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, ifthat 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.
I fell to my knees. The world stilled. I gazed up at Arwyn’s charred corpse, no longer able to make out any distinguishing features. The fire continued to blaze until his remains peeled away in ash… until he was nothing but ruin.
“Hector,” Romy screamed for me, but I didn’t have it in me to look.
I couldn’t take my eyes from Arwyn’s corpse, as if any second the illusion would drop, and he would come back to tell me everything was alright.
But it wasn’t alright. Nothing about this was.
“Hector—help.”
I flinched as the third pyre suddenly blazed hot with fire beside Arwyn’s place of death. My hand lifted over my tear-filled eyes, shielding the light until I saw the person strapped inside the new fire.
Verena cocked her head back against the stake and screamed to the darkened sky. Her agony was a song to my soul, not pleasant nor enjoyable, but damning. I spun back, the world slow around me, my heart beating hard in my ears.
What had just happened?
Romy and Kai faced off a thinner crowd of undead. They clawed out of my sinkhole, pawing at the earth as they fought to get themselves free. One of them lay on the ground… actually dead. But beside it was a charred piece of earth.
I tried to move, but my body couldn’t respond. Perhaps it just didn’t want to.
I watched as a zombie clawed for Kai’s leg. His eyes flashed bright, the wind screeched as Kai commanded it, and then he too was swallowed by fire. Romy tried to reach for him, but it was pointless. In a blast of heat, Kai was gone, and the fourth pyre exploded in flame.
One by one, we were failing.
One by one, Bahmet was winning.
The demon was pulling the strings, forcing us to use old magic and thus fail the challenge.
Only Romy was left.
“Don’t. Use.It.” I tried but every word came out harsh, as if the hands of grief around my throat grew tighter and tighter. “It’s what… Bahmet wants. You can’t give in.”
There was only so much Romy’s fists and booted kicks could achieve. In the end, the dead clambered over her. Our gazes fixed together, a grimace fixed across her expression.
It was the look of a woman who wouldn’t go down without taking a few with her.
Peace…I guess that was what I could call it. It flooded over Romy just before her eyes flashed with the use of magic. The earth shuddered, a new crack forming out from beneath her splayed hand.
The four bodies atop her were thrust backwards as demonic fire flooded over her skin. Romy closed her glowing eyes, and then she was taken too. Just like Arwyn, Verena and Kai. Stolen away by Bahmet, transported onto a pyre and set ablaze.
I turned away, gagging on a sob, to find the fifth pyre bright with ruby flames. The night sang with the symphony of my friends as they burned, and the silence of the man I loved.
Just like that, they were all gone.
And I was alone.
“Not alone, my friend.”Emon coiled tighter, attempting to offer me some form of comfort. “For I am here.”
I looked down, catching the reflection of fire as it glinted off of Emon’s scales. The demon looked up at me.
