Chapter 22 Hector #2
“You better go and find Arwyn,” Romy said, cracking the door open enough for me to catch Kai’s still body laid out amongst mounds of faded-white bedsheets. “Time is precious. I’ve just learned that. Go and figure out what it is you want from each other, but most importantly, what you need.”
With her final comment, Romy slipped into the room, closed the door, and left me. I waited all but a few seconds before I turned on my heel, my body’s compass turning exactly in the direction of where Arwyn was waiting.
* * *
Arwyn Hopkin sat slouched at a table, the hearth raging with newly lit flames behind him, a metal, dented tankard lifted up to his mouth. His eyes were lost to an unimportant place on the table before him, no doubt his head full of thoughts he was too frightened to speak out loud.
I paused in the shadows of the stairs, heart thundering in my chest as I devoured him. Arwyn looked as though he had the weight of the world on his broad shoulders, but I knew that pressure actually came from his past. The trauma forced down on him the further he strayed from it.
The next step I took sent a groan through the old wood. Arwyn’s keen ears picked it up, head snapping in my direction and bright eyes searching the exact place I stood. “Hector?”
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you,” I said, stepping into the halo of light from the bar.
“You could never scare me,” Arwyn replied, carefully placing his tankard on the table and standing as if to greet me.
“That sounds an awful lot like a challenge,” I replied, taking the final steps to the ground floor, hyper-aware of the way his gaze tracked my each and every move. “And if memory serves me, I remember you looking slightly frightened when I attacked you in your bedroom a few days ago.”
“Has it only been a few days?” Arwyn smiled softly, as though the reminder was pleasant to him. “It already feels like a lifetime ago.”
“Need a reminder?” I asked with a wink.
I found it easier injecting some humour into the moment instead of sweltering in the awkwardness between us.
“I think I’ll pass on that, thank you.” Arwyn stepped around the table, reached for a second chair that was tucked beneath it, and then pulled it free. “Although, I would really like it if you came and sat with me.”
“If you don’t mind.”
“Of course. I think we have a few things to catch up on.”
Catch up. It made everything left to say between us so mundane. But before I could even contemplate running away, my feet were moving me across the room directly to him. Like a moth to a flame, without caring for the potential of danger, I drifted until I stood to the chair’s side.
“Please,” Arwyn whispered, gesturing for me to sit down.
I did as he suggested, looking back at him as I positioned my bottom on the chair. With little effort, he tucked me beneath the table, knuckles brushing my spine as he did so.
“So did your father teach you the importance of manners before or after how to hunt and kill witches?”
Curse my fucking tongue.
“Ouch. I deserved that,” Arwyn replied simply, moving away from the table to the bar at the far side of the room. “How about a stiff drink to help you swallow everything we have to say to one another?”
“As long as you don’t poison it.” My throat was parched, and my stomach violently hungry.
“Double ouch.”
I winced. “Make it strong. Please.”
Arwyn returned to the table with a tumbler filled with a strange blush-red liquid. It sloshed over the crystal rim when he pushed it towards me. Arwyn must’ve noticed my expression of distrust because he followed up with the ingredient list. “Double vodka and cranberry, right?”
A cold chill raced down my spine. “How do you know?”
“My dad has a rather extensive fact sheet about you,” Arwyn replied, not looking too pleased with admitting it. “All those nights you spent in that club… Energy, isn’t it?”
One of my brows lifted. “It is.”
“You order the same drink every time. It kind of becomes obvious what your preference is.”
I was glad for the burning hiss of vodka to help wash down Arwyn’s admission. Usually I savoured my drink, but I found myself practically downing this one. “Is that supposed to make me feel special?”
“I just want you to know that I’m holding nothing back this time. No lies. No illusions. Just the truth.” Arwyn grimaced. “I’m sure you have lots of questions for me.”
It was simply put, and true. But how mundane it seemed, this idea that a soft conversation between us would shed light on everything that had come before it, didn’t seem strong enough.
“I guess you could say that.”
I hadn’t noticed that my spare hand was on my stomach, massaging the empty ache far beneath my flesh, until Arwyn’s gaze lingered south. “How does it feel?”
