Chapter 19 Arwyn
ARWYN
My first thought was Hector. Where is he?
Wind and rain sliced at my skin, stinging it raw. My hands sunk into damp sands; the more force I pushed against it, the more it tried to swallow my arms down to the elbows.
Blinking away the sludge smeared across the side of my face, courtesy of having my face pressed into the ground, I got my first glimpse of where Bahmet had cast us to.
A beach.
One moment I’d been stood in a fucked-up Roman amphitheatre, and then the darkness came, chewed me up, and spat me out here.
Bodies lay scattered across the almost-black sands, some groaning whereas others were completely still. There were so many. White-crested waves lapped out from a churning ocean of deep cobalt, like reaching hands dragging a couple of unconscious or dead—I wasn’t sure—out into its hold.
“Arwyn.” Someone struggled to get my name out. “Quick. Help.”
I spun around, caring for nothing in that moment other than the man nearest to me.
Hector was sat hunched, looking as bad as my body felt.
Bahmet had taken no care when he dropped us off in his twisted holding grounds.
From the ache in every single part of my body as I crawled like a dog towards Hector, I was sure he’d dropped us on the stiff earth from a great height.
There wasn’t a single bone in my body that didn’t hurt like a bitch.
Over the roaring crash of waves hitting the bank, and the whistling winds carrying salt water, I could hear another familiar voice. My father. He was shouting commands to his Hunters who’d suffered as I did.
But I paid him little mind as I dragged my aching body towards Hector. “Are you hurt?”
It was like Hector couldn’t hear me, but instead of answering the one thing I cared about, he lifted a finger and pointed a few feet away from him.
“Them.”
Romy fought her way out of the ocean’s clawing embrace.
She was soaked to the bone, tripping and falling as the undercurrent tried to claim her.
Her back was to me, her focus pinned on the lifeless body she was dragging out of the depths.
The man she was with… Kai, that was his name.
Someone I’d never seen before, and yet I understood on a deeper level that he was important.
I didn’t wait for another request from Hector. I forced away all my pain, using years of practice to pretend it didn’t exist. My feet squelched in soggy sand until my shins kicked away at the ocean as I waded in.
I thought I understood pain… until the cold wrapped around me. I bit down on my cheeks, stifling the cry of anguish. The water felt like knives, thousands of them, cutting at my skin. My clothes became weights on my body the deeper I gained.
“I’ve got you,” I said, surprising Romy with my presence. Her braids clung to her face like coiled snakes, the tarnished rings of gold which decorated them glinting in the small amount of light the dark cloud above let in.
At the sight of me, Romy drew her lip over her teeth and snarled. I saw the fear in her eyes, bright and powerful, a feeling I was all too familiar with. It was the look of someone who was scared of losing something dear to them. And from my vantage point, that must’ve been Kai.
Forceful waves cracked into my stomach, forcing my body to bow. “I am here to help. I promise.”
It took a couple of seconds for Romy to realise I was serious. Her expression softened a touch, and I accepted that as my chance to reach in, and help carry the weight of Kai’s body.
For a smaller man in stature, he certainly was heavy. And cold, very cold. But I would worry about that when we get out of the water.
Time dragged slowly. It took all my remaining strength to drag Kai out of the water, towards where Hector was stood waiting. I picked up my pace when I noticed my father was mobile, and so were his Hunters. There were only a few bodies left on the ground, but my father didn’t seem to care.
He had his army. And their entire focus was on an unsuspecting Hector.
“Run!” I shouted over the storm, only for the thunder to crack and drown out my command. My hands were full, my focus fixed on not slipping beneath the current, so I couldn’t wave Hector away.
I couldn’t warn him.
Romy noticed what was happening and began screaming in tandem. “Hector, move! Get out of here!”
And go where?
At Hector’s back waited a jagged cliff face. It rose up, framing him and everything beyond this strange beach. To his left was the stretch of endless black sands and rolling waves, and to his right was the group of Hunters who were beginning to make a move for him.
The first person to kill Hector Briar will be given a golden ticket.
Bahmet had given that order in hopes to destroy Hector, thus returning the part of his dark power that lurked within him. And the demon had the use of willing participants to help him do just that. Trial or not, they would do anything they could to kill Hector.
Over my dead body.
