Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
T ime passed strangely here. It was as if the castle had its own time zone, where the days were shorter and the nights longer. I felt as though we’d been awake for hardly any time at all before dark clouds rode in on a cold wind, blanketing the sky in the impending cloak of early evening. Rain was falling—not the heavy type, but the pinpricks that soaked through clothes and encouraged a chilly ache into bones. It kept us inside the castle, trying to locate Jordan whilst staying close to the warmth of the newly lit hearths.
Who’d lit the fires was beyond me. Although maybe it was more proof that perhaps old magic did linger here.
Once the rain eased a little, we prepared to leave the castle’s warmer boundaries for the outside. The grounds were extensive, proof of which came from just looking out a window. Jordan could’ve been anywhere, but time was running out. Evening was close. If we didn’t locate him before my meeting, then we’d be onto plan two.
Romy torturing the truth out of Arwyn. And that was certainly not a way to make allies in this competition.
We were just leaving the grand front doors when a figure came running in from the outside. There was no denying the stark white hair and tall-yet-wiry stature of Salem Tanner.
He almost ran directly into me, his hands planted in his pockets.
‘Hello, again.’ He stopped, rain falling down his twisted face.
Romy’s eyes flashed, ready to protect me from an enemy. I had to lift a hand to stop her. ‘It’s okay, Romy. Salem is a…’
A what?
He voiced the same question aloud. ‘Oh, I’d love to hear this.’
‘A friend, I think,’ I said, fighting the blush creeping up my neck. Salem didn’t take his eye off me, not once.
‘Salem,’ Romy repeated the name as if she was putting two and two together. ‘Salem Tanner?’
‘The one and only,’ he replied, still without looking at her. His eyes were fixed on me.
Romy’s silence proved that she’d worked out exactly where she remembered the name from. It was written on the letter planted in her mother’s grimoire.
‘Does my reputation precede me?’ he asked, filling the silence.
‘It does,’ I said. ‘Seems like something we have in common.’
‘I have no doubt, given the chance to properly catch up, we’d find a lot more in common, Hector.’
His comment was undeniably a hint towards our previous conversation. ‘When I’m ready, I will.’
‘Don’t give me false hope,’ Salem pouted, sticking his lower lip out, making the scar down the side of his face pull the skin taut.
There was an uncomfortable pang in my chest. I looked to Romy for silent approval for what I was about to say. Of course, she couldn’t read my mind like Caym could, but there was something knowing in her chestnut eyes that told me I had her permission.
‘Will you meet me, later?’ I asked.
Two men in one night—back home I’d consider this a win-win.
‘I’d love nothing more.’ Salem stepped in close, bringing with him the scent of copper. The harsh scent was undeniable. Not even the rain could dispel it.
‘Are you hurt?’ I asked, unable to stop myself. My eyes traced his body, looking for a sign of a wound but finding nothing.
‘Far from it.’ Salem smiled. ‘I’ll go and freshen up though, for later. You’re in the attic floor of the west wing, right? I’ll collect you.’
Discomfort at the fact that he knew where we slept came on sudden and fast. ‘How do you know?’
He leaned in, the smell of blood intensifying. ‘When it comes to you, Hector, I like to consider myself well informed.’
Noticing my discomfort, Romy put a hand on my back and guided me away. ‘We should go, before the rain picks up.’
‘Yes,’ I said, hating how meek my voice sounded. ‘See you later, Salem.’
He didn’t reply as we left the castle. But he stood and watched as Romy guided us outside to wet, muddied ground.
‘He gives me the fucking creeps,’ she said, not even out of earshot. I hoped that the gusts of cold wind hid her voice.
‘Can you blame him?’ I said. ‘I won’t lie to you, I feel responsible for him in a way. And that’s a feeling I don’t enjoy.’
‘I understand,’ Romy said. ‘But that doesn’t mean you need to pity him and do exactly as he wants.’
Didn’t it, though?
‘Let’s just try and scope out our target.’ I hoped Romy got the clear message that I didn’t want to speak about Salem anymore. His presence, although a familiar anchor to my past, made me uncomfortable. Intuition told me not to trust him, but also that I was responsible for him. Two conflicting emotions that warred within my mind as we continued our hunt for Jordan.
It didn’t take long to find him. Unfortunately.
We rounded the front of the castle and Romy immediately clapped a hand to her mouth, stifling a gag. I was left emotionless beside her, unable to react to the impossibility to what was before me.
This was no different than a cat leaving a dead mouse on a doorstep.
Jordan’s body was strung up outside the grand front doors. Chain was wrapped around his throat. It was the only thing keeping him up, connected to a flagpole ten feet above the ground at the top of the stone porch. His corpse swung like a pendulum, allowing the wind to toy with him. Jordan’s haunted, all-seeing eyes seemed to glare exactly where I stood, dulled and bulging from his skull as though the pressure of the chain noose threatened to pop them.
Death was not unfamiliar to me, but I found myself turning away.
‘Fuck, Romy. That’s him.’
