Chapter 18 River of Red #2
The vision of one day being disowned feels too real, like fate announcing itself before suddenly crashing into me.
Screaming so loud the ground shakes beneath Hekate and I, the river stills, but even so, it does not release me from its grips.
I try but cannot look away. It is not done with me yet.
The reflection I gaze down at now is no longer my own.
My smile turns wicked and vengeful, far from the innocent celestial witch I am here today.
Black horns protrude from my head as snakes slither and crawl around my shoulders as if they too are a part of me.
The water darkens before my eyes, bubbling and steaming as it turns to the crimson color of fresh blood. Hekate gasps beside me but I am frozen in place, unable to blink or breathe or force myself to look away. She roughly grips me by the shoulders and screams my name.
“Look away, Nyx. Please look away!”
Her breathing is labored and panicked as she pushes herself off the ground, still sobbing and watching the red river flow and ripple in front of us.
The crimson fades as darkness swirls in, and the water rages angrily as it becomes blacker than the night and blacker than my soul is destined to become.
I cannot breathe as I collapse to the ground, my knees trembling too hard to hold myself up.
A knot of dread coils in my stomach and I gasp for air as warmth trickles down my face.
The once pure white ground is ruined and stained red from the river, stained like my hands will surely someday be.
I knew I never belonged here. I felt it the day of my death as I transformed into a celestial and have felt it every day since.
There is something devouring any light I have within me, suckling away at anything good I have left.
A thing more dark and evil than I have ever felt lurks within, just waiting for the perfect moment to rear its head and strike.
Hekate, still struggling to command the elements with her magic, at last waves her hands and with a blast of her glowing blue magic, the forest and river disappear.
My tears continue to fall. The silvery moon casts a brightness across the dark sky that feels wrong, as if the cosmos are smiling down at me and taunting me for facing my haunting, bleak future.
The twinkling stars remind me how broken and dark my future will be, how lost I will become buried within darkness.
Even as Hekate grips my shoulders and teleports us back to my bedroom, the sobs still rack my fatigued body.
She tucks me into bed and curls up next to me while I stare off into space. I feel nothing and everything all at once. If that is to be my fate, then there is no escaping it. Fate does not lie. The celestial prophecies do not lie. Life as I knew it is over.
Hekate presses her lips to my forehead and runs her fingers through my tear-soaked hair. “What did the river show you, my love? It matters not. I will protect you with my life.” Her gentle whispered words bring the sobs boiling back to the surface, but I force them down deep.
“I feel it, Hekate. I can feel the darkness within me already. I always have,” I croak, my voice hoarse from the crying and the blood curdling screams. “There is nothing you or anyone else can do to stop it. I will only disappoint you if you believe there is hope for my soul…or hope for us. Something dark is coming. It is here already.”
I cannot face her as I admit the truth. I turn away, knowing I must move on from the one I love, the one who deserves love more than anyone. I must accept that I have lost her already, and that in the end, I will only hurt her.
“Please leave. I no longer want you to teach me magic. I have no interest in being a witch or a celestial. I would like to disappear and never return.” Tears glide down my cheeks, but I am numb.
I ignore them, pretending they are not real, that none of this is real.
She appears in front of me, kneeling and kissing them away.
Her eyes lack their usual luster and radiance. They are red-rimmed, dull and hopeless. She feels it, too, the truth in my words, that there is no hope left for me. She will never admit it out loud. She will pretend until pretending is no longer possible. I am tired of pretending.
“I don’t care what darkness may come or what may try to corrupt your soul. I will fight for you until the day I die. I love you, Nyx. I am never leaving your side.” Her bottom lip trembles and the air tastes of her tears, the salty aroma making my own vision blur watching her break in front of me.
I do not wipe her tears away. Gods do I want to hold her and kiss her until my head spins and my heart no longer aches and I forget everything that happened today. I let her cry alone instead. I let her heart shatter like glass because I have to. It is the only way this can end.
She must learn that loving me is as painful as every slice and gash from the glass pieces she will now have to force back together.
“I do not love you and I never will.” My voice is flat and emotionless as I hold myself together, staring at her blankly.
It kills me to lie. To hold in the truth and pretend I am not dying on the inside.
