Chapter 34
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
I listened to the clip of hooves against stone somewhere in the darkness. I couldn’t see the creature, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t sense its closeness. My skin shivered with anticipation, my eyes wide and darting around, although I couldn’t make anything out in the overwhelming dark. I wrapped my arms around my body, wishing for nothing more than to curl into a ball and pretend this wasn’t happening.
Never had I faced the dark with such fear. But I suppose that was because I never really knew what lurked inside it.
Bahmet .
The name itself was violent and disgusting. My body reacted negatively to simply thinking it, but here in the dark, it is as if the name finally made sense. The word encompassed darkness. It was all things terrible and frightening, and yet I didn’t know what it was.
But I knew it was evil. Because no word should incite revulsion without a clear meaning.
Against my better judgement, I found myself calling out to my enemy. ‘Arwyn.’ His name came out as a rasped whisper. ‘Arwyn, can you hear me?’
Say something. Please.
But it wasn’t his voice that replied. It was another. Darker and tempered, as though I could sense the age of the speaker from the tone alone. ‘Hello, again.’
I clamped my lips shut, biting down on them to keep them from opening. If I just kept quiet, I could pretend that I was lost to the shadows for no one to find. And yet the clipping of hooves was gaining, the stench of decay lingering just beyond my nose.
Hot air rushed out, spreading the scent in a cloak around me. Two piercing red eyes flashed inches before me, proving my horrors to be true. The creature stood directly in front of me.
I told myself to be strong. That seeing my enemy gave me the power. But without Caym, it no longer felt safe in the dark. Especially when my intuition told me I was about to face the creature that commanded it.
‘What… are you?’ I asked the dark.
There was more heavy breathing, billowing steam flooding out the head of the beast. All the while, those two animalistic, burning eyes refused to leave me. They didn’t even blink.
‘I, Hector Briar, am the maker of deals. I am shadow. I am power. I am the beast. Do you not recognise me, as I do you?’
I couldn’t even see my hands before my face. Even the darkness felt thick when I moved my body, as if it was a body of water pressing in on me. ‘No, I’m sorry to disappoint, but I don’t recognise you. Turn a light on and maybe a better look will help me answer your question.’
‘You remind me of her,’ the creature said, ignoring my jibe. ‘Strong willed. Powerful… Irritating.’
‘Whoever that is you’re referring to sounds like fun.’
A loud bang silenced me. Although I couldn’t see what made the sound, my imagination filled in the gaps. It was the sound of a hoof smashing into the ground. Fuelled by its disdain, the creature’s darkness swelled around me, latching bands of iron around every limb until I was truly a prisoner to this place.
‘My last vessel served her purpose in the beginning, before she attempted to subdue me. That was her downfall. That was what led to her death. If only she accepted what I offered her, then maybe, Hector Briar, you’d not have been left forever navigating this world alone.’
‘Speak plainly,’ I shouted, straining against my bindings. ‘I’ve never been a fan of riddles.’
The dark growled. A visceral, throaty sound, part beast and part man. ‘You are a smart boy, Hector. You know exactly who I speak of.’
‘No. I. Don’t.’ I struggled against the darkness holding me.
‘Your dearest mother.’ Something sharp drew down the side of my face, like a clawed finger mapping out the details. I tried to cringe away but couldn’t move. ‘Do you truly forget me, after we spent so long together? Nine months I festered beside you and yet you treat me with such animosity.’
At its words, the viper inside me stirred. Waking, like a babe hearing the sound of their parent’s voice.
My thoughts betrayed me. All I knew was whatever the final Trial was rewarding me with, this was certainly not it. I pulled and thrashed, spat and hissed, but still that dreadfully sharp finger moved down the length of my neck, to my clavicle. The only way I could describe the touch was territorial. As if the entity was claiming me.
‘Get off me,’ I hissed, fists balled as the only act of defiance my body allowed. ‘The last man to lay a finger on me died with his tongue stuffed in his throat.
‘I am no man.’
Shivers passed across every inch of my sweat-damp skin. ‘Then what are you?’
‘Say my name,’ the darkness hissed. ‘You know it.’
