Chapter 22 Hector #3
Without taking his eyes off me, Arwyn took a long swig of his drink until the dregs of liquid dribbled onto his pink tongue.
The glass clapped down onto the table, the sound reverberating over the silence between us.
And then he broke it with his answer. An answer that was like a stone in a house made of glass, thrown carelessly and with great force.
“In the library on that first night. That was when doubt was seeded for me. The second you walked in, presented yourself before me and looked at me with those eyes of yours, I swear I almost backed out of the competition then and there.”
I didn't dare blink, for fear of transporting myself back to that moment when I first interacted with Arwyn. The emotions were too raw, still too painful to face.
“Why?”
Arwyn’s brow hardened over soft, emotion-lit eyes.
“It is one thing to know you’ve ruined a person’s life, but another to stand before that very person and face them.
When I did what I did to your family, I never truly understood the repercussions.
I was too young to understand them… only that if I didn’t do as my father asked, it would… it would—”
I gave in to my urges and reached across the table, snatching Arwyn’s hand in mine.
The tension in his muscles relaxed, fingers threading with mine, his heartbeat a thunderous canter between our palms. “We were kids,” I said.
“As much as I hate you for what you’ve done to me, I also understand that you were not in control of the situation. ”
Arwyn shook his head, as if refusing to take in my words. “Regardless of my fear of my father, or my deep-rooted need to prove myself to him that I’m worth something, I should’ve refused. I could’ve said no and I didn’t.”
“They still would’ve died,” I said, numb to the reality that my parents were always destined to perish at the hands of Tomin Hopkin. “And you would’ve been punished for your lack of action.”
Arwyn returned his eyes back to mine when he replied, the emotion so palpable it almost knocked me off the chair.
“I have been punished. Over and over. My suffering came every time I looked at you, every ounce of kindness you showed me, every act of intimacy. It was punishment. I didn’t deserve any of it, Hector.
Didn’t deserve you. Deep down I knew that, and yet I kept taking it from you expecting that it would fix me.
I was so frightened to face the truth, thinking that if I kept concealing it, playing out this idea of a life with you, that it would all just fade, that this desire for forgiveness would be forgotten.
And yet it is the one and only thing I crave. ”
A single tear slipped out of Arwyn’s left eye, coursing down the planes of his proud bone structure. That was when I saw it; buried beneath his regret and sadness, a new emotion revealed itself.
Resilience. It called in every line across his forehead, the sharp downturn of his brows.
“Before the previous Witch Trials, I always knew about this underbelly of demonic power. Whilst you put it together, the knowledge was already something I had. And it became clear to me that I had to take it before you could. I thought that I could win Bahmet’s favour, and save you from the demon.
I could use the power to refuse my father…
maybe even punish him. Right his wrongs.
I couldn’t let you have it. In some twisted way by winning, I thought that it would be my way of obtaining a forgiveness from you with action rather than truth. Look how that turned out.”
My chest ached. My head pounded. There wasn’t an ounce of my body that wasn’t suffering facing this conversation that we had to have.
Arwyn only won because I failed.
“What does your father want? All this has to be for something.”
“My father wants to break some curse a witch put upon him,” he said, nodding to himself subtly.
“Curse?”
“The kiss of immortality. As you’ve likely worked out already, he cannot die.
I have attempted to kill my father so many times that I couldn’t even conceptualise a number.
His only purpose in life is to see all witches punished for the suffering he was rightly given.
Then, and only then, once his desire is achieved, he would find peace in a truly endless death. ”
“And he thinks Bahmet can solve all his problems?”
“Bahmet was the demon that placed the curse upon him, Hector.” Arwyn’s thumb traced circles on the back of my clammy hand. “No mortal witch can help my father. He has tried, many times over.”
“If Bahmet is the reason for his suffering, why spend his life hunting witches?”
“Because it was a witch who made a deal with Bahmet that cursed my father. I don’t know who or when, but I do know my father is old.
Far older than I even thought he was before.
He wanted me to win the last trials so I could take Bahmet, use it to lift the curse and see all witches exposed and burned. ”
I swallowed hard, finding another question coming to mind. “If you had not met me, would you have gone through with his wishes?”
Arwyn’s expression hardened. “Yes, I think so. I hate to say it, but I promised you the truth and nothing but.”
“I admire your honesty, no matter how terrible it sounds.”
Arwyn winced. “I’m not proud to admit it.
But it’s true, and I won’t waste another breath lying to you, Hector.
Not ever. Too many deceptions have left my mouth, so many illusions casted that even I forget where lies meet the truth.
But I swear that not a single other will ever be used against you. ”
I withdrew my hand, to Arwyn’s obvious dismay.
