Chapter 42 Hector
HECTOR
“Ican’t do this anymore.” Frustration boiled over within me, heating my skin a thousand degrees hotter than possible. “And yet, at the same time, I can’t leave him. It’s not going to happen, and don’t try and convince me otherwise.”
A firm hand settled on my shoulder, nails pinching through my sweat-slick top. “It’s been almost three days and you haven’t moved from his side. No one is going to blame you for taking a little break. Hell, if Arwyn was conscious he’d scorn you for torturing yourself like this.”
I resisted her attempts because it was the only thing I could do with the little control I had left.
Leaning back in the armchair I’d pushed beside Arwyn’s bed, I drew back and fixed my exhausted eyes on her. “If that’s the case Arwyn can fucking wake up and tell me that himself, can’t he?”
Romy barely flinched at the bite in my tone. “No good is going to come from this. Not for Arwyn, and not for you. I don’t have another hour’s worth of patience either, Hector. I’m not leaving this room until you leave it first. Got it?”
“What do you suggest I do then?” I asked.
Romy was right. I needed a new focus. Something else that stopped me sitting beside Arwyn’s too-still body whilst I studied his mangled hands.
“Sleep. And I’m not talking about the few minutes you get here and there. I’m saying sleep, as in get some rest in a proper bed and don’t wake up until you’ve caught up on all the hours you’ve missed. And if that’s too hard for you, at least eat something substantial.”
Her eyes drifted to the number of plates of rotting food left on the floor beside me.
I had no appetite, but that didn’t stop Romy and Kai from trying to get me to eat something.
How could I explain to them that I didn’t feel worthy of putting food in my mouth, when Arwyn hadn’t eaten in three days either.
I’d only managed to get spoonfuls of water in his mouth every now and then, just to make sure his body didn’t entirely shut down.
“I’m not—”
“Please,” Romy said, taking careful steps towards the bed as if I was a wild wolf protecting their young.
“Don’t finish that. Of course you are hungry, exhausted…
in more ways than one. Hector, please just let me take over, just for a little while.
I promise the second there is any change in Arwyn I will come and tell you… ”
“I can’t, Romy.”
“Hector, you can,” she snapped. “And you bloody will, at that. I’m serious. For anything, I need a focus too. I need something to do other than sitting downstairs and worrying about two of the closest people in my life.”
It hit me then and there just how selfish I’d been. Romy’s life had been turned upside down during The Confessing, and I’d barely spoken more than a few words to her since.
“I’ve been sat around contemplating everything, you know. Maybe I need a break from my own mind, and looking after my cousin…” Romy’s emphasis on the title didn’t go amiss. “…is going to at least make me feel like I’m helping in some way.”
Remorse reared its ugly head once again.
After the events during The Confessing, I had not managed a single conversation that didn’t relate to Arwyn, his broken and bent fingers, or how he was slowly fading away from me.
Kai had barely shown his face, strategically staying away from me no doubt.
I knew there was something I had to speak with him about, but I wouldn’t dare spark that conversation until Arwyn opened his eyes.
It was a promise I’d made to myself.
“How are you feeling?” I asked, the question honest and yet it felt like I had to force it out through a mouth full of sharp stones. “About everything.”
“Confused,” Romy said. “Angry… more than angry actually. Worried. Worried that my… Verena is out there, no doubt with Tomin, suffering whatever fate she has put herself in line with.”
“Tomin isn’t going to hurt her,” I said, confident in the matter. “Remember, he needs a witch to win.”
It was one of the most important confessions that had come out of the last trial. Tomin Hopkin couldn’t win the Witch Trials himself, because he wasn’t a witch. He needed Verena… someone he could control with fear, someone who would do anything he wanted to save those she loved.
Although I couldn’t believe Verena was going to be controlled by him anymore, not now that her truth was laid upon the table.
We’d all become pawns in a game. Whereas Romy was the queen. One wrong move, and this was over. But if we played the right move…
“I shouldn’t care about her,” Romy admitted, snatching me out of my thoughts. “But I can’t help it. I do.”
I reached up and laid my hand atop hers where it rested on my shoulder. “Of course you do. No one would blame you for feeling a type of way about Verena. Especially not after what you’ve found out.”
Even I couldn’t call her by her title. Your mother.
“On top of finding out my mother is alive, I also discover that this hothead is my cousin.” Romy gestured down to Arwyn’s limp form.
