A Tale Of Shadows (Wattys 2023) - REPLACED BY DIVINE ASCENSION

Chapter 18 - The Warning From Afar

A few seconds later, Melinda came face to face with none other than Patrick Hemingway. He looked very angry at that moment, which caused her to shiver and take a step back, thus bumping into the nearby wall. As she tried to step back into her room, he pulled her arm really hard, and she could see just how tired he was of her heroically defiant behaviour when she looked into his eyes. He glanced around so that he could observe his surroundings, noticing Amanda's unconscious body, which he'd walked around earlier. His eyes bulging, he stared directly at Melinda, who was still as a statue and tense as a person on fire.

"What did you do to her?" he said, raising an eyebrow.

She swallowed a lump in her throat, readying herself to face whatever punishment.

"Please don't hurt me, Melinda..." Amanda wept desperately as she briefly woke up, causing Patrick to swiftly turn around and carefully study her horrible state, which made him confused at first, only to realise what was going on merely seconds later.

Patrick smirked as smugly as he always did after turning back to face her. "Congratulations. I knew that you were the new face of evil, but even I couldn't have thought of such a brilliant way to reveal it. I guess it's all over now."

"It's just one spell," she said dryly. "One moment of no caution doesn't matter all that much in the long run."

"It might," he snickered. "Let's consider for a moment... Remember that I began much the same way that you did. A brief instance of curiosity quickly began to turn into a want to do others harm and dominate everything around me with my unmatched power. I see that your heart beats intensely with the desire to do the same, as much as you may want to deny it. But you can choose to free yourself from your shackles in the life that I'm offering you. Everything will change when I ascend to the throne."

"What are you saying?" she asked, more confused than she'd ever been in her entire life.

"Will you marry me?" he asked, his voice heavily laced with arrogance.

Melinda's heart was set ablaze as she frantically looked everywhere around herself to see if the moment was truly real. "What do you think I could say to this? What do you think I could do about this?"

"You're so powerless against me," he said, dying of laughter. "Unfortunately, I don't want you."

"Wait," she said, choking on thin air. "What was the point of all this then?"

He rolled his eyes at her. "You're such a simpleton, Miss Grey. Your haughtiness makes you think that every man wants you, which isn't a completely unfounded assumption to have but is still frustrating, and your traditionalism makes you think that everyone wants marriage and that every king needs a queen as if I cared about such trivial things. I must say that I'm quite disappointed with you for being fooled so easily."

"It was rather in character for you to do," she snarled at him. "But of course, it was all a farce in the end. You don't care for anyone, after all."

"Are you implying some unsavoury things about me based on the fact that I don't want to be loved and laid?" he said, looking appalled.

"It's not about that at all," she said on the verge of screaming. "I have many friends with such a way of living. It's just that you can't feel any empathy or compassion."

"Yes, because you're the epitome of empathy and compassion," he said in an awfully mocking tone of voice, gesturing towards Amanda's very unconscious body.

"You nitpick. Who cares about that one thing I did?" she said, angrily marching back into her room, which he'd finally allowed her to do, laughing as they went in opposite directions from each other.

The atmosphere was still gloomy when she returned to her friends. Frank and Agatha were both purposefully facing away from her as if she hadn't even entered the room in the first place. They were both staring emotionlessly at the wall in front of them, clearly permanently having changed their perspective on her now that this entirely new facet of her personality was now made clear to them, but she still felt that it was unjust. Despite that feeling, she still knew that she was guilty, which caused her to lean against the wall and let out a deep sigh.

"What do you want?" Agatha said tiredly, which was a rare thing for her to do.

"I want to apologise-" she began to speak, but Agatha cut her off by gesturing her to shut up and opening her own mouth to speak.

"I know that you always have the best intentions in mind," she said mournfully, "but it very clearly makes you forget about other people at times. You can't understand how different perspectives might clash with yours because you're used to doing everything on your own and being praised for it, and this incident is a glaring, upsetting example of that. You can't make correct judgments of everyone and everything, and I hope you'll realise that someday. I also hope you'll realise that I, along with Frank, will never be able to think of you in the same way again, now that you've committed such a terrible atrocity. I'll forgive you for it, but I'll most certainly never forget."

"This is war!" Melinda shouted, waving her hands in the air. "I know that I'm in the wrong, but there's a very strong basis for what I did! You two also did terrible things and didn't tell me!"

"You should have seen the look on her face when you were done with her," Agatha said just as Frank was about to chime in, looking vastly mortified. "You looked like a sadistic monster that derives pleasure from the immense suffering of others."

"It's magic..." Melinda blurted out amidst all the terror and confusion bubbling deep within her heart, causing Agatha to laugh awkwardly.

"I understand, but still..." she said, turning to face the wall again.

"Do you want to hear of the way Hemingway fooled me?" Melinda asked, somehow finding it more preferable to talk about that than to continue this conversation, heavily relieved when both of them said yes.

"He came to me and was very angry at first," she began, struggling to speak, the words poison between her lips. "Then he saw what I did to Amanda and was very impressed with me. Then... Then he started saying some things that at first didn't make sense to me but did when he... When he asked me to marry him-"

"What a sick monster!" Agatha cried as Melinda devolved into painful sobs.

"At least it wasn't real," Melinda continued, still reeling from the pain. "That's how he fooled me. It all seemed so realistic, the possibility of him wanting to wed me for the sheer sadistic satisfaction of it if nothing else, but he called me stupid for even entertaining the thought. He mocked me for how easily I said yes, as he should have... I am a coward... It terrifies me to think that he could do anything to me as long as I agreed to it, which I'm all too eager to do because opposing him is becoming so difficult. I feel so lonely..."

"You're not alone," Agatha said softly as she pulled her into a tight hug, and Melinda felt so mirthful in the gentle embrace of a friend.

Two years passed in much the same way as the first four months. Hemingway was working on something constantly, but he never did set that fire for some reason. He was powerful, but not powerful enough, Melinda supposed. She remembered when he stunned her with the false marriage proposal, which he did to teach her that, no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't oppose him forever. But maybe she could. Maybe he'd even die tomorrow and rid the world of his filth forevermore with how uncertain the playing field was. However, one day, all hopes were turned to ash when Amanda visited her with a ghostly pale face, her eyes and mouth widened in sheer terror.

"He's burned that village which none of us even know the name of!" she said before Melinda could ask her anything, shaking her with all her might. "In two to three weeks, he'll set his plan in motion, and we must be ready. But I have to go now. Duty calls, after all."

With those few words, she left Melinda, Frank and Agatha irrevocably aghast, waiting in silence for what seemed like an eternity to witness the next move in the foul game that was being played.