Broken Vows

Meeting Death

Do you ever look back at a moment and wish you could have changed it? I have so many more I could never count them all. So many times, I wished I just did one small thing differently. Went left and not right. So many times, I have looked back and wished I had done something different, but if I had, then I wouldn’t be the person I am today. I would never have met Kay; she saved me more than she will ever truly know.

We spent hours in that library, and we could have spent days, but it did nothing to help us. There was nothing more to find. The magic we needed to find was not there. It was in his castle; it was in Hadeon’s possession. It had to be, and one of us had to go there and get it. Rana insisted that she could do it, that she could fool him into trusting her, but that was not a risk I was willing to take. I killed that plan, and I have to live by that decision.

***

“We found nothing to help us.” Jakob spat, tossing the book aside in frustration. Much to Edmond’s displeasure.

“Perhaps in all this knowledge, you will not find what you need. Perhaps you already know what to do, sir.” Edmond replies callously as if Jakob had personally insulted him.

“We should go with my plan,” Rana says, looking around the table.

“NO! We will not!” I shout back, startling everyone, “He will destroy you. I will face him, and I think that is all we can do.” I push back from the table hard and turn before I have to hear any of them. I will settle this now.

The rash decision will later be another of many regrets I carry in my soul. There is nothing I can do to change the past as much as it hurts. If I had turned left, I would have found my way back to my room, but I didn’t. I turned right, and I found myself face to face with Tyrina.

“I need your help. I need to open a portal. Take me to someone who can.” I order, still in a rage.

“Well, any of the council can; I will take you to them.” She responds meekly.

It took us more time to walk to the councilmen’s chamber than it did for me to convince him to open a portal. I gripped the ring in my pocket, thinking it would be enough combined with the magic in my own necklace. It had to be enough. He couldn’t be allowed to take even more lives or more from me. I stepped through that portal and made another of many mistakes.

Standing in my now-dead rose garden, I hardly recognize the place. A dark cloud hangs over everything, and everything is dead. Yes, we are well into fall, and the wind blew right through me, chilling my bones, but the death around me in this garden is more than the quiet sleep of the coming winter.

“My darling, you have returned to me at last. How I have missed you.” The cold voice is so much different than what I remember. I spun round to face him and his piercing blue eyes. He looks different now. His handsome face changed, and his features are sharp and monstrous. He once looked like an angel, but now I see the devil in him.

“Yes, I have come home. I missed you, dear husband. I was wrong to leave you, and I wanted to be here with you. I have seen the world more clearly now, and I want to help you build something better.” I try to keep my expression soft like I don’t truly hate him with everything in me.

“Lier. Do you really think that you can lie to me? I will have all of your power, and when I do, I will finish what I have started.” Hadeon starts to laugh at me and my foolishness. The ring is on my finger, and I am pulling the magic from it and my necklace as I weave the spells I have been practicing with Lilith.

I start to bind Hadeon with magic, and he only laughs louder and louder. He sounds more and more like a madman, and I can feel him breaking my binding spells. The warm wrinkled hand that slips into my mine nearly breaks my concentration.

“Just focus.” Lilith hisses. Somehow, she is here, and Rana is with her taking my other hand and channeling their magic with mine. We start to gain ground, and I feel like it is working.

“Now, the spell to call death,” Lilith says as she chants words in some ancient tongue that I have never heard. She grips my hand tighter, and I try to repeat the words that she is saying, but I have no idea what I am even doing, but Hadeon is beginning to rage. His pale skin looks ashen, almost like he is made of smoke, and I can see the dark smoke beginning to pull from him. It is the same one I saw kill Serena, and all I can think is it is coming to claim the three of us as well.

Rana joins our strange chanting, and Hadeon screams curses at us, but he can’t seem to move under the heavy binding spell. When he starts to laugh again, a wild and chilling sound, I feel the power being drained from my body.

I will myself to just hold on. The magic swirls in the air in the fog of light and dark, mixing like paint in the air, and I feel the air buzzing all around me. The buzzing stings my skin and makes my ears ring, and through it all, I just see his sickening smile and hear maniacal laughter. Somehow, I played right into his hand like this may have almost been what he wanted.

Pulling more and more power from the ring, I feel it heating up under the strain. It’s burning my finger, but I have to stay in this moment and keep my focus on what we are doing, clenching my fist tight and holding the burning ring in place. The chanting changes and I know the spell is my binding spell, and Hadeon’s skin looks as though he is nothing but smoke holding a weak human form. His piercing eyes are the only thing still solid.

“Pathetic, you think you have won, but I am immortal. I hold death in my very soul. Nothing you can do will sever that.” He’s croaking and cackling through his laughter. He won’t stop laughing, and I feel my focus slipping.

Lilith murmurs a name, and I don’t get the chance to hear it, but I see him; I see the black mass of smoke rip from Hadeon. The scream that comes out of Hadeon’s mouth is an unholy sound that makes my blood run cold. The buzzing is so loud the ground feels unsteady under my feet, and the air vibrates and pulses as the mass races sky word.