“Empty,” I answered, because there was no other word for it. “Hollow. Like a chunk of me is missing, and there is nothing worthy enough to fill it up.”
“You did what was required. And for Kai’s sake, I’m glad it worked.” Arwyn rocked back in his chair, slouching his large body into a position of comfort. “It isn’t every day we are asked to give up something… important to us.”
“I wouldn’t call Bahmet’s power important.”
“I would.”
Leaning over the table, I lowered my voice as my gaze shifted to the balcony atop the room. “For Kai’s safety, I think we keep conversations to a minimum regarding what price I’ve paid to bring his soul back from Bahmet’s clutches.”
Because if Bahmet knew that Kai was now the host of that broken shard of demonic power, it would turn the focus of everyone towards Kai. His life would’ve been saved only for it to be put at risk again.
Arwyn zipped his fingers over his full, sealed lips. “I agree. It won’t matter soon enough. When he wakes up he will forfeit, and leave before Bahmet can sink his talons into him.”
“Ah. About that.” I took another, much longer, sip of my drink. “There is no saying that’s going to happen. From the brief conversation I had with Romy, she didn’t seem too pleased with the idea.”
“That’s because Romy is loyal to you,” Arwyn replied. “Kai, however, may not be.”
“I could tell him the truth.”
“No,” Arwyn snapped, lunging forwards as if he could literally snatch my words out of the air and throw them away. “The moment Kai is aware of what has happened, the more danger he will put himself in.”
“And maybe that’s a good thing. We need Kai now, more than ever, to help destroy Bahmet. I can no longer do it. I gave that weapon up. If Kai leaves, we are back to square one, right?”
Arwyn buried his head in his hands, shoulder muscles shivering as he inhaled deeply and released it.
It took a few seconds of tension before he spoke again, and when he did it was with his control regained over himself.
“As long as Kai survives, destroying Bahmet is not off the table. What our focus must be is making sure one of us win these trials, and make sure my father does not get access to such endless limits of power.”
As Arwyn spoke, his eyes widened with a fear that belonged in the face of a child, not an adult. I wanted to lean across the small table and comfort him, take his hands in mine and never let go. But something was keeping me still.
I couldn’t name it, that haunting feeling thundering through me. It was controlling my actions as if a dam was holding back a ravine of wild waters. The moment I broke it, there would be no stopping what came next.
“Do you want to talk about him?” I asked, hoping I was clear enough with the follow-up question. “Tomin is probably a good starting point for everything we’ve got to say to one another.”
The creases beside Arwyn’s bright eyes softened a touch.
“I do and I don’t. But you deserve to know everything, Hector.
I hate to ask anything of you right now, but I will request that you are the one to propose the questions.
My life has been a… tangle of messy threads.
I wouldn’t know where to start with explaining myself. ”
My breath caught in my throat at the pleading in his eyes. It wasn’t that his voice broke as he spoke, but a strange glint of emotion passed behind his stare and darkened it.
“I can do that,” I whispered.
“Thank you,” Arwyn mouthed.
In truth, I didn’t know where to start either. Despite fighting and surviving beside him since the Witch Trials had begun again, I couldn’t forget everything that came before.
Arwyn Hopkin was the first person to break through my hardened shell of years of distrust and hate. He had tricked his way into my orbit, lied to me and cast illusions around us just so he could get close enough to get what he wanted.
No, not what he wanted. What his father wanted.
The first question came to me so quickly there was no thought to go behind how I asked it.
I just did.
“Was all of it fake? What happened between us I mean.”
Arwyn looked me dead in the eyes, his answer coming easily to him. “Not at all, Hector. It wasn’t for me.”
I didn’t realise how badly I needed to hear those words. My eyes pricked with unfamiliar tears, tears I’d spent years fighting back until Arwyn entered my life and turned me into a puddle of uncontrolled emotions.
“When did you…”
How could I ask that next question? It was like my brain refused to put together the right words I needed to ask the one and only question I cared deeply about.
“Take your time,” Arwyn encouraged, his tone like a soft caress. “No rush.”
I took a deep inhale, giving up on overthinking and just letting the question flood out of me. “When did you realise that things changed between us? At what point did you come to terms with doing what your father wanted for you, and doing what was right when it came to me?”