Run Away ✧ Hogwarts Legacy

chapter forty-nine

Thank You for the Venom by My Chemical Romance

-✧-✧-✧-

Trigger Warning: This chapter includes sensitive conduct - please see the comment for a full description of conduct.

-✧-✧-✧-

It never felt like a choice when it happened. The decision to steal the relic from the air felt like a consequence that was going to follow him for the rest of his life. It had been a series of unfortunate planned events falling one after another until the witch had forced his hand and he had finally been pushed to make a choice. A dilemma between the devil and the deep blue sea.

No one else around him had understood the decision that Desmond had landed on because no one else had the witch's thoughts echoing in his ears. They didn't understand what had been about to happen the moment the relic was in the air. They couldn't feel the curse the witch had been building up to or realize how every move had been so calculated until that point. 

Everyone was silent. Antheia stood staring at him with a look of distrust brewing in her eyes. 

The end had been inches from the blade of her sword then yanked back in the blink of an eye. She let the sword fall heavy in one hand, letting the metal ring loudly against the titles under her feet.

Desmond Esper stood across from her with the relic in his hands. It glowed a red hue that was so intense that it looked as if the sun was trapped behind the combination of glass and goblin metal. No doubt it was reacting to the witch, hiding just behind his subconscious, the true owner of the amplifier.

"Please," Desmond asked again, "Open the door."

Antheia didn't know what to say now that she had been confronted with the truth. That her secrets were no longer her own but a distant memory of a life that she lived before. Desmond had known what was beyond the doors of the Map Chamber, that he knew about Ancient Magic and her role as a Keeper, even if he hadn't said that he was acknowledging it now. There was no doubt that he had known what he was asking of her to do. 

No one moved except for Antheia as she stepped toward the sealed door.

The death grip that she kept on the sword hadn't been by choice. She couldn't afford to lose it under these conditions. Even as the metal bit at her skin with a blistering burn, she knew it wasn't safe to lose it. 

"Thea, don't bloody do it," Sebastian yelled from the other side of the room. He took a step forward, but his knee buckled from the pain he had transferred upon himself. None of them were in shape to keep fighting anymore.

Ominis remained on the floor, still in shock.

Sebastian had taken a burden of curse that he could barely afford.

And Antheia was being drained dry. She hadn't been fully healed from the start, but the longer that the sword remained in her hand, the more magic it demanded from her. The black rot was crawling up past her wrist now and how far it would rise before consuming her entirely was a mystery.

If this had been what Marceline Elm had been attempting to achieve then why hadn't it been the witch asking her to open the door? Why was Desmond holding onto her relic and making such a demand?

Antheia didn't have the luxury of questioning it too closely. She stepped toward the door that bore her blood seal, moving slowly without breaking her eyes away from him because she was afraid of everything that could change in a single blick of the eye. His ice-blue eyes hadn't been giving her any of the answers that she had desired of them. They only looked full of hurt and pain.