Page 102 of The Witch and His Crow
Or at least that was what I thought, until I realised the Dreading hadn’t even begun.
‘Hector.’
My name rang out from the darkness, a lisped hiss that was somehow both comforting and horrifying. I blinked away the wall of black around me, attempting to make out something—anything. All I was aware of was the physical press of a floor beneath me, although I couldn’t see it. One second I’d been falling, and the next I was standing firm. The transition between both was impossible to discern.
‘Hector. I sense you.’
I knelt, feeling unbalanced without my sight. But my fingers reached beneath me and found the press of cold stone. I used my hands to map out what it was. Some sort of circular podium surrounded by damp, dewy…grass. Yes, grass. I plucked a strand, brought it to my nose and inhaled deeply. The aroma of fresh earth was welcoming in such a haunting place.
‘Hector. I swear on everything, if you don’t answer me I’ll pluck your eyes straight out of your skull.’
‘Caym? I spoke to the dark, aware that presence was actually in my mind. It had been so long without my familiar, I hardly recognised him.
Relief unravelled in my body like a spool of thread. Except the emotion didn’t belong to me. It was Caym. I held onto his presence, fisting it as though it was a tangible thing which couldn’t be ripped away from me again.
‘I can’t see you,’ I spoke to the dark, waiting to hear the flap on his wings, the pinching kiss of his talons grasping my shoulder as they always had.
‘I’m getting you out of here,’ Caym said with urgency, ‘Your mother made me promise to look after you, and I will not make a mockery of that and let you risk yourself.’
Caym was offering the same escape Arwyn had begged me to consider. My answer was still the same. ‘No, Caym.’
‘It isn’t up for discussion.’ Caym was closer than before. I sensed his proximity as he cut through dark skies, searching for me like a point of light amongst the cloak of shadow. ‘You do not know what you’re up against. There is power that even I cannot protect you against. This is the chance to go. To leave this behind and let others deal with the mess that is surely going to occur.’
‘Demons,’ I spoke the word to the dark, hearing distant noise that made my skin crawl. The slithering of bodies across the ground, the skittering of creatures and the deep breathing of monsters I’d seen only hints of. ‘That’s what you mean by danger, isn’t it?’
I waited for Caym to tell me I was wrong. He didn’t. ‘This isn’t the time to discuss such matters.’
‘There is never a good time to discuss the reality of monsters,’ I shouted to the dark. ‘Mother knew, didn’t she? Mother made you protect me, not from witches, but from what they were hiding. What is this, some secret way to lead lambs to slaughter?’
‘Not slaughter,’ Caym replied, voice dripping with regret.
‘Then what?’
‘Sacrifice and sustenance. But mainly, for freedom.’
Those words pierced through me. ‘Freedom?’
Caym’s voice came louder. It was urgent and demanding, just as I heard his wings cut through the still wind. ‘I’ve found you. It’s time to go.’
When I refused Caym, it wasn’t by shouting the singular word. My Gift rose, rippled out of my body and cast anything near me away, Caym included. His talons had just reached outfor me, ready to keep me hidden in these strange shadows. But I battered him away with my Gift, sending his black-feathered body tumbling away. ‘I’m not leaving this until I’m the victor. Until I’m the next Grand High.’
‘No no, Hector. That was precisely what your mother was preventing you from doing.’
I swallowed down the rush of sickness, hating the truth of what I was to reply. ‘Well she’s dead, and sadly unable to give me this warning herself.’
‘You don’t know who you’re up against, Hector.’
‘Exactly,’ I said, gathering control of my familiar as I previously promised Caym to never do. What came next was a command he couldn’t refuse. Because no matter what my familiar promised my mother, he was mine. He belonged to me. ‘Stay hidden until I need you.’
‘Hector, please. This will only end in ruin.’
I faced the dark, just as it began to peel away. I looked up, watching a shape move out of sight of the moon. It was like Caym, except a cloud of crows… no, demons. This was an eclipse, but unnatural and wrong. Because as the flock of demons dissipated, it was to find a sky bathed in a crimson wash.
‘You’re right. It will.’But not in the sense you think.
As the red light shone over the world, it revealed what else had been hiding in the shadows. I did, in fact, stand on a podium of stone surrounded by grass. Directly before me was a structure of wood and stone—a pavilion. In the distance, a towering wall of foliage rose. It wrapped around the entire space, thorn covered vines and shrubbery that reached skyward, blocking everything behind it.
We were trapped in a clearing, with no way out.
