Chapter 25 #2
I hesitate because I don’t want to think. I don’t want to have knowledge of what happened back then because I don’t want to have to relive killing Torin’s people. I already have enough guilt. Instead, I just offer Aemon a smirk and look over at the mansion.
Is this where they’re keeping Conquest? Is there something inside I can learn from?
I head for the front door, ignoring the laugh that comes out of the god. Just as I’m reaching for the door, it swings open and Aemon waves me in, appearing in front of me. I guess when the world isn’t real you can teleport… at least, I hope he can’t in real life.
“Your hourglass is breaking. Keep at it and you’re going to kill your horse.
And you know what waits for you after that?
Nothing but death. The stains that mark your body will amplify whether you use your magic or not because you are made of magic.
It will eat away at your body,” he says as I look down and see that the sand is pouring from the hourglass.
Pain hits me hard, making my body feel like it’s burning.
I try to grab the sand that’s running out but quickly discover that I can’t even use my right arm.
The most I can do is twitch my fingers, which only respond seconds later than my request. I see a reflection of myself in the glass in the door and realize that the stain is racing up my neck before my legs give out.
I fall into the pile of sand, desperate to hold on to it, but I can’t move my limbs.
There’s so much sand that I’m sinking into it.
Aemon sneers, looming over me.
“You know the only way to survive is to come to me. You know I’m the only one who can stop this,” he says. Kit whines and tucks herself against me while the god stands over me.
“I can free you, Riley. I can save you from this fate. Or is your only wish to die again and again? Do you want to force the god you love so dearly to watch you deteriorate before his very eyes? What do you hope to gain by suffering like this? Join me. We will do great things together.”
“I’ve already destroyed his world; what else do you want from me?” I ask.
“I want you to stop being a pain in my ass,” he growls as he slams that cane down inches from my face. He kneels down and grabs me by my hair to yank my head up. I want to fight against him, but I can’t even control my movements.
“I would rather die than be a part of whatever this bullshit is,” I snarl.
“Good, because your time is ticking. The moment the last grain of sand drops from this hourglass, your miserable life will be snuffed out and you will be forced to start again. And this time, I will find you first.”
I glance down at the hourglass with only a few grains of sand left and urge myself to grab it… to cover the crack, to refuse to let him take this from me. “Give him back,” I whisper.
“Give him back? Sure, I’ll give your horse back if you return to me.”
“Give him back!” I roar.
Aemon uses his cane to smack my hand away and brings the cane up, driving it down to shatter what’s left of the hourglass, and I can do nothing to protect it.
Panic swells inside of me, and the white Death magic that seems to grow day by day tears through me. It swirls around me, wrapping around the hourglass and rushing down my body before forcing the god to stumble back.
He slams his cane on the ground, and dark vines shoot up out of the floor while a black mist fills the air. I suddenly feel like I can’t even breathe, like whatever the vines are releasing is filling my lungs with tiny cuts that make each breath painful.
“You are weak. You are a human playing with godlike powers. Without your horse, you are nothing. I’ve made sure to destroy that connection with your horse. You’re never getting it back, no matter how hard you try,” he says gleefully.
I force my hand out, trying to grasp the sand while he laughs.
I grit my teeth, fighting against everything weighing my body down as I growl, “Before I die, I will make sure that I drag you down with me.” I grab the vine reaching for me with my other hand.
I’d only planned to push it away, but the instant my hand wraps around it, the white mist that surrounds my magic shoots up it, and the vine becomes petrified, death immediately consuming it.
Aemon’s face twitches as he watches me struggle to my hands and knees.
It feels like a weight is pressing down on me, like my limbs are being ripped apart, but all I can think about is destroying this man.
A second vine dies with ease while my magic swirls around me, and I can’t help but wonder what would happen if I touched him with it.
If I could lunge forward, maybe I could reach him.
“Are you done? Watching you pitifully wallow around on the ground is becoming less entertaining by the second,” he says before rushing forward with speed I can’t even track.
He grabs me by the throat and slams me against the wall, his nails digging into my flesh.
Aemon’s other hand wraps around my fist that’s holding the sand and his fingers tighten, crushing the bones in my fingers.
I can hear each of them breaking as pain tears through me.
“You are a joke. You once thought you could stop me, and you nearly did, but look at you now, drained of magic until you’re nothing more than a husk. Meanwhile, here I stand, just as powerful… no, even more powerful than before you tried and failed the first time.”
He laughs, thrilled by this while my mind works to process what he’s saying.
“I loved that you left that god to rot in his world for hundreds of years. And how exactly did you convince him to love you after what you did to him? After you sacrificed his people and destroyed all the lives you did, you still failed. You left them all to die because you weren’t strong enough. ”
Aemon’s hand tightens on my neck, and I feel as though he’s going to snap it like he did my hand.
I have to put all of my effort into even lifting my hand.
I want to shove him away, attack him, but I have no strength left in my body while the few remaining grains of sand in the hourglass begin to fall one after another.
My hand lands on his cheek, and his grin fades as I see black rot begin to spread out from beneath my hand.
He snarls and shoves away from me. I feel something grab me, yanking me back while I desperately reach for what’s left of the sand, but before my fingers can wrap around it, I’m pulled away and hit hard on my back.
“Riley, Riley, wake up. Riley,” Torin says as he holds me in his lap, his hand lightly smacking my face a second before Vero dumps a bucket of water on me.
I jerk up, spluttering and gasping, then I grab the hourglass and see that the crack has now reached the top of it.
I squeeze my hand around it, terrified to lose even one more grain of sand now that I know what will happen if I do.
“What happened?” Torin asks.
I’m panting hard while Kit anxiously stares right at me. My breathing is labored like I really was being choked, but my hand isn’t broken, and I can move my limbs. How much sand has already spilled out?
“Riley, what happened?” Torin repeats as he pushes my wet hair off my forehead.
“I… the god called Aemon pulled me into his world. He wanted me to join him. When I refused, he became violent. He attacked me and told me that I’d tried to kill him when I was at full strength and failed, so how do I plan to succeed now that I’m in this state?
” I leave out what he said about how it’ll kill me if all of the sand spills out.
I really don’t want to upset Torin when it might not be anything.
Because Kit has been staring at me, I don’t notice Mickey until he squeezes my hand. “Do you think that’s why there was a two-hundred-year gap where he didn’t continue? How the hell were you planning on killing him?” he asks, sounding thoughtful.
My grip on the hourglass is beginning to hurt, so I loosen my hand, but I can feel the grains of sand between my fingers. It makes me ache because I need this comfort. I can’t lose it.
“We’ll find a way to free your horse,” Torin assures me. “I promise.”
“I need to run back to my world for a little while. I’ll be right back,” I say.
He shakes his head. “I don’t want you to go alone.”
“I’ll go with him,” Mickey offers.
Torin seems uncertain, but he has so much going on that he reluctantly nods and lets us leave. The second I’m through the new Door that leads right into the Magical Interference Unit building, I hurry over to the supply closet and grab some tape to cover the crack on the hourglass.
“What’s going on?” Mickey asks.
“With what?”
“You left out something when you were explaining what happened.”
Mickey and his annoyingly perceptive ass.
“I definitely didn’t,” I say while I wind the tape around the hourglass three times, but just as I cut it, the hourglass becomes so hot that I end up dropping it.
It hits the end of the chain where I watch the tape shrivel up and melt away.
“No, no, no… I need some glue or something.”
“There’s probably something on the glass that will keep you from repairing it,” Mickey says, but he sends Tommy off to find some glue. “Riley, I won’t tell Torin. Now what’s going on?”
“Nothing.”
“Something is.”