The Keep (The Secret of Spellshadow Manor #4)(23)

Awkwardly, he stumbled, reaching out for the nearest thing, which happened to be the top of the golden cylinder. His hands clamped around the edge of it, the sharp metal sides digging into his palms, as his knees buckled beneath him. Managing to keep upright, he leaned forward into the wall, resting his head against it until the woozy feeling went away. He stood there, swaying slightly, his head throbbing, the cold stone soothing against the bare skin of his forehead. It took him a while to notice the flakes of snow that flurried around him, but by then it was too late, and he felt the prickle of a different heat on his skin—the heat of intense eyes on him.

As his own eyes cleared from their hazy, semi-conscious fog, he became aware of a figure lunging in his direction. He moved out of the way just in time to see Agatha hurl herself at the spot where he had been, with a savage, enraged grimace of hatred on her formerly kind face.

“SPELLBREAKER SCUM!” she screamed, her face contorted in a mask of pure loathing. She rounded on him with lightning speed, clearly intent on doing him real harm.

It shocked Alex to witness the split-second change in Agatha, who had seemed so sweet and nice mere moments before. He ducked as she twisted magic toward him, powerful magic. The next onslaught he managed to bat away, though he could feel the strength of her magic as he made contact with it, swiping it from the air, all the while continuing to duck and dive away from her vicious attacks.

“HOW DARE YOU! HOW DARE YOU!” Agatha roared.

It seemed to him as if she were everywhere at once, and he wasn’t sure how long he could fend her off, in his current state. Adrenaline had come to his aid again, but it was close to running out.

Suddenly, a spell hit him square in the chest, precisely against the point that had been giving him so much trouble, where the raw edge of his essence still pulsed painfully. The agony was instantaneous, and his body doubled over in an attempt to quash the searing burn of it. She had found his weak spot.

Alex lifted his head to see Demeter stepping quietly up behind Agatha, placing his palms on either side of her head as his lips moved silently, his fingers weaving golden magic into her skull. Agatha froze, and her eyes went blank. Alex watched as Demeter carefully picked her up, carrying her to the largest armchair, where he laid her down.

Fear gripped Alex again as he saw Vincent coming toward him, but the eerie man’s face didn’t denote any hint of a threat. Rather, there was an expression of sympathy upon his strange, pale face.

“Come with me, dear boy,” the necromancer urged, taking Alex gently by the arm as he led him past the still figure draped across the armchair, and out into the hallway. He took him to the vestibule at the top of the corridor, and leaned him against the wall by the open window, encouraging him to catch his breath. “Breathe, breathe. Good, heavy, deep breaths.”

“What just happened?” Alex gasped, doing as Vincent said, drawing in breath after breath as evenly as he could. It was becoming increasingly evident that he could not escape the curse of people wanting to kill him. If it wasn’t Alypia, it was someone else. And yet, he had never expected such a reaction from one as seemingly sweet and kind as Agatha.

“I apologize for the actions of my friend,” Vincent said. “You must understand, it is not easy for those who have lived as long as we have lived—the ghosts grow louder as our years recede into the ether, and Agatha is particularly haunted.”

“I don’t understand.” Alex leaned back, shaking his head.

“Ah, I would not expect you to,” Vincent said, his face pulling into a taut, uncomfortable smile. “You are untouched by the hatred that once brewed between our two races.”

Alex wasn’t sure that was entirely true, having experienced a multitude of hateful tales, but he said nothing to the contrary, allowing Vincent to continue.

“In a war between races, nobody wins,” Vincent sighed, “and Agatha lost dearly. As we all did, on all sides. You were guilty only of bringing bad memories back to the forefront of her mind, after countless years of pushing them farther and farther back.”

“What happened to her?” Alex asked.

“A particularly grisly battle was fought, and Agatha lost everything. She was not unique in that respect, but her pain is particularly pronounced. As the dust settled, she picked her way through the battlefield, following the crows. Trailing those winged harbingers led her to the bodies of her entire family, the flames of their lives snuffed out by Spellbreakers,” he explained. “Agatha never quite recovered. I doubt any of us did—any of those unfortunate souls who lived through it.”

Alex watched Vincent cautiously, wondering if the strange man harbored any of the same feelings that Agatha had toward him and his long-dead kind. There was certainly a note of bitterness in the eerie man’s voice, but Alex could not be sure where such bitterness was directed.

As if sensing Alex’s concern, Vincent smiled reassuringly.

“Fear not, Spellbreaker. I sympathize with your plight. I always have, much like your friend Demeter. Genocide is the foulest plague known to the world, and I offer you my apologies, that you have found yourself alone among us. My words can never make up for the suffering of your people, but I hope they may ease a fraction of your own.”

Strangely, they did. Vincent was right—one apology could never make up for what had happened to his people, but it served to remind him that there had been losses and suffering on both sides, not just his own. True, his people had been wiped out in their entirety, save him, but there had been mages and Spellbreakers, no doubt, who had been caught up in a fray they wanted no part of. The peaceful had paid dearly for the arrogance and bigotry of the aggressive. Innocents had fallen on both sides, and, to Alex, there was nothing more tragic.