Romy was frozen at my side, her arms wrapped around herself, her wide eyes fixed to the corpse. The rain had soaked her brown curls, making them hang in limp strands around her paling face. I waited for her to say something, but the green tinge beneath her skin proved she was holding back sickness, as well as her reply.
There was a sinking feeling in my gut. It continued its descent, deeper and deeper, the longer I had time to let Jordan’s death sink in. I didn’t need to convince myself that it was my fault in some way. It was a hunch that was confirmed when Romy finally broke her silence.
Salem. The blood. He’d been here only moments before.
‘Witch Hunter,’ Romy almost choked on the words. ‘The Witch Hunter found him first. It has to be.’
‘Not the Witch Hunter,’ I said. ‘Salem.’
‘No,’ Romy spat. ‘Look.’
I spun round fast, drinking in what she was pointing at. Jordan’s shirt had been flayed open, likely by a knife of some kind. I hadn’t noticed until Romy pointed it out, because his skin was marred with blood which had dried the same colour as his dark t-shirt. But on closer inspection, I found his skin scored with a symbol.
The cross within the circle, the mark of a Witch Hunter had been carved into Jordan’s chest, defiling his dead body whilst acting as a very obvious message to us.
I couldn’t voice it, but in my mind, I knew who’d done this. Salem. It had to be. But how was he the Witch Hunter, after what had happened to his parents? It made little sense. I didn’t understand it, and yet I almost ran back for him, poised and ready to kill first and ask questions only when he wasn’t able to answer.
‘He didn’t deserve this,’ I stammered, moving from flight to fight mode like the beats of a drum. ‘This is fucked, Romy. It’s wrong.’
I cocooned my power around Jordan’s swaying body. It took little focus to lift his weight, break the connection between the chain and flagpole, then lower his corpse to the ground. In seconds, I was keeling beside him, my knees sinking into a puddle. Suddenly, the man before me was not the one who broke into my mind, but a victim of the same fate as my parents.
Fury swelled within me, pressing against my skin for release.
He’d died before he could help us. He’d died before he could give me the answers I craved about the block in my mind.
A hand laid on my shoulder. I didn’t need to look to know Romy stood at my side. ‘Hekate will welcome her child with open arms. Find solace in that.’
I shook my head, unable to find solace in anything but vengeance. ‘The Witch Hunter knows. They know we know about them, and they killed Jordan to stop us using him to find…’
It hit me then, all at once.
My eyes locked with Romy, and I could tell she held the same thought as me. ‘It’s Salem. It has to be.’
‘It’s too obvious,’ Romy added. ‘For all we know, Arwyn could still be the Witch Hunter. I mean, where has he been today?’
I didn’t know, but something told me she was wrong. Again, my intuition screamed with it.
Arwyn knew the truth. That was why he warned me after seeing Salem. That was why he followed Salem after our fight.
Romy didn’t tell me I was wrong, but she didn’t confirm my suspicion either. Instead, her eyes fell back to Jordan’s corpse as the rain fell harder, attempting to wash the blood from his chest. What was left behind was the clear symbol a knife had sliced into his flesh.
‘We should get inside, out of the rain, and come up with another plan.’
I laughed to myself, not because she said anything funny, but because the anger was so wonderfully familiar. Like comfort. ‘I have a plan,’ I said, looking back towards the dense forest. ‘I’m going to kill him.’
‘If Salem is the Witch Hunter, he’ll be prepared. What if Arwyn did this? What if he discovered our plans to use Jordan and made sure he wasn’t a player in the game?’ Romy was breathless, as was I. ‘Just take a moment to think this through, Hector. What did Salem have to gain from killing Jordan?’
A headache brewed in the back of my skull, like a worm burrowing deep into my brain, latching on with rows of sharp teeth.
That was the thing. I had taken a moment. My decision was made. I’d find Arwyn, as he asked me to meet him at the castle’s boundary, and then I’d force the truth out of him. If he condemned Salem, then Salem would die.
That was what I was here for—to kill the Witch Hunter infiltrating the Trials.
‘You don’t know me properly yet, Romy, but please don’t stand in my way,’ I said calmly as I stood up from the corpse and looked beyond her. Was Arwyn watching us now?
How would it even be possible for him to be the Witch Hunter? He couldn’t have known about our plans for Jordan, but in the same breath, I realised those answers didn’t matter.
What mattered was killing the Witch Hunter.
‘And you don’t know me well enough to know that whatever your mind is deciding, make it a plan for two. We’re a coven, remember that’
Her voice was swallowed by a noise at my feet. It was so sudden, I almost believed Jordan had come back to life. But when I looked down to discover what it was, I saw that fissures spread out from beneath him, like cracks in the shell of an egg, spreading and spreading. The ground fractured. The hungry cracks raced towards our feet with unnatural speed. Romy barely had a chance to notice before I thrust out my power and sent her flying to the side. I followed, throwing the force at my feet, knocking me away from the cracks.
And just in time, because the thin fissures opened up. Shadows spewed out, like the tongues of serpents reaching for a feast—the feast being Jordan’s dead body. The thrashing shadow limbs grabbed his corpse-like hands, rolled him on his side, and dragged him into the gaping hole. They sounded like screams and hisses, and I longed to clap my hands over my ears to block out the demonic noises.
