I honour your guidance, seek your protection and ask that you show us back on the path of thy wondrous leading.”
It was the same invoking chant we’d used before the third trial. Except it wasn’t four voices calling to the void, begging our forgotten Queen to aid us. No, it was many. Countless pitches overlapping one another, the volume growing louder and more demanding the closer I got.
I threw myself down the last few stairs until the air was heavy with moisture and mould. The taste of damp brick clung to the back of my throat. Dust strung at my eyes. But I didn’t stop… not until I ended this.
Deep beneath the White Tower, an army of witches stood in rings around a familiar gate, power rolling from their bodies in undulant waves.
“Stop!” I screamed as hard as I could, but to no avail. Not a single witch broke their rhythm, not a single one looked at me. “Stop this, stop!”
I pushed through the room, tearing apart the clasped hands of witches. If they wouldn’t listen to me, I would make them.
My focus was on the gate. Its once proud shape was crumbling, falling away as though the stone was returning to sand. Across its face, the worn rune-marks spluttered with light, trying to resist the call of the witches’ power but failing at it.
They were not closing the gate, nor opening it.
They were destroying it.
Hands grasped at me. I fought against them, using every ounce of my ebbing strength to get as close as I could. I’d given up begging them to stop; it was pointless. Instead, I would use tooth and nail to break this ceremony if it killed me.
I drove a fist into a face, broke a nose. My bandages took the brunt of the force, but I still felt the pain. It kept me going, kept my mind sharp.
“Hekate, Goddess of witchcraft, Queen of magic,
I call upon thee to join us.”
I got as close to the gate as I could. There were so many hands on me, bodies falling onto my back until I was forced to the ground. My eyes never once left the gate, knowing who still dwelled beyond it.
“Hector!” I screamed until his name tore my throat to shreds. “Hector, you need to leave!”
Could he hear me? Even if he could, was he still in a position to leave even if he wanted to?
Hector and Kai had agreed that this was how the story would end. Regardless of the success, Hector would be locked within a realm with Bahmet, forever saving witch-kind from the demon’s influence again.
A part of me, the quiet part, couldn’t comprehend that Hector would leave me without saying goodbye. Whereas the louder part, the part that kept me fighting as if I could get close enough to the gate to pull him back to me with my will alone, told me that this had Hector’s command written all over it.
“I honour your guidance, seek your protection and ask that you show us back on the path of thy wondrous leading.”
Chunks of stone began to fall away from the gate, rolling across the floor and coming to stop in heaps. There was nothingI could do but watch. Watch as my world was taken away from me.
I was on my stomach, my hands held behind my back as other witches knelt on me. Someone was apologising, but I couldn’t care enough to see who. Instead, my focus was fixed on one spot only, and that was the middle of the gate.
Soon, it would be no more.
“Hector!” I bellowed, willing the dark body of this cavernous place with my grief and panic. “Come back to me. Come back. Come back… Come. Back.” My lungs ached and I tasted blood in my mouth. It was enough to give me pause, but I still forced out one final plea. “Please.”
“Hekate, Goddess of witchcraft, Queen of magic,
I call upon thee to join us.
I honour your guidance, seek your protection and ask that you show us back on the path of thy wondrous leading.”
The chanting reached a new height, and then broke. Silence reigned. I blinked, making out what had stopped everyone from continuing.
Dust clouded the air, so it was hard to make much out beside the now ruins which had once been the gate. Barely a single brick was left.
But stood in the midst of that cloud was Hector. I couldn’t see much more than his outline, but I knew it was him. I could’ve painted his form with my eyes closed, even with my hands bandaged and fingers ruined.
Relief burst inside of me, giving me the energy I needed to break free of the witch’s hold. I clawed at the ground, pulling myself to standing and stumbling over to where Hector was.
