Chapter 30 Hector
HECTOR
MOMENTS BEFORE ARWYN BURNED
Icleared the spit and bile from the corners of my mouth, hyper-aware that Verena was watching my every move.
She’d taken a step towards me as I vomited, teetering on the edge of offering help, or watching me suffer.
Romy didn’t notice because her focus was on the now-rousing Kai who fussed away the small demon cat from licking his face relentlessly.
“All good?” Verena asked, brows creased over bruised eyes.
I spat a glob of nasty-tasting saliva onto the ground. “I don’t know, is it?”
She looked at Romy briefly, as if answering the unspoken question that fired through my mind. When she looked back to me, it was with eyes full of pleading.
Her mouth moved, but no words came out. I didn’t need to hear what she said to know what she implied.
Not here.
Two clear words. One obvious plea.
I gritted my teeth, and nodded. Her shoulders relaxed a fraction.
“Kai?” I called out for him, not taking my eyes off the woman before me. “How are those lungs of yours?”
“Aching. You should’ve left me dead,” Kai replied, voice full of gravel. “This existence hurts more than the previous one.”
His familiar purred in response, clearly pleased his new companion hadn’t just suffocated to death.
“Don’t say things like that,” Romy quipped. “How many times have I told you to keep your inhaler on you? Huh?”
“Romy.” Kai’s voice noticeably softened when he spoke to her. “I didn’t exactly have the time to prepare an overnight bag before we were swept into the trials.”
“Fair enough,” Romy replied, brushing a tender thumb over Kai’s dirt-streaked face.
I walked towards them, passing the hesitant Verena who watched on from the sidelines. “I think it’s time to get off the floor before I start thinking you have a kink for being on your back, Kai.”
“Hector, for heaven’s sake,” Romy said.
I shrugged, dodging her fiery gaze. “Oops, my bad! I forgot that being on your back doesn’t actually classify under what a kink is.”
“That’s not what I was referring to, and you know it.”
“Does he ever… shut up?” Kai asked as Romy helped him to his feet.
“Apparently not,” Romy said, eyes narrowing in my direction. “I’d say you should ignore his sarcasm but that only makes it worse.”
“What can I say, I have loose lips.” I took Kai’s free hand, mindful not to step on his familiar who weaved between his legs like this was all some game. “As much as I would love to enjoy every moment of this reunion, it’s really past the time we need to figure a way out of this trial.”
No one refused me. Romy’s mouth twitched as if she was going to say something, but then promptly fell back into silence.
“I’ll take the resounding quiet as agreement,” I said, looking out across the endless expanse of gravestones. I knew we’d moved from one place to the other, but everything still looked exactly the same. It was, all in all, a big head-fuck.
Not to mention the sheer number of secrets that our group of four was tiptoeing around.
“What do you suggest?” Verena spoke up. “Unfortunately, myself and Romy haven’t had much luck before you found us.”
Kai looked her way as if noticing her for the first time. “Verena. You look much better.”
Again, Verena shot her glare towards Romy before replying. “I feel it.”
There would come a time that I’d ask Romy what had happened in the hours she’d been alone with Father Tomin’s personal witch, but now wasn’t it.
Even if I wanted to dive into the details now, I couldn’t.
Because out the corner of my eye, I noticed a flash of bright light. We all turned towards it in tandem.
There, far in the distance, was a speck of glowing red light. My mind decided what it was. “Fire,” I said.
“A clue perhaps?” Romy said, narrowing her attention on the spark. “It’s either linked to the trial, or someone has conjured it with…”
Old magic. “Arwyn’s the only witch out there.”
I thought I was shaking at the concept of Arwyn using old magic, going against one of Bahmet’s rules. But the trembling was not my body, but the ground beneath my feet. I looked down to see the soil jitter and dance around my feet, disturbed by… something.
“Shit-balls,” Kai groaned, “they found us again.”
“They?” Romy snapped. “What do you mean they?”
I didn’t have it in me to answer her.
Instead, I ran. Not away from the hoard of shadows that swept across the graveyard towards the spark of fire, but towards it. A beacon had just been lit, and I was going to follow it.
* * *
Blood thundered through my veins, and my lungs ached with each inhale of dead, cold air. All I could think about was Arwyn. Call it intuition, but I knew that when I reached the fire, I would find him. I couldn’t explain how I knew, I just did. And that was enough to keep me going.