This was nothing kind or peaceful. If this was Hekate coming to claim her son , then by the fates, paradise didn’t exist.
It happened so quickly. As soon as Jordan’s body was dragged into the ground, the cracks in the earth reformed, sealing up and blocking out the noise of those shadows. I felt as though I had just witnessed something wrong. Not just wrong because it was clearly magic I didn’t understand, but the type of wrong that came with evil. The feeling of it crept over my skin, poisoning me from the outside in.
‘What the fuck was that?’ Romy wheezed as she stood. The weather had worsened, as though the serpents of darkness encouraged the storm. I could barely hear her over the rumbling of thunder.
I blinked, rubbing my eyes with closed fists, as though that would help make sense of what I’d just witnessed. ‘I’m not sure.’
‘This place isn’t right,’ Romy said, frantically reaching in the inner pocket of her jacket for the small grimoire. ‘I’m sure there’s something in here that mentioned darkness like that. Starving. Evil. I just need to find it’
For a second time, a noise interrupted Romy. But this time, it wasn’t the ground cracking apart, allowing for evil to reach up.
It was the toll of a bell. Loud and proud, as though it rang knowing it was breaking up a vital conversation.
But unlike what happened with Jordan’s body, we both knew what the toll of the bell meant.
The start of another trial.
We looked up in the direction of the clock tower as the toll rang out, silencing even the storm. Heavy grey clouds materialised beyond the castle. At first, I put it down to the storm. But no storm moved with such speed—in an instant a wall of cloud engulfed the clock tower, swallowing it from view. It continued spreading closer, consuming the castle until nothing was left.
Romy screamed at me. It was one word that rang with the same urgency that filled my own chest.
‘ Run !’
Strange—the command was clear and yet I couldn’t move. Not as the storm rolled over, devouring everything before me. I was confident I heard shouts from within the castle, until the cloud ate those too.
If it wasn’t for Romy running at me, grabbing my arm with a desperate hand and dragging me away, I don’t think I would’ve moved.
Our feet slammed against the sodden ground. With the castle at our back, the storm chasing at our heels, we moved for the forest. Neither of us could speak over the shared urgency to get away. There was no knowing what trial was about to begin, or if surviving this strange storm was the only task. Whatever was to come, we attempted to run from it.
The forest protected us from the rain. Lighting crashed ahead, casting us in stark white light. Thunder rolled, the wind screamed. It was as though the forest tried to stop us, roots catching on our boots and branches whipping at our bodies.
We didn’t stop running, even as my lungs burned. I didn’t know how far we’d gone, but panic and adrenaline did their job to stifle my discomfort. In the distance off to my left, I saw a body of water amongst the trees. I thought I saw a structure of glass and wood, but we were moving so quickly I couldn’t really take it in.
One look behind me showed the smog was at our heels. I couldn’t see the forest at our backs—it had been completely engulfed. Romy hadn’t noticed, nor did I warn her. I couldn’t risk her being distracted.
Not that it mattered when distraction came in another form. Ahead of us, the forest opened up. In the distance, I saw a figure. I knew who it was the second my eyes laid upon him.
Arwyn. He was stood beside a shimmering wall of air. No, he was leant up against it, eyes trained on us. Romy noticed too, but to her detriment. Seeing Arwyn reminded me of my boiling anger, enough that I didn’t stop running towards him. Not until a small voice called out from behind me.
What if he was the Witch Hunter? Distrusting him was easier. It would result in less of disappointed if it was proved right in my thoughts. It was easier to blame Arwyn than Salem, and Jordan’s death only benefited Arwyn.
‘Hector, help’
I turned, registering Romy’s panic. She was led out across the ground, one hand reaching for me. She had fallen. How, I couldn’t see as the wall of darkness came upon her. One second of connection, and then Romy was gone. Vanished before I could reach out and pull her towards me with my Gift. I threw my power at the wall of storm anyway, dispelling it into disturbed wisps. But she wasn’t on the floor, the place she’d been was empty.
‘Your friend will survive.’
Forgotten was the storm, Romy, the trial. None of it mattered as I faced Arwyn, who had made his way towards me. He walked with a sense of calm that came with someone being prepared. Whereas I was blinded by the longing to cause him pain.
‘You,’ I spat, knowing this time when we fought, Arwyn wouldn’t come out alive.
I noticed he looked healed, the wounds I’d left from the morning vanished. Good. I’d make sure he had more.
He opened his mouth to reply, but I was already tackling him. My shoulder connected with his waist, knocking him to the ground. I fell atop him, recognising firm hands grasping my thighs as I landed on his waist.
Arwyn’s pleased grin only made my fury boil hotter. I raised a fist up, cocked it back and readied the force to drive it into his jaw. Then the cold of the storm reached me, cascading over my back like water. Arwyn reached up for me, pulled me down on him and wrapped strong arms around my back. The last I heard before silence became my only constant, was Arwyn’s muffled whisper.
‘I’ve got you.’