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… Kaididcheat 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 roomswayed 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 Toministhe 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 littlegift. 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 weaknessin my muscles. I practically threw myself down the stairs to the tavern’s bottom floor, and what I found sent my world off-kilter.
43
HECTOR
All the tables and chairs had been pushed back to the corners of the pub’s main room, creating enough space for Kai to sit cross-legged on the floor in its centre. There was a peaceful grace about him, with his eyes closed and breath even, except his face was screwed hard with concentration.
