Page 101 of The Witch and His Crow

Ihadto reach her.

Another toll of a bell rung out across the castle, which groaned back in response. It was as if Hekate herself scooped the building up in her palm, carving it from the bedrock it was built upon. The ceiling quaked, the floors tilting slightly, forcing me to fall into a wall at my side.

Pain arched up my side but I forced it down, focusing on reaching the room. Arwyn was behind me, shouting my name as portraits fell from their place on the walls. Dust fell like rain upon me, coating my black clothes in a thick layer of grime. I didn’t turn back to look for him, but I knew he was close. I could hear his breathing, the slam of his feet as he chased me.

I reached the door just as a violent shiver ran across the floorboards at my feet. Arwyn reached me, greedy hands grasping me.

‘The castle,’ Arwyn shouted over the ruckus. ‘It’s coming down.’

This had to be part of the Dreading. I should’ve cared, but all my mind focused on was finding Romy. And if the castle truly was coming down on us, then getting her out was of utmost importance.

My eyes glowed with light as I reached down for my Gift. In truth, there was no reaching required, because the moment I opened myself up to the power it exploded out of me. I reached forwards with invisible force, blocking chunks of ceiling from falling on us. Even as I rounded up the final steps to the bedroom, I didn’t feel relief. A blockade had formed where the door to the room had been. I blasted it apart with my Gift, shattering the wood into splinters and rubble. Arwyn threw up an arm up to protect himself from the debris that speared towards him.

The bedroom was empty.

‘No,’ I breathed, scanning every possible shadow. I clutched the ruined wall, using it for leverage as another tremor wreaked havoc on the castle. Something terribly loud crashed far off in the distance.

‘I told you she wasn’t...’ A structural beam fell just behind Arwyn, sending him careening forwards. Dust billowed in a plume of smoke which rolled over the corridor beyond the room. The dull light of the moon shone in, cutting through the destruction, revealing the gaping hole that was left in the floor as the beam crashed through it.

I scrambled towards Arwyn, heart in my throat. I wrapped iron fingers around his wrist and pulled him from the precipice, getting a good look down the hole which had just been created. I saw through levels of flooring, down deep through the midsection of the castle. Except where rubble, stone andruin should’ve been at the bottom, was a roaring mouth of pure darkness.

It writhed and hissed.Demons.

Arwyn used my anchoring weight to pull himself away from the edge. I was so fixated on the fear of what waited below that I was immobilised, until Arwyn put his arms beneath mine and pulled me back. Just in time, because the floorboards where I’d been kneeling began to peel away.

‘I’m sorry,’ I gasped, watching as the hole grew larger, swallowing walls and furniture down into the pit of demonic shadow. ‘I thought I saw her. I thought I…’

Arwyn held onto me as if the simplest of breezes would take me from him. ‘It’s going to be ok. I swear, I won’t allow this to be the end.’

Even if I wanted to continue my search for Romy, there were no longer stairs to lead me back down into the castle. Hells, there wasn’t even a castle anymore.

‘None of this is ok,’ I stammered, watching as more of the floor broke away like ash. It forced us into our old room, stalking backwards, until the view beyond was of complete shadow.

It was what lurked inside the shadows that frightened me.

Arwyn threaded his fingers in with mine.

I admired his ability to stay calm as we faced the impossible before us. It was as if the darkness was pulling the castle away, layer by layer, as if this building was no more than paper. I could no longer see the rest of the castle outside the doorframe. It was only shadow, like the racing cloud that had devoured us at the beginning of the Enduring.

Arwyn pulled me to him, pressing my face to his chest. We stepped backwards until there was no room for movement left. The wall was at our back, the window I’d seen Romy at just to my side.

I never feared the dark before, until now. Now, that fear ruled me.

I looked up, into the reflection the broken window revealed. I saw my face, all wide eyes. Then the back of Arwyn’s head as he faced the impending doom. But it was neither of those details that I cared about. No. It was the remnants of a handprint in the glass. I lifted my hand towards it, laying my fingers over the shape, already knowing the print was far smaller than my hand.

Romy. Shehadbeen here.

Elation came thick and fast… and very misplaced. I spun around, ready to tell Arwyn, to prove that I was not crazy or seeing things. He clutched my hand without saying a word. His grasp was almost too hard, the bones in my fingers aching. But the only sound I made was a garbled scream as the floorboards beneath us dissolved to the particles they were made from.

I was torn from Arwyn’s grasp. He shouted my name, but like the castle, the darkness swallowed it up.

We fell. Like discarded twigs thrown into a lazy river of shadow.

My stomach jolted up into my chest, my heart forced into my throat. Weightless and tumbling, I looked up at the fading pinprick of light our bedroom had been. Then there was nothing but shadow. I closed my eyes, pinched them tight, preparing to face the clawing talons of demons.

I knew the feeling that ruled me as I tumbled, alone, in the dark that once protected me. It was failure. The very same sinking realisation I had as I listened to my parent’s death all those years ago.

I’d failed the trial.

---