At some point I heard Romy cry out for me.
She was following, as were Verena and Kai.
But my focus was on my goal. Far ahead I could see the wall of undead trampling over the graveyard as if the stones were nothing but daisies to squash.
Stone cracked, and the earth was churned up beneath hundreds of feet.
I pushed every ounce of energy into my limbs, using my arms to propel me forwards, kicking out my legs until I was keeping pace with the wall of undead.
My eyes found the very person I searched for.
Arwyn. He was positioned against a gravestone, his face marred with dried blood.
Just seeing him made my breath clog in my throat, but that didn’t mean I stopped.
I pushed through my constricting lungs and forged ahead, aware of the undead creatures following behind.
Father Tomin should’ve been with him, but there was no one else in sight.
Just my Arwyn, alone in the night as he faced off his impending doom.
I cared for nothing else. Not rules set upon us by a demon, or the threats of what would become of us if we acted against him.
Only him.
The hoard of corpses had yet to notice me. Their focus was pinned on the man that had stolen every possible emotion from me, and claimed it as his own. In the chaos, he looked up and met my eyes.
One small connection was all it took for the old magic to swell in my bones. It was a siren call, promising me salvation if only I reached for it.
The thing was, there was nothing to reach for by the time I got to Arwyn. I was made of old magic. My skin was the crust of the earth, my breath the air that occupied the skies. Fire as hot as the sun boiled beneath my flesh until there was nothing I could do but let it out.
I was a puppet to the power, willingly giving in to its control.
The dead didn’t notice me until it was too late.
I stood before them, my back to the man I loved, a group of allies and possible enemies to my side.
“No!” Arwyn shouted after me. “Hector, stop!”
Too late. It wasn’t me he should be pleading with, but the ancient and endless power occupying my soul.
Magic expelled from every pore in my skin, a force so great it ripped away at Bahmet’s domain, blasting into the poor souls who’d clawed themselves out of graves just to feed on our flesh.
There would be no feast for them.
Fire scorched rotten flesh, bright and brilliant.
The winds drove at them, forcing them to a halt.
And the ground, without thought or guidance, cracked.
A sinkhole opened up beneath their stumbling feet.
A wide, gaping maw of soil and mud that gobbled the undead up.
Gravestones tilted into the crack of earth, like jagged teeth wearing down the corpses until they were pulp.
I did it all for Arwyn.
The last thing Bahmet’s undead army saw was the glowing silver of my eyes.
I was no demon, but I felt like one inside.
Even without Bahmet’s magic, I was formidable.
Driven by need, by emotion. I was an angel, stood with wings of elemental magic at my back, heaven’s judgement crackling around my fingers.
Heat flared behind me so suddenly, it stopped me in my tracks. I spun around, magic still clinging to my subconscious, intuition screaming in my ears that something was still wrong.
Arwyn was utterly and completely bathed in flame. His outstretched arms wreathed in vicious tongues as he stretched out to me. I couldn’t make out his face anymore, but the keening cry that left his mouth almost brought me to my knees.
Almost.
In a blink he was before me, burning alive, but in the next Arwyn was gone, barely a slip of smoke left behind.
Another harsh glare of light brightened the graveyard. It was next to the first fire that I’d spotted from a distance.
“Pyres,” Romy gasped from my side, ash coating her rich skin, wide eyes fixed to the two smouldering stakes to our side. Then she forced out another word, a name that was half a sob, and half a scream. “Arwyn.”
The darkness laughed, taunting me.
I ignored it and continued running. The closer I got to the towering stakes, the more I knew that Romy was right.
Arwyn was bound to the second burning pyre, totally overwhelmed in flames. He continued to scream, his pain and fear satiating the unnatural fire.
How was this happening?
Emon slithered back into my thoughts. “Never trust a trickster, witchling. Bahmet’s lies are complicated.”
Was this the punishment I received from breaking Bahmet’s rules? The demon had forbidden the use of magic. And yet, if that was the case, why did Arwyn burn and not me? I deserved the punishment for breaking the rules…
The symbol for fire glowed star-bright in my mind. I latched onto it, throwing out my hands for Arwyn’s fire, beckoning it towards me. I’d put out flames before, but this time the power refused me. The more I tried to quell them with old magic, the taller the fire became, the harsher… the hungrier.
Arwyn had stopped screaming. He’d stopped moving.
Just like that, he was gone. Dead before my very eyes.