“I will not lose.” Hadeon strikes again and sends a massive wave of power at us, knocking all of us to the ground. The boom is louder than the buzzing, and my ears are ringing so loud I can’t hear anything. Rana is trying to help me up, but I can’t seem to mange it. She is saying something I can’t hear.

Slowly the sound starts to come back to me, but her words sound muddled, like she is speaking underwater. I shake my head, trying to clear the ringing from it. I look around, and I panic that Hadeon is gone, but the black mass is swirling where Hadeon once stood, and I can’t help thinking it will be coming for us.

I’m so focused on the black mass and wondering if it will take me to meet my end. I don’t see her for a long moment though her flaming hair is hard to miss. When I do see her, I can’t take my eyes off her. She is more beautiful than any woman I have ever seen, still in her twenties, and her smooth perfect skin seems to glow in the haze. She looks like some ethereal being of light. Her white dress and bare feet make no sound as she steps toward the swirling darkness.

“It is all right, my love. Please come back to me. I miss you more than you know. You are my forever.” She murmurs, and her voice is like bells but so familiar to me.

The smoke pulses and seems to hum when she reaches her hand out toward it like she wants to caress it; I fear for her life. This is what took my daughter, and it could easily take this girl. I’m just about to speak when a hand emerges from the smoke and takes hers; it raises her hand to caress a cheek. The smoke seems to blow away in the wind, and there he stands; this blonde angel of a man could only be death, which means the woman is Lilith. I gasp as I realize what I am seeing. Did we genuinely free death?

I look around again, but Hadeon is gone. I try to stand quickly, but my body betrays me. I end up collapsing back just to have Rana grab my arm, finally helping me up. She is just as struck by the seen in front of her. Both of them are in white, and they seem to glow in the haze around them. I never would have thought of death being so beautiful, but the more I think about it, why wouldn’t death be beautiful?

I stood in awe of the couple before me. The look passing between them was one of so much love and tenderness. If my heart was whole, it would have only shattered, knowing that look was something I could have had. I could have had that kind of love if I had only chosen differently. I chose someone who broke every part of me and every vow he made.

Rana grips my hand and leans in, “They look like angels. Do you think they are angels?”

“I don’t know. I suppose they are the closest things to it.” I utter softly.

After a moment of, Rana and I staring at the sweet scene in front of us. I begin to feel more and more uncomfortable watching them. When he caresses Lilith’s cheek and hair, planting a tender kiss on her lips, I turn. I can’t take any more.

I stand alone in the cold, the wind like ice on my skin, but I feel numb to it all. Gavin’s ring slips from my finger, and I am unaware of it until someone picks it up.

“You should hold on to this. I have a feeling you may need it. He isn’t gone, but your magic is.” the musical voice of Lilith is such a stark change I turn to face her.

“What do you mean he isn’t gone?” I ask, panic sets in. we didn’t win? How could we not win? Will he emerge from thin air and bring wrath with him? My thoughts race, and I can feel Lilith is right. My power is gone. I can’t reach it, and I don’t know why.

“Take a breath, child.” Lilith soothes, and this kindness is not something I would have ever expected from her.

“What do you mean? Please just tell me plainly, no riddles.” I plead with her.

“I don’t know when but he will be back. The spell was nothing more than a binding and banishment of him and his power. If we had had more time, perhaps we could have done more. A little bird told me that you left Gavin’s castle not thinking clearly, so I came here to do all I could to help you. We did free death, so that is a win, I think.” Lilith turns, stroking the cheek of death once again. I am still struck by his beauty.

“I thank you for what you have done for us, but Lil is right. He will be back, and he has a small part of me with him. He managed to keep just enough of my power for his own. I hope he will not find a way to free himself, but you should be ready for it.” His voice is smooth and rich, every note like a soothing song.

“Death?” I start to ask him the only question my heart wants to know.

“Willow, before you finish that question, know I can do nothing. She is not dead, but she also is all at the same time. She is in a place I can’t seem to pass into. I have tried. It is the same place he kept me in. While your spells fractured it enough for me to escape, I could not bring others with me. There are many lost souls, and I am powerless to help them.” The sadness and loss on his perfect face are enough to bring me to tears, or maybe it is the fact that I will never see my Serena again. I had foolishly hoped that death could help, but now he can’t even help me.

I drop to my knees, “Then take me. I wish to die. I have lost everything.” Covering my face in my hands, I feel the warm embrace of arms around me, and I hope it is death agreeing to set me free of this world.

“Willow, you have so much you are meant for. So much more than you see and more than you know. There are those that need you, and you must carry on. Your life is far from over.” Lilith whispers in my ear. “Find some hope, and soon that will lead you to happiness. Just find the hope and hold on to it. Hope is such a small thing, but it grows if you love it and care for it. Find it.”