Blood filled the insides of my cheeks as my lower lips shred beneath my teeth. I refused to answer, knowing that it was exactly what the creature wanted. And for whatever reason, refusing it made me feel like I was grasping onto the last shred of control.
‘Say my name,’ it repeated, fury dripping from its harsh tongue.
‘No!’
My knees cracked against the ground, my arms tugged behind my back. The burning eyes were no longer before me, but I sensed the presence of the creature at my back. Its warm, rotten breath itched against my exposed neck. A long, unnatural hand grasped my shoulder, holding firm. And when it spoke again, it was directly into my ear.
‘Defiant, just like your mother. Undeserving, and yet still I want you. But you will want me too, Hector. I will make you scream my name. Beg for me. They always do in the end. I will make you need me, and then I shall take you.’
All at once the hand released me, followed by the dark bindings. I sagged forwards, breathless from panic rather than physical exertion. My hands materialised, splayed out beside each other, pressed against familiar dark wood flooring. As the darkness peeled back, it revealed a room that I had remembered from many years ago. Before I looked up, I knew where the creature had deposited me.
It was my home. The apartment in Oxford I’d grown up in. The first thing the darkness revealed was the fireplace my mother had hid me within on that fateful night. It was surrounded by the same moss-green tiles I remembered so vividly. The fire poker leaned helplessly up against its side.
As I swept my eyes around the room, it was like a painting suddenly coming to life in colour. The table we ate at was turned over, the contents of plates, food and smashed glass scattered across the floor. A body was slumped over it, hand reaching out towards the fireplace as though it longed to touch something. It took me a moment to realise who the man was, with his glassy eyes and pale skin, familiar yet distant.
‘Daddy?’ I gasped, almost unable to get the word out.
His neck was split with a clean, precise line. Blood seeped out the wound, soaking his once white shirt, turning it a rusty black colour. In my mind, I knew this wasn’t real. But my heart couldn’t discern reality from illusion. It ached with pain, as though I’d stepped back in time again and planted myself in the middle of my worst nightmare.
My father was dead. I tried to call for him again, but the only response was silence.
I stood on shaking legs, all my bravado gone. Before I swept my eyes over the room, I knew what I’d find. There was another body. More death.
Heather Briar, the last Grand High, my mother, was laid almost peacefully across the floor. Her arms were straight beside her, the blue-flower dress she wore on that night was ridden up, exposing her stomach.
Vomit burned at the back of my throat. I doubled over, spilling the little contents of my stomach out across the floor. It smashed against my boots, proving that whatever this conjuration was, it was tangible and reactive. I didn’t even bother to clean my mouth of the sick before I ran to her side.
‘I’m here, mummy. I’m here!’ I sobbed over her, searching for any signs of life. But everything was silent. Her skin was ice cold to the touch, almost hard like stone. Her eyes stared longingly at the ceiling, as a single tear escaped down her cheek, frozen like a jewel of time.
She was dead too. There was no disputing that fact.
The first thing I did was tug the dress down over her knees again. Even in death, she deserved her modesty. I couldn’t stop myself from counting the number of stab wounds across her stomach and chest. In the back of my mind, for every wound I recognised, I heard the thud of the knife. Thud. Thud. Thud. A sound that had haunted me for years after my parents’ murders.
As Caym kept me hidden in the shadows, he couldn’t mute the sound. I’d latched onto it, refusing to ever forget. But as the years went on, and my parents’ voices faded, the sound of the blade being stabbed into my mother had never gone away.
I no longer cared if this was real or not. Not as I dragged her stiff, cold body into my lap. With shaking fingers, I pushed the strands of honey-gold hair out of her face, tucking it neatly behind her ears.
‘How is this my greatest wish?’ I sobbed, speaking to no one and everyone at once. The room was only occupied by the corpses of my parents, and me. But I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, the beast was watching.
Say my name.
The creature was close. It would be listening. So I spoke to it, tongue lashing with vehemence. ‘The Rewarding is meant to show us our greatest desire, and yet you torture me with this.’
Proving my theory that the beast was watching, it replied.
‘Tell me what you desire.’ Was that sadness I heard in its voice? How dare the creature, who took accountability for her death, grieve for her?
