spellbound | book #1 | completed

X L I X

[edited: 24/03/2018]

"And then there were three," Ackmard smirked as he turned away from the cliff that Maksim had jumped off. He might have looked pleased, but there was something in his eyes and the way that the corners of his mouth turned down that suggested that that was not entirely the case. It gave Hilda hope that perhaps her son was not quite past the point of no return.  Perhaps in his own strange way he still cared for his little brother. It was not impossible.

She could not think about that now, though; if Maksim did not survive the harsh waters of Nil Lake and was to be dragged into a void portal, she was not sure what she would do. The thought caused a trapped sob to escape from her throat, and she glared at her two children with more anger and disgust than she had ever felt. This time, she could not even blame herself, for Hilda had been a lot of things during her Dark Period—that was what everyone had called it once she had recovered—but she had never been heartless. Her love for others had never faltered, and she would never think of hurting her own brother the way that Ackmard had. He might not have pushed him himself, but he had certainly driven him to jump off that cliff after Remy. If Maksim did not survive, she was not sure she could ever forgive them.

"Are you happy now?" she questioned finally, the cold wind cutting through her dress so that it wavered behind her. "You have killed, and for what? A key that you still have not managed to claim. A key that, even when claimed, will never fill the hole that has been scorched into your souls by dark magic. You have lost everything, sacrificed your own brother—murdered him—for absolutely no reason but to prove that you could."

"Maksim was merely collateral damage, mother," Ackmard responded, his black eyes meeting Hilda's green ones for a moment and sending a shiver down her spine. They were not glittering, or amused anymore: they were utterly hollow—as void as the black waters of Nil Lake and the portal that lied beneath it. "I would never intentionally hurt my brother. It is a shame he has been caught up in all of this. If only he knew better than to care so deeply for a mortal."

"That mortal," Hilda snarled, "has made Maksim happier than that key ever could for you. It is not Maksim at fault here, it is you. You are losing your soul, and in the process, trying to take away everyone else's. Tell me, how do you feel now that you have hurt the people that loved you unwaveringly? How do you feel knowing that you have destroyed your brother, the one you grew up with and cared for for hundreds of years?"

He gulped, casting his eyes downwards so that he would not have to face Hilda's piercing gaze. Then, with his voice barely above a whisper, he said: "Probably the same way that you felt when you gave birth to a corrupted child and sent her away for someone else to deal with." His chin lifted as though he had remembered that he was supposed to be the stronger, wittier, angrier one. "Do not come to me and preach about morals, Mother, for it simply will not work. If you want to cast blame, you must look first to yourself. All of us—even precious little Makism, whom you have decided to love now after years of neglect—has inherited a little bit of your darkness. Some of us more than others." He looked to Erika, whose features were as still as though they were made of stone.

"I have made mistakes in the past. I was not always a good mother." Tears were streaming down her face now, her heart heavy with guilt and loss, for she had lost all of her children in one day, and lost some of them more than once before. "I am sorry for that, and I will be better. But will you? Either of you? It is never too late to come home and start again. Ridding yourselves of darkness will be hard, but I can help. I can be the mother that you need me to be. Let me try."

"It is too late." It was Erika, shaking her head and looking at her mother as though she had never seen anything so vulgar. "You had more than enough time to right your wrongs—almost five hundred years. You cannot decide now that you want to be better because you do not like the consequences of your own actions."

Without warning, Ackmard grabbed Hilda by the wrist with so much force that she could feel her bone fracturing with the pressure. She had seen him in all of his moments, from when he was a young boy with a dimpled shy smile to the way he was now, always filled with spite and hatred. Still, she had never seen him look as wicked as he did in this moment, his face so close to Hilda's that she could feel the paradox of ice and fire radiating off his skin. It was perhaps the first time she realised that she might have lost her son to the darkness forever, and all of this time she had spent favouring him over Maksim, who never failed to leave her side, had all been a mistake.

"You are pathetic," he spat through gritted teeth. "A pathetic little woman. You might not own that key anymore, but you do not need to. You have enough cruelty in you without it."

"Please, Ackmard," Hilda pleaded desperately, her voice cracking in a way that it never had before. Even she was surprised by her own weakness. "Let me help you."

"Your help is not needed." Erika's voice was dull, as though she no longer held any interest in the conversation. "Ackmard, I suggest that this little reunion comes to an end now, unless of course you wish to go walking into the sunset with mummy."

"I will never want that," he responded before creating distance between the two of them again. Even if it was anger, Hilda was at least glad that Ackmard had not grown as completely cold and closed off as his sister had. He still had the ability to feel, and that meant he could still be saved.

"Good, because the Warlock Army are winning and the key is gone. Time to go, I think."

Hilda followed her daughter's gaze to the cliffs on the opposite side of the lake and saw that it was true: the Warlock Army had outnumbered the Dark Ones to begin with, and now there were even less dots of black cloaks among the red. Even from such a distance, the battle looked horrific, so much so that Hilda couldn't find it in herself to feel triumphant that at least one thing had turned out the way she had planned. Streams of colourful magic floated around the grey sky, battling the ever-decreasing shards of black and creating swirls of ugly, dark hues. She could see limp bodies piled on the ground, people crouching over their loved ones. She wondered how many had lost their lives today to stand with or against her son, and how many of those lost she had known.

"Goodbye, Mother." It was a small mumble in her ear, so quiet that she could not tell whether it had been Ackmard or Erika saying it. When she turned around to find out, they had gone.

She could have stopped them. She could have gone after them, if she had wanted. There was time, and though she had spent a lot of energy fighting Annika, she was sure she had plenty left to capture her children and at least try and get them to Central Hall and stand trial. She could have done all of these things, but she didn't, because being a mother should have always come above being a member of the Council. Even after all they had done, she could not bear to see them rot away in the cells, perhaps because she knew deep down that it should have been her instead. 

Scrubbing her tears away, she watched as the final crowd of Dark Ones fled back into the shadows and her own people began to rejoice. In another time, under another circumstance, Hilda would be among them, cheering and feeling proud. Now, she had nothing to cheer for. She had lost Maksim to the lake, and if by chance he had survived, she was sure Remy had not. She was too frail, too mortal. Either way, she knew as she began to descend the cliffs that she would be returning to a broken son.

That, in time, would break her, too.