Was it Emrys? They told me he was a dangerous man, but to be that cruel—
It simply didn’t add up.
The Unbidden cackled. “I always could answer your questions. I just didn’t want to.” Then, it went silent again.
The steep corridor led me deeper. I stumbled more than once over the uneven floor and had to lean on the rough, damp wall. The passage narrowed, ending at a door.
It was a heavy iron-banded door, its dark wood scarred with deep gouges. Something had once tried to claw its way out—or in. Unease gripped me, but I reached for the handle anyway.
It was unlocked.
The moment I stepped inside, the air shifted.
A chamber stretched before me, vast yet suffocating, its arched ceiling blackened with soot as if something had burned here long ago. Heavy iron candelabras, gutted with melted wax, sprang into life when I stepped in, their flames low and flickering as if disturbed by an unseen breath.
At the center of the room lay a ritual circle, etched into the black stone floor in a faded silver script, its runes pulsing softly—dying embers of something once powerful. Symbols Ididn’t recognize curled along its edges, too old, too ancient for any human tongue.
My throat tightened. This place was… wrong.
The air hummed with magic.
An old book, torn in two, lay in the center of the circle. Its pages flittered around, picked up by the draft. I stepped into the circle and picked up one of them. It was old, older than any book I’d seen, written in a language I’d never seen. The page seemed to have been torn in a fit of rage, crimson droplets sprinkling the even letters.
Somehow, I knew it. “Are these the wards keeping Emrys inside?” I asked, unsure who’d answer. The Unbidden uncoiled in my mind like a viper.
“You’re not so stupid after all,” it hissed.
My fingers shook as I looked at the page in my hand.
The ink was golden, faded, but still gleaming in the candlelight. And there, across the illustration—
Emrys.
Not as I had seen him, holding the violin bow or peeling apples for turtles in the greenhouse. No—this was a being wreathed in shadow and fire, his mighty wings spread over an ancient battlefield. I picked another page. He was standing before kneeling kings and queens, their golden crowns lowered in reverence.
Another page—
A different time. Different people. Primitive tribes with painted faces, cowering in caves. Their hands lifted toward the sky where a winged figure loomed, radiant and terrible.
The brittle page crumbled slightly in my trembling grip. My mouth was dry.
Sweet Mother Mary, what was he?
I rubbed my temples. The Unbidden stirred, rising like mist at the edges of my mind.
“They worshipped him once.”
I swallowed. “What… what is he?”
There was no need to answer.
A god. Ancient and forgotten.
A soft laugh, a ripple of amusement, and something darker. “You see what he was before. Now he’s not what he was meant to be.”
Damned Unbidden and its riddles.
I paced across the circle. The echo of a once mighty spell—the one which scorched the walls—still lingered.
