Hunting Fiends for the Ill-Equipped (The Guild Codex Demonized #3) - Annette Marie Page 0,76
worked. The words came fast, Myrrine’s ancient sentences spilling out of my pencil as though she were whispering in my ear.
Sister, you cannot imagine how these past months have tormented me. How I questioned my heart, my mind, the fate of my soul. How I wondered what madness had overtaken me.
I have stood before a demon of another world and wondered that which no woman should ever wonder. I have yearned for that which no woman should ever claim. I have laid my hands upon that which no woman should ever touch.
I offered a demon my soul, and then I offered him my heart.
Madness, perhaps, but if this is madness, I will keep it. Love in a cruel world is a cruelty itself. Love is pain and it is hope. Love is peril and it is beauty.
Melitta, my sweet sister, if I have learned anything it is this: do not let fear hold you in darkness. Reach for more than this small, cold world says you may have.
Dare as I dared.
Elsewise, this life is but a shadow to the sun it could be.
– Myrrine Athanas
I gripped my notebook page, my knuckles white. Myrrine’s words were like a surf beating against me, loud in my ears, but they weren’t enough. She hadn’t revealed what had happened when she’d offered her demon her heart. She didn’t seem to have regretted it—but what had happened?
How had her demon reacted? Had he shared her feelings? Had he reciprocated? Or had he rejected her? Turned her away? Taken the precious gift of her heart and thrown it back at her?
I reread my translation, desperately seeking answers. Love was pain and hope? Love was peril and beauty? What did that even mean?
My fumbling fingers reached for the grimoire again. Myrrine must’ve explained herself in the next entry. She would tell me whether her demon had loved her—or whether she’d made a terrible mistake. She would say more than a flowery speech about being brave and following your heart.
Dare as I dared.
I gave my head a violent shake and flipped pages with feverish intensity, almost forgetting to be careful with the fragile paper. Pages and pages passed, and as the end of the grimoire approached, panic awoke. That couldn’t be it. That couldn’t be Myrrine’s last entry.
Ten pages left. Five. Three. Heart sinking, I reached the final page before the torn ridges where the stolen spells of the book had been. I listlessly scanned the block of text, but Myrrine’s name wasn’t there.
No way. She must have written something else. I’d just missed it. Puffing for air as though I were running through time instead of turning pages, I started flipping backward, scanning each page carefully, searching, searching.
Page after page. The content here was different—more blocks of text, few spells or lists. Other names signed the passages, but not Myrrine’s. I flipped past yet another dense section, almost passing it over, when my breath caught.
It wasn’t Myrrine’s name, but still a familiar one.
Μ?λιττα ?θ?να?
Melitta Athanas.
Myrrine’s younger sister. She’d added to the grimoire as well?
An ominous chill whispered over me. Picking up my pencil, I got to work. The paragraphs came slowly, and with each word, the ache in my heart grew. When I finished, I had to sit for a long minute before I could bring myself to read it.
Honorable scribe,
Today, I finished what my sister began. The grimoire is complete, each word loyally recorded. In the final pages, I compiled Anthea’s masterful work, as my predecessor did. I add nothing except this plea.
Honorable scribe, please do not erase my sister from these pages. I know her additions to this precious tome are arrogant and improper, yet I beg you to keep them. Her words are all that remain of her.
She died for Anthea’s legacy, and for me.
The enemy killed her but a year after she began her transcription. Many times in that year I doubted her perplexing affection for a demon, but I will never forget that final night. I will never forget how I found them together.
He held her close, as though he could still protect her, even though she was already pale and still.
Do not take her soul, I thoughtlessly begged him.
He answered, Her soul was never mine. Her command never bound me, so her soul could never save me. I should have told her.
Those were his last words, for his wounds were terrible and the night was so cold. He perished where he lay, holding my sister to his heart.