“Just… let me go, Hekate. Find someone who cares and live a happy life without me. I will do the same.”
The ice around my heart that I once let shatter for her wraps around the now lifeless thing within my chest once more.
Every piece of my soul untethers and shreds to pieces as I attempt to rip the part of me that cares for her out of my body.
As I let her go, darkness clings to me tighter, the shadows smothering out my light and wrapping around my mind. I let it. Without her, I am nothing.
She wipes at the silvery streaks on her cheeks as she stands and shakes her head, her eyes full of disbelief.
“You’re lying. We are meant for each other.
We knew it the day we first laid eyes on each other.
Our love was written in the stars, Nyx. There is no escaping fate.
” Her voice is no longer gentle and sweet, it is laced with a rage I have never seen from her before.
Good. I need her to be angry. I want her to hate me. To despise me and want nothing more than to end me to keep our realms from any suffering or chaos I may cause in the future.
Throwing the thick, suffocating covers off me, I sit up, laughing wildly.
“Our love was not written in the stars, Hekate! Our love was a lie. Not a moment of it was real. You just wanted it so badly you convinced yourself we were perfect. I wish I had never met you. The darkness within me cannot be fixed or contained no matter how badly you want to believe it can be. Neither you nor the gods can save me. My fate is sealed. There is no hope for me, Hekate. Leave,” I spit the words at her like venom, letting it permeate the air with my false hatred.
She is hopeless. Her shoulders sag and her eyes darken and even the aura around her is faded and weak.
She is giving up. As she glances at the door, she hesitates briefly before turning to leave.
A part of me crumbles as I watch her take one step and then another away from me, a part of me that I fear might never be repaired.
I feel the loss of her already, the emptiness in my soul that slams into me and leaves me numb.
I will never forgive myself for hurting her.
I will never heal from letting her leave.
The door creaks open and she doesn’t face me as she speaks. “I will never give up on you, Nyx. Even if your darkness reigns down upon the entire world, there will always be hope in my heart. One day I will save you.”
The moment the door closes and I am alone, I cover my mouth with my trembling hands to stifle the sound of the sobs that rack my body.
I cannot imagine facing this darkness alone, but I know pushing her away was for the best. My limbs shake and my rib cage burns as tears force their way out.
Once my body relaxes into the heaviness of despair and the well of tears within is dry, numbness takes over completely.
I had to let her go. I must let everyone go.
My future is darker than I ever imagined, and I do not want to drag anyone down this dark path with me.
The warning written in that grimoire was right, the grimoire I saw myself with in that terrifying vision.
I should have never opened that door to darkness.
I only wanted to peek inside, to get a glimpse of the power I might learn to wield, the power that surges through my veins.
Now I fear I might need that dark power to fight whatever is coming for me.
My feet hit the cold, wooden floor as I make my way to my dresser and pull out the grimoire of the dead from the top drawer.
Taking a deep breath, I run my fingertips across the material, tracing the stars and the moon and the large owl imprinted on the leather cover.
I never told Hekate what I had done, how I had stolen the book from the arsenal of forbidden items in the weapons room, but it called to me.
It whispered my name each time I passed by, and I believed it was meant to be mine.
She never would have agreed to letting me steal it.
She would have feared what the punishment would have been for me. ”
I sit on the floor and place the grimoire in front of me.
I should not open it. I should burn it or tear it apart or toss it from this realm and into any other, but I cannot help but feel like things are playing out exactly how they are meant to.
Maybe it is the darkness playing tricks on me.
Maybe my mind is too far gone to see how catastrophic this might be.
But I cannot let it win. While I can still fight it, I must try.
Closing my eyes and praying to the gods to save me, I slowly open the book.
With a quick flick of my wrist, the black candles on my alter and dresser flash to life.
I must train my mind to fight against this darkness that is coming for me.
I can win. There is a small part of me that believes there may be hope, but this is a battle I must fight on my own.
I will become darker. Crueler. More wicked and vile than it can be prepared for, and only then will I turn it to nothing.
I am Nyx. I am night and starlight and darkness entwined, and this truth is what will keep the shadows from suffocating me.
Darkness cannot have me. Not if I become the darkness instead.