‘I don’t know,’ I replied, tears streaming down my face.
I looked towards the corners of the room, where the dull light couldn’t reach, half expecting glowing red eyes to flash in return. But they didn’t. I then glanced towards the fireplace, wondering if, even in this nightmare, Caym was still hiding the heartbroken little boy I had once been.
‘Yes,’ the voice hissed. ‘Yes, you do. I’ve seen into your mind, I’ve seen into your desires. And there is one thing you have wanted so badly, so terribly, since this night that it has shaped the very outline of your life.’
I hung my head over my mother’s body, holding her so close that I longed to imprint her on my very skin. My soul. ‘I’ve already answered you, beast. I want them back.’
‘Lies,’ it replied. ‘You’ve had many a wish, but never that. Not once did you hope for such a thing, when you have been driven by the thirst of vengeance.’
‘Stop,’ I cried out, rocking back and forth, my mother still in my lap. ‘Stop playing games.’
‘Think.’ I sensed the anger in the creature’s voice as though it belonged to me. Maybe it did. Perhaps this creature was the very same beast I’d felt bubbling inside of me all my life. The instinct that warmed when I was faced with a Witch Hunter, and sated when I took their lives.
‘I want my parents…’
‘Wrong again, Hector. If that was the case you would have spent your life searching for a way to get them back. You know, if you looked hard enough, you would have discovered that there was a way. There is a power that can grant such things. But instead you followed the darkness inside of you, and you searched for?—’
The answer came to me, thick and fast. I practically had the word spelled out to me, letter by letter, as if the creature whispered it into my ear. Truth was, it was the beast inside of me that revealed it.
‘Revenge,’ I spat, bubbling with fury, no longer able to control my inner demons.
I felt the darkness release a breath. It was long and tempered, singing with relief. ‘Correct. Your one greatest wish is to kill the soul that took the lives of your parents. So this is what I give you. Your reward. Take it or not, the choice is yours. Choose wisely, Hector Briar.’
The front door my home creaked opened slowly. I heard it then, the slow methodical footsteps of a man walking into the hallway. Father Tomin Hopkin. It was him. Just the knowledge that I was finally going to face the man who killed my parents made me relax, made breathing easier.
The viper in my stomach was no longer waking slowly, but bolt and alert, ready to strike.
I looked down, expecting to see the beautiful, dead face of my mother. But instead, I found an athame in my hand. The one I’d taken from Arwyn. I caught my reflection in the flat face of the bloodied blade. And I was smiling. Smiling, knowing that I was finally going to get the one thing I desired most in the world.
This was the Rewarding. My reward.
Regardless if this was a Trial, real or not, it didn’t matter. Because the blade felt real in my hand. I wondered if Tomin’s blood would be warm when I plunged the athame into his chest over and over, just as he did with my mother.
I studied the dark corridor ahead of me, buzzing with anticipation. Slowly, the darkness parted, allowing the man to stand before me. I registered the bright blue eyes, the head of short brown hair. The alluring face of evil. I sprung forwards and took my reward.
I knew I failed the trial as the thud of the athame drove into Tomin’s chest. I was blinded by rage and desire, not caring for details as I made sure the blade disappeared down to the hilt. My focus was on my target, on making sure I didn’t miss the heart. So it was only when I was satisfied I pierced it, that I looked up into the face of the man who destroyed my life.
The face didn’t belong to Father Tomin.
‘No,’ I breathed as the darkness swelled and the laughter began. ‘No. No. No. No!’
It was Arwyn.
My ears filled with the rushing of blood, but that didn’t stop me from hearing the toll of the bell, signalling the end of the Rewarding. And yet all I cared about was seeing the face of Arwyn, his mouth agape, my name etched into his lips.
I stumbled away from him, hands shaking. And as the conjuration fell away, all I knew for a fact was that the blood dribbling over my knuckles was, in fact, warm.
Very warm. Very real.
Reality slammed into me, as hard and fast as regret. The trial placed me back in the real world, in the centre of the great hall of the castle, Arwyn was knelt before me, athame buried in his heart, my name incapable of leaving his mouth.