Distance was the opposite of what I wanted from him in that moment, and yet my body told me to place my arms beneath the table and out of reach.
Even though I felt his grip tingle across my skin, his heartbeat still tickling like a phantom ache across my palm.
“I’m sorry, Hector. For everything. I know that my words may not strike with the power you deserve, but I hope my actions going forwards show you just an ounce of how I feel, and what I would do to make it up to you.”
I loosed a breath, feeling the weight of his words rest atop me and force me down into my seat. “We have both done many things we are not proud of, Arwyn.”
“That doesn’t excuse my actions.”
I stood from the chair, the legs squeaking against the old stone floor. Arwyn looked disappointed in a way, expecting that this was the moment I walked away from him. But instead of turning my back and moving up to find a room to sleep in, I paced around the table and came to stand before him.
He looked up, doe-wide eyes looking up at me brought a circlet of thick lashes. I laid a hand on the side of his face. Arwyn leaned into it, sighing as if the tender grace of my touch was the one thing he needed in that moment.
“I will not lie and tell you I have not hated you, Arwyn. I can’t even tell you that in this moment I feel any different.”
Arwyn blinked, eyes shimmering with unspent tears. “I know.”
I shook my head, using my body to tell Arwyn that wasn’t what I was looking for as a response.
“But I’ll also not say to you that I have not loved you.
Those two emotions are opposite sides of the same coin.
I have punished myself for loving you so deeply.
And even beneath the hate I harbour, I still know that it would take the smallest of breezes to cast it away.
Because the love… the feelings I have for you are so potent I can’t run from it. ”
“Oh, Hector,” Arwyn gasped, shifting his position so I could force my way between his legs. “Please don’t say that just because you think it’s what I want to hear.”
“Quiet. Let me finish.”
I knelt on the floor between his spread legs, resting my other palm on the other side of his face, whilst Arwyn placed strong arms upon my shoulders.
“We are both two very broken people. Scattered puzzles of the people we deserved to be. The circumstances that befell us made sure we’d never be able to fully be put back together.
But I think…no, I know that those pieces in me finally found a place to slot in when I met you.
That was clear after you won Bahmet and left me.
But now you are here, and I feel a semblance of what it is like to be whole.
A feeling I haven’t experienced in a really long time. ”
I was crying, tears falling over my lips until I tasted the potent salt.
“Arwyn, I forgive you. Maybe hearing those three words is enough for you, or maybe not. Whereas I know nothing will fix the childhood you experienced, one I could never begin to understand. Nor will my forgiveness bring my parents back. But it’s a start, right?
It has to be. There is so much healing that we both deserve, and if you are willing, I want to seek that by your side. ”
Arwyn blinked heavily, his silence a combination of being dumbfounded and because I had also asked him to let me speak. “I don’t deserve you, Hector. Not even a little bit.”
“Tough,” I said, sniffling. I leaned myself into Arwyn until our bodies became one, his arms around me, holding me firm as the roots of a great, ancient tree. “Because that isn’t for you to decide.”
A soft smile worked across Arwyn’s full lips—his mouth glistened with his silent tears. “I love your ability to see through my darkness, and find a light that I never knew existed.”
“Trust me,” I replied, so close to him now that I felt his breath brush against my mouth.
His eyes roamed across my face, just as mine did to him.
“When you’ve been familiar with the dark, it becomes easier to find your way out of it.
A lesson I learned when I met you, regardless if it was real to start with. ”
“It was always real, Hector. All of it.”
I couldn’t stand the minimal distance between us for another second. Twenty-four hours ago I had wanted to drive a knife through the man before me, and now the only thing I wanted from him was this.
“Good,” I admitted, lips close enough to his that our sensitive skin tickled over one another.
“I also love your persistence,” Arwyn admitted through a whisper. “I could continue listing the things if you want.”
I laughed through my tears as Arwyn brushed them away one by one. “And I love you, Arwyn. All of you.”
The moment I said those words it was like the weight of the world faded from my shoulders.
Arwyn parted his mouth to reply, but I stopped any more words from being spoken. I crashed my lips onto his, mouths smashing together, vicious pleasure ruling the seconds that followed.
His surprised gasp chirped in his chest, before melting into a groan of pure, undiluted pleasure. I knew what was to follow, and I wanted it. All of it. Regardless of where we were, what we had to do, and the tasks laid out before us.
In that moment, I wanted Arwyn. And from the way his hands wrapped around my back and forged me close, he wanted me with equal measure. So, for a night, we would take our deepest desires and enjoy them.
Body and soul.
Melded as one.
So mote it be.