Witch Hunter

Chapter Nine: All That is Left Behind

As if from a nightmare, Aion awoke drenched in sweat and trembling uncontrollably. However, while his mind had turned on, the rest of this body felt reluctant to obey.

Slowly, his senses kicked in one by one.

The first thing he felt was warmth. He was wrapped quite tightly in what he assumed were blankets, their soft embrace a welcome change from the coarse, rugged earth of the badlands. A pleasant feeling tingled through his body and threatened to lull him back to sleep.

Before he managed to settle back into slumber, he noticed a slightly musty smell, tinged with slightly metallic tang. It was the smell of his room, familiarised by years of confinement to this one private refuge. The pleasant feeling increased, swelled by the feeling of relief. If nothing else, he was back here safely.

The entire mission had been a disaster. Not only had he failed to accomplish what he set out for, but he had needed to be rescued as well. It seemed that he had already failed every expectation the Exorcists had held for him. Even though he had been given a second chance, an opportunity so rare that it was unheard of, he had failed to meet expectations. It was this feeling, more than the physical pain he had endured, that made him feel small. He was no longer confident in his own abilities; the past two weeks had humbled him greatly. If anything, he felt like the child he was, an admission of weakness and inferiority he had long denied himself.

Still, it wasn’t all dark and gloom, he thought with a small smile. Cracking open his eyelids, he took a moment to let his vision grow clear before rolling to his side and inspecting the room he had come to know by heart.

Everything was in its place, though the rickety old chair was slightly crooked where it nestled under the arch of the small table. His candle had burned itself to nothing but a thin blob of wax on a metal disc.

The door, however, was ajar, letting in a sliver of light that illuminated the swirling trails of dust in the air. Irritated that something disturbed the perfection of his abode, he slipped out of bed and walked silently to the door, avoiding the creaky floorboards without conscious thought. As he neared the intruding sliver of light, he heard a low murmur drift in, not persistent but not loud enough to be discernable.

Feeling a mixture of determination and disappointment, he pushed open the door and stepped into the light.

The light was not at all impressive, but relatively speaking it was much brighter than his room. The familiar dim hallway looked exactly as it always had. It was an ever-changing landscape of shadows as the night winds threw the torches into disarray. Towards the end of the hall, was the lounge area. Wistfully, he considered that it had been little over a week since he had sat there with Isabelle, yet he felt so different. The salvation she had given him was tempered by a painful awareness of his own mortality.

The lighting was not sufficient to make out any details of the three men sitting in the lounge area, but the enormous figure of Groot could not be mistaken.

Silently, by force of habit, he approached the group with grim determination. He had failed, it was true. But he still had his trump card.

It was something that had escaped him during the excitement of the hunt and after suffering at the hands of both the elements and his captors, he had possessed little strength to organise his thoughts. However, the four day ride back to Sigal had revitalised him. Not that the back of a horse was the most ideal place for a wounded patient but, as horrible as it sounded, he had grown accustomed to being dragged along the floor and the saddle was, by comparison, much more comfortable. The worst of the jostling had been broken by Lux’s protective arms around him and he dared to think of the strong embrace as almost fatherly.