Dull Colours [EDITED EDITION]

Sixteen | Blood and Tears

Sitting in the grass, Hera held out the little glass bottle holding the other ingredients - the Amadel dust, the Mortem Potio was poured in, now Jacob's blood, dripping from his hand down his arm. "I didn't need that much." Hera frowned, wondering where to wipe the knife. She settled for the grass. Jacob wiped his arm on the grass too, the bleeding stopping with a touch of Hera's magic - which she felt weird using. It had been a while.

"Nearly done," Hera breathed, running a hand over her face and pushing her glasses onto her head to read the next ingredient, struggling to read the old-fashioned scrawl. "What do we need now?" Jacob asked, handing Hera the book and flipping the knife over and over in his hands, a weird expression on his face, as if he already knew something bad was going to happen. Hera had the same feeling of dread. Then she saw it.

Hera stared intently at the last ingredient of the potion. Squinting harder as if that would change what it said, Hera read it again.

'A great sacrifice.'

Only three words.

Three horrible, horrible words.

Just then Hera heard a noise behind her. It was hard to describe – somewhere between a gasp and a whimper. But Hera knew what had happened.

Jacob had stabbed himself.

The great sacrifice.

Running over and falling to her knees beside him, everything was white noise. She was pretty sure she was yelling. "No," she sobbed. "Haven't I lost enough? Haven't I - no -" People were yelling, calling both Jacob and Hera's names, but in the end, none of it mattered. Jacob was gone. Hera knew it as his eyes glazed over and he stared, motionless, at the sky. Hera didn't even have the will to cry. She just sat, unspeaking, as she gently closed his eyes, the beautiful chocolate-brown eyes that would never glimmer gold in the sunlight ever again.

Trying in vain not to look at the knife now embedded in Jacob's chest, Hera laid herself down beside him, curling up in a little ball and rocking herself back and forth, her glasses slipping off her face as tears she didn't even realise were there slid silently down her cheeks.

Her ears rang and she realised everyone had stopped yelling. They were just watching in silence as Hera screwed up her nose and sniffled.

Because she was just a child, really. 

And in that moment, lying on the cold, hard ground next to her dead love, with all meaning nothing, Hera couldn't help but wonder if that little horrible voice inside her was just her all along. Hera let her eyes close, her eyelashes fluttering against her cheeks. She could hear Is crying against Matt's chest as he wrapped his arms around her. Hera tried to hold in all her sobs.

What was the point of it all?

Then Hera felt it.

It was like a great weight she didn't even know was there was just – gone. And she knew the spell
had worked. She had already had the bottle open with Jacob's blood in it, and it had split on the ground, mixing with the darker, nearly black blood. It seemed so basic, like she should have needed to battle a Conjured, have a big ritual. And it had all started with her Kolawi going wrong. A domino effect. And for what?

The Conjured inside her was gone.

But Jacob was dead.

Then Hera woke up.