moved in with his uncle under the guise of being the executor of his will. The west wing burnt not a month later.’
I turned to him, troubled. ‘You think he’s summoning for wealth?’
‘All the fey that can be connected, died of blood draining or heart failure. All could be creature-summoning related.’ A sadness weighted his shoulders with the words. ‘One more badly cast spell on these lands and we could all be in trouble.’
‘How would you stop that?’
‘I have all the evidence I need to perform a cleansing charm.’ His sharp gaze came back to my face. ‘We’ll need to cleanse the ruins, hopefully obtain and trap a piece of that darkness that will show its connection to Lord Percy.’
We . I ignored the sudden importance of that one word to me. Letting my fingers run over the small journal with that picture of that poor girl inside.
Unease tightened my chest. From the dark fiends I’d come in contact with, I’d be surprised if we had days. Especially if Lord Percy was still making offerings to the dark, despite our presence.
I turned to the papers, trying to pull them into some form of order when a brightness of ink caught my eye. The delicate marks and beautiful illustrations I’d recognise anywhere. I pulled the aged map from the bottom of the pile.
‘I haven’t seen an original fey map for a long time.’ My voice was soft as my fingertips traced the illustrations of this world and the beasts that had been sketched around the outskirts of the map.
‘One of my father’s. He loved the North Islands. That’s where he met my mother.’ He leant around me, his finger tracing the border of the wildlands, almost touching my hand where it rested on the map. Right over the cluster of islands in the north.
‘The Isle of Beasts,’ I whispered, knowing I shouldn’t have drawn attention to it, to my connection to such a beautiful place, but I couldn’t control my emotion at seeing it again, even in a map form.
The Council maps never went that far north, or diminished the sacred islands to nothing but an irrelevant drop of ink just off the coast.
‘ Tauria ,’ he replied softly, as if he said it every day.
The sound of my true name on his lips made my breath stutter. It’d been so long since I’d heard it said in such a way, with reverence and beauty. The heart-island of the north. Named after the lost, ancient Kysillian queen. The sacred name from my bloodline.
‘My father gave me that name,’ I confessed before I could fully contemplate the danger of that secret. Could worry about how easily I’d given it to him.
‘I thought only members of the Kysillian Kings’ line could carry sacred names.’ There was a weight to Emrys response, a closeness to him, like he didn’t want to miss a single word from my lips.
I smiled weakly, looking back to the map. ‘Perhaps my father believed there was nobody left to care about tradition.’
‘Do you think there is?’ I felt his magic gently brushing my skin with curiosity, as if trying to sense my emotions. I felt the comforting warmth from the sheer presence of him at my back.
‘If there is anyone, they’re cleverer than me not to get caught.’ I considered the lands in the north that had once been a haven, running my finger down the aged page, ignoring its tremble.
‘I don’t think anyone on this earth is as clever as you, Croinn,’ he replied. A tenderness to the compliment.
A heat rolled through me that had nothing to do with magic. I turned, our noses almost brushing, seeing that darkness in his eyes. How it reflected the bright lavender of my own.
The mere presence of him, the anticipation that he might touch me. Seeing one of his rare smiles, the way his eyes shifted colour when he looked at me. The smell of forbidden herbs and old books whenever he was around. How carefully he handled me, like I was something that needed care.
All of it, and perhaps that was the most terrifying thing of all. There was a strange vulnerability to him in the dark, an intimacy to his closeness and too many things I wanted to know.
‘Tell me what happened in those ruins, Kat,’ he asked so quietly, yet still I felt the fear claw at me.
What haunted me even now. How I’d allowed that fear to drive me to near madness after that horrid dinner.
‘I …’ I swallowed around the word, shaking my head. ‘I can’t …’
Couldn’t risk making it real. Summoning that pain here to ruin everything else.
I thought he’d pull back in frustration, at the secrets I kept when faced with the truths he offered. But no, he came closer, gently tipping my chin with his thumb. A comforting softness lingering in the corners of his gaze. Unburdened by anything else but their sincerity.
His fingers dragged along the edge of my jaw, until he could trace the shape of my ear. ‘No matter what comes next, I won’t leave you to that darkness.’
My breath caught, lip trembling, but his thumb came back to drag across it. I understood that he didn’t mean only the darkness that had dwelled in those ruins, but perhaps the one that lingered within me too. A vicious monster of fear and grief.
‘I’ll find you, Kat,’ he whispered, but the intensity remained. The truth of it. ‘I promise you that.’
