“Bahmet was the demon that placed the curse upon him, Hector.” Arwyn’s thumb traced circles on the back of my clammy hand. “No mortal witch can help my father. He has tried, many times over.”
“If Bahmet is the reason for his suffering, why spend his life hunting witches?”
“Because it was a witch who made a deal with Bahmet that cursed my father. I don’t know who or when, but I do know my father is old. Far older than I even thought he was before. He wanted me to win the last trials so I could take Bahmet, use it to lift the curse and see all witches exposed and burned.”
I swallowed hard, finding another question coming to mind. “If you had not met me, would you have gone through with his wishes?”
Arwyn’s expression hardened. “Yes, I think so. I hate to say it, but I promised you the truth and nothing but.”
“I admire your honesty, no matter how terrible it sounds.”
Arwyn winced. “I’m not proud to admit it. But it’s true, and I won’t waste another breath lying to you, Hector. Not ever. Too many deceptions have left my mouth, so many illusions casted that even I forget where lies meet the truth. But I swear that not a single other willeverbe used against you.”
I withdrew my hand, to Arwyn’s obvious dismay. Distance was the opposite of what I wanted from him in that moment, and yet my body told me to place my arms beneath the table and out of reach. Even though I felt his grip tingle across my skin, his heartbeat still tickling like a phantom ache across my palm.
“I’m sorry, Hector. For everything. I know that my words may not strike with the power you deserve, but I hope my actions going forwards show you just an ounce of how I feel, and what I would do to make it up to you.”
I loosed a breath, feeling the weight of his words rest atop me and force me down into my seat. “We have both done many things we are not proud of, Arwyn.”
“That doesn’t excuse my actions.”
I stood from the chair, the legs squeaking against the old stone floor. Arwyn looked disappointed in a way, expecting that this was the moment I walked away from him. But instead of turning my back and moving up to find a room to sleep in, I paced around the table and came to stand before him.
He looked up, doe-wide eyes looking up at me brought a circlet of thick lashes. I laid a hand on the side of his face. Arwyn leaned into it, sighing as if the tender grace of my touch was the one thing he needed in that moment.
“I will not lie and tell you I have not hated you, Arwyn. I can’t even tell you that in this moment I feel any different.”
Arwyn blinked, eyes shimmering with unspent tears. “I know.”
I shook my head, using my body to tell Arwyn that wasn’t what I was looking for as a response. “But I’ll also not say to you that I have not loved you. Those two emotions are opposite sides of the same coin. I have punished myself for loving you so deeply. And even beneath the hate I harbour, I still know that it would take the smallest of breezes to cast it away. Because the love… the feelings I have for you are so potent I can’t run from it.”
“Oh, Hector,” Arwyn gasped, shifting his position so I could force my way between his legs. “Please don’t say that just because you think it’s what I want to hear.”
“Quiet. Let me finish.”
I knelt on the floor between his spread legs, resting my other palm on the other side of his face, whilst Arwyn placed strong arms upon my shoulders.
“We are both two very broken people. Scattered puzzles of the people we deserved to be. The circumstances that befell us made sure we’d never be able to fully be put back together. But I think…no, Iknowthat those pieces in me finally found a place to slot in when I met you. That was clear after you won Bahmet and left me. But now you are here, and I feel a semblance of what it is like to be whole. A feeling I haven’t experienced in a really long time.”
I was crying, tears falling over my lips until I tasted the potent salt.
“Arwyn, I forgive you. Maybe hearing those three words is enough for you, or maybe not. Whereas I know nothing will fix the childhood you experienced, one I could never begin to understand. Nor will my forgiveness bring my parents back. But it’s a start, right? It has to be. There is so much healing that we both deserve, and if you are willing, I want to seek that by your side.”
Arwyn blinked heavily, his silence a combination of being dumbfounded and because I had also asked him to let me speak. “I don’t deserve you, Hector. Not even a little bit.”
“Tough,” I said, sniffling. I leaned myself into Arwyn until our bodies became one, his arms around me, holding me firm as the roots of a great, ancient tree. “Because that isn’t for you to decide.”
A soft smile worked across Arwyn’s full lips—his mouth glistened with his silent tears. “I love your ability to see through my darkness, and find a light that I never knew existed.”
“Trust me,” I replied, so close to him now that I felt his breath brush against my mouth. His eyes roamed across my face, just as mine did to him. “When you’ve been familiar with the dark, it becomes easier to find your way out of it. A lesson I learned when I met you, regardless if it was real to start with.”
“It was always real, Hector. All of it.”
I couldn’t stand the minimal distance between us for another second. Twenty-four hours ago I had wanted to drive a knife through the man before me, and now the only thing I wanted from him was this.
“Good,” I admitted, lips close enough to his that our sensitive skin tickled over one another.
“I also love your persistence,” Arwyn admitted through a whisper. “I could continue listing the things if you want.”