Lightning flashed overhead. The sodden hairs on my arms shivered, warning me of something terrible. More thick snakes of hot light cut across the darkening clouds ahead.
Then the atmosphere shifted. Changed on a dime, so suddenly that it had the draw to divert my attention. Hector stopped whatever he was shouting too, his head turning towards the misplaced lullaby carried on the wind.
A light voice rose. That alone should’ve been impossible considering I couldn’t even hear what Hector was shouting. But it was clear, like the chime of a bell, so soft and subtle yet it seemed like the universe was desperate for me to hear it.
“Magic,” Romy gasped as a wave crashed against her chest, coating her face in foam. “Someone’s using magic.”
There were only a few witches in this trial, and the voice was distinctly feminine. Romy wasn’t singing, Hector’s mouth was forged shut as he searched for the heart of the sound, and Kai was knocked out.
That left only one person.
My aunt.
“Watchtower of the North, I call for thee.
Protect those in turmoil, I plea for thee.
Cast down your power, break open with thy cry.
Show those who stand against you, the power of the sky.”
My father didn’t notice; his ears weren’t familiar with such conjuring and power. His snarled focus was fixed on Hector, not noticing that one of his own had just turned against him.
Verena rose behind his advancing attack, hands stretched to the sky, eyes glowing with the circlet of light.
Her mouth was moving wildly, the spell spilling out over and over.
Above her, crowning where she stood, dark clouds spun in a vortex, twisting like a cauldron of blackness, split apart by the snakes of lightning.
The tension built the louder her song became, until it reached a crescendo and stopped.
Two beats of silence… of peace. That was all the magic allowed before the sky itself attacked.
We’d made it out of the ocean just as lightning rained down upon the damp sands. A wall of piercing white light separated Tomin and his Hunters from where Hector stood. I smelled burning as sands turned to mirrored glass.
She was buying us time.
A fresh renewal of energy flooded through me. It was enough to hoist one of Kai’s limp arms over my shoulder, whilst Romy took the other. Then we were running, dragging his heavy, unconscious body out of the water towards Hector.
I was enamoured with how his face reflected the conjured bolts of lightning. The ground shuddered as each one hit, the sky sparking with a power I couldn’t fathom. It was dangerous and beautiful, just like the man who stood watching it, his blonde curls whipping in conjured winds.
“Why is she doing this?” Hector shouted as we reached him.
I found the answer was simple. “To give us time to get away from the people who will do anything to kill you,” I said, taking Hector’s wrist in my hand, and tugging him towards me. “We need to go, now. Before our chance for escape is taken from us.”
I knew, in the deepest parts of my heart, that the moment my father worked out Verena’s betrayal, he would kill her. My only tie to my mother, the woman I first believed I couldn’t trust, who had proved me wrong twice now, would face punishment for helping us.
And all I wanted to do was claw my way through the curtain of lightning and ask her why. Was she doing it from guilt, to cleanse herself of the same sins our choices to help the Hunters had marked us with?
Hector shot Romy a strange look, a single brow raised. She didn’t seem to notice as she was too focused on clapping a soft palm against Kai’s face, trying to encourage him to wake up.
Kai’s skin had paled… turning almost blue. Even his lips had turned a horrid pallor, as if the colour had all but bled out of him. I didn’t have it in me to tell her that Kai was beyond waking up now.
My single purpose had to be getting Hector away from my father.
“There must be a way to get off this beach,” I said, eyes already scanning the endless wall of cliff for any signs of freedom. “If not, we make one.”
If I had to use my hands and dig a hole through it, I would.
Hector snapped out of his strange trance, and fixed his eyes on a part of the cliff I’d looked over. “I think there’s a path… over there.”
“Hurry,” Romy snapped, panic overcoming her. “Kai isn’t breathing. Shit.”
Romy got back to pressing down on Kai’s chest, and breathing air into his useless lungs.
Kai hadn’t been breathing since we were deposited on this beach.
“We need to move!” I shouted, reaching to help Kai off the floor as yet more lightning cracked into the sodden sands. “Now.”
Romy didn’t resist. She rocked back on her haunches, tears blending with the droplets of rain that began to fall.
Hector was beside me. Over Kai’s body our eyes locked, wordless and yet the connection spoke of a million different things.
“On the count of three,” Hector growled, forging his arms beneath Kai’s body.
I nodded, following his lead without question.