It was impossible. Yet I allowed those words to fill part of that hollow place inside of me as I leant into his touch, pressing myself into his waiting arms like it was the most natural thing in the world to curve my hands around his back. To feel the powerful strength of him beneath the cotton of his shirt, relishing the firm strength of his arms around me in that forbidden embrace.
‘Tauria,’ he whispered into my hair and I felt that word resonate in my soul. My name. My magic flared in response, raising on command from his lips. Seeking its own truth.
‘Tauria died a long time ago,’ I spoke quietly against his shoulder, afraid of my own voice. She died on a stormy night with her mother. Consumed by the fire and ash. Carried away on a storm wind.
‘Impossible.’ He shook his head, pulling back so I could see the dark hair fall onto his brow. ‘She’s before me, as unattainable to me as she was to mortal men.’
I felt the caress of his magic as it washed over me, chilling the potency of my own, matching it so it didn’t have to be afraid anymore.
‘Starlight,’ he whispered against the curve of my cheek, breath sweet from the brandy. ‘Chaos of the heavens.’
‘Emrys,’ I warned, my voice trembling slightly with anticipation.
‘The perfect revenge.’ A sadness tinged his response, as my heart stuttered in my chest. ‘What a wicked thing you’ve done, Kat. To make it so I only dream of you.’
Then he kissed me softly, as if concerned it would scare me away. His other hand dropping to my waist, curling me closer to him. Patient and waiting.
I’d been kissed before, once by a messenger boy behind the hay shed, but it wasn’t like this. Not with this impossible longing.
It wasn’t quick and cautious as if fulfilling some dare. No, he kissed me desperately like he never wished to stop. A depth to it that felt endless.
As if he could press secrets against my lips.
My fingers curled into his shirt. Needing the delicious press of the hardness of his body against me. The demanding power of his magic swept over my skin with the gentle caution of a lover’s caress.
My hands dragged upwards over his powerful chest, melting into the firm nature of his touch. I savoured the tightness of his hold, the soft moan that left him as he nipped gently at my bottom lip, commanding me to open my mouth, and then his tongue followed.
My fingers slid into the thick softness of his hair, devouring him with the same intensity. He dragged me closer, hands clutching at the fabric of my robe like he could tear it from me. I wished he would.
My skin was too tight. Needing more attention from him. Needing him. Wanting to be needed like this.
I arched into him, wanting something I didn’t fully understand as his lips ran along my jaw and down the line of my throat, nipping at my pulse. Tasting the wildness of it against his lips.
My hand slid beneath his shirt, feeling the warm hardness of his skin. The uneven texture of the scars there, my fingers heating with my magic, hungry to experience the madness of him too. His hands captured my face, pulling back for the barest moment so I could see the bright violet of my eyes reflected in the endless dark of his.
His thumb traced my bottom lip, swollen from his kisses, before he leant in again, softly. Slowing our pace once more, delicately savouring every moment of it. Kissing my mouth from one corner to the other, fingers tangled in the heavy fall of my hair.
Desire coiled low in my abdomen at the warm hardness of him through the thin fabric of my nightgown where my robe had slipped open.
My fingers dragged down his front, feeling the tension in each muscle all the way to the waistband of his trousers. The evidence of his passion for me.
‘Emrys,’ I whispered against his lips, begging weakly for more.
Only for the sound to freeze him in place, dousing us both in the icy realisation of what we were doing.
He pulled himself harshly back from me, breath unsteady. My cheeks heated with shame as I settled back into reality, instantly fixing my slipping robe with numb fingers as he turned his back.
A tension across his shoulders as he straightened his shirt. ‘I’m sorry, Kat.’
Of course.
He’d been drinking and I’d been a fool to think any of it had been real. The words left a hollowness I’d never felt before, different to all the others, chasing away any warmth I’d gained in his arms.
Unwanted. Yet, in a different, more brutal way as he moved to the fire across the room.
Stupid, ugly troll.
‘You should go,’ he said coldly. His hands curled into fists at his sides, knuckles white. ‘The Council put boundaries between—’
He didn’t need to finish. Boundaries between partner mages and master, but between mortals and fey too. How forbidden it was. Montagor’s mocking words about impropriety burning through me and leaving nothing behind but the brutal pain of that truth. How fragile this safety was, no matter how much I wanted it.
‘You don’t have to remind me of all the things I can’t do, Emrys,’ I answered tartly, unable to keep the burn of my tears out of my words. Unsure if he flinched, as I left him to his demons.