“Kai is only alive because he is using the part of Bahmet you sacrificed for him, to hold him together like a puppet with thread, and not only that… Kai did cheat on me, even if he was manipulated to do so.” Romy took a deep breath in, replacing all the air she’d just expelled listing off all the reasons the last trial could’ve ruined her.
“Basically, I have enough reasons to justify my ripping Tomin to shreds, banishing that goat-headed fucker back to the pits of hell, and resurrecting Jonathan just to kill him all over again.”
“You don’t want for much then,” I said, attempting some sarcasm.
Romy sniffled, and yet not a single tear was allowed to drop. “Exactly. So, it also proves that I need some time doing something other than thinking about that all. Be a good friend, and let me sit with Arwyn. Go and do something other than wallowing in your worries, and let me take them over.”
“You drive a hard bargain,” I said. Whereas my body was refusing to move, my mind was convincing it to just do as Romy asked. After all, she was right. My sitting there wasn’t going to bring Arwyn back.
“Trust me, Hector. You have no idea the lengths I would go to kick you out of this room.”
I pushed myself to standing, listening to the bones in my knees click from the lack of use over the past few days. The room swayed slightly. Thank Hekate for Romy, who steadied me with her arm, otherwise I would’ve fallen straight back down.
“He needs a doctor,” I said, turning my head away from Arwyn’s unmoving form. “Arwyn needs to get out of these games and get real help.”
“I know. And I may not have my Gift anymore, but I at least know some information about bones and healing.” Romy took my seat, tucking it closer to the bed so she could rest the back of her hand on Arwyn’s head.
“He has a temperature which suggests a potential infection. Have you been giving him the concoction we made… silly question, of course you have been.”
Everything we’d attempted to help Arwyn heal had not worked. No rune-mark painted on his skin sped up the process, the salves Kai had made from herbs and other ingredients available to us in this hellscape did not do the job. Old magic was useless.
I couldn’t help but think that this had Bahmet’s doing written all over it.
In a way, I knew that if Arwyn was suffering, so was Tomin. Verena too, although that didn’t fill me with happiness.
Bahmet had worn us all down. And there was still one more trial to go. I couldn’t help but sense that the clock of doom was ticking ever closer, and time was running out.
“If Arwyn dies here, he is gone forever. I can’t let that happen.” I paced the room. I should’ve left, but I just couldn’t get myself towards the door yet. “Bahmet will not take another person from me. I refuse it.”
Romy’s sole focus was on Arwyn’s hands now, checking over the viciously red wounds, and the awkward angles every one of his fingers was in. “Bahmet isn’t going to want to rush this. He’ll be enjoying every second of this fallout.”
“That won’t heal Arwyn, though. It won’t stop Bahmet playing for the power inside of Kai. The Witch Trials need to end. A victor needs to be named. If Tomin can’t win, it will be one of us.”
“Unless Tomin is the only option,” Romy said, shooting her gaze at me.
“Pardon?”
“Do you think I didn’t hear what Bahmet said during the trial?
” She sat upright, gently resting Arwyn’s hands back on his waist before turning to face me in the chair.
“Oh, come on, Hector. I can beat a man bloody and use my ears. Tomin is cursed to be immortal. He can’t die.
He also can’t win. If he is the only option for Bahmet to choose as his victor, they’ll come to a stalemate. ”
For the first time in three days, the cogs in my mind began to turn. “And if Tomin is the last option, and Bahmet can’t pick his victor…”
“Theoretically, they’ll both be stuck in a never-ending loop. Tomin’s suffering, Bahmet’s failure. Over and over. That’s what Bahmet suggested, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. It was.” My heart fluttered, a cold pain radiating across my chest. “You’ve been talking to Kai, haven’t you?”
“What else was I supposed to do? Wallow in my self-pity? Ha, I don’t think that was ever a personality trait I had, friend.”
My hands shook violently, my entire body feeling alive with energy. If Romy wanted me to go and sleep, she must’ve known that what she was saying would’ve made that impossible.
“And what else have you and Kai been discussing?” I asked.
Romy shrugged. “It’s less what we’ve been discussing, and more of what Kai has been trying… with your little gift. Now he actually knows what he is doing with it… he is getting better. Kai has always been an overachiever.”
I was moving for the door before Romy had finished. My legs walked without care for the tingling in my feet, or the weakness in my muscles. I practically threw myself down the stairs to the tavern’s bottom floor, and what I found sent my world off-kilter.