was suffocated with the smell of wool.
“Stay there until it’s over,” he ordered.
I heard his palms slam against the wardrobe doors and he whispered a spell of protection.
“Byron!” I gasped.
I heard the bedroom doors burst open.
Chapter Five
Helena
Truly, I didn’t know what I was supposed to do in this terrible past.
Byron sent me here. He must know what would happen. And if Lord Abiron ordered me to stay here…I guess…
I mean, what could I do, anyway?
Damn. Damn it all!
I wished I could go home. I wanted to go back to my safe world, and see Byron safe and sound.
Lord Abiron, my Byron, my beautiful demigod, was brutally attacked by a warlock army. I could hear it all. I could hear the shouts of men ringing through the building, calling him a demon and a rapist and the spawn of hell, accusing him of brutalizing a human girl as they charged him with swords and spears.
It was a wedding, I thought. Everyone agreed to it, and Hulda…was happy to marry him. I really think she was. And now they’re treating him like a criminal.
I wanted to call out but I knew that this was part of my task. To endure this. To bear witness to this betrayal. I didn’t dare to move, breathing the stuffy air, trying my best to block out their cruelties. He was so brave, I thought, to face his death, knowing it was coming thanks to me.
I wondered if Hulda’s fate was the same as mine. If Lord Abiron had also ordered her to stay in a cabinet and hear every word, or if she escaped before that. Or was she killed?
I felt the heat as fire spells were cast, and then I wondered if I would burn here, but ithen t sounded like someone put them out.
I could also hear fighting in the hall, beyond this room, and then outside as well. The whole castle seemed to be in an uproar. Lord Abiron had his own guard who fought back, and I heard bodies thump to the ground now and then, screams dying into gurgles and then silence.
Soon I could smell death.
And I heard Lord Abiron say, “If you split the maps…you will destroy the magical world as we know it.”
“All I know is that we don’t want your demonkind around.”
“I know you think that you’re establishing order, but the safety you seek is an illusion,” Lord Abiron said. “It’s my job to know the worlds, to watch them—to protect them from true harm. You destroy me, and that is gone. You will have nothing but false security. You think you can block out the demons, but evil can come from anywhere. Chaos is not evil, and balance is not good. Etherium has evil in it. It always has, and it always will.”
“That sounds very poetic, I will say, but you slander the Ethereals to claim that they would ever stoop to the murder and violence that demons have unleashed on this world!” I heard a blow and Lord Abiron’s grunt of pain.
Then, his voice struggling to maintain awareness as he said, “No…I plead with you to rethink…oh, but it is no use now…”
I heard him fade away as other commotion swamped the room, the voices several men who sounded exhausted muttering about the wounded and the dead, and that they must hurry and get out of here. I knew that this must be the scene in the Arcana. Byron bleeding from his wounds, dying at their feet, while they made off with their treasure, splitting it apart.
It was hard to fully comprehend that I was witnessing one of the most pivotal moments in magical history, that had influenced the next thousand years and changed all of us.
And in my own world, no one even remembered it. No one talked about the maps, or Lord Abiron and Lady Hulda, or the entire realm of Cyprium and how they had seized the Way of Paths…it was all lost.
Oh, Harris, I can’t wait to tell you that I actually got to witness a mysterious historical battle, you big nerd.
In that moment, I tried to comfort myself by thinking how my brother would be envious that I got a front row seat to some interesting history. How I needed to remember this, and right this wrong. Many hours had passed by now. I probably would need to find a therapist.
Quiet had descended on the castle.
It also seemed like it was getting dark.
I’m probably surrounded by dead bodies now… Is anyone