Page 71 of The Witch and His Crow

I prepared to reply, but just as soon as Eleanor entered my mind, she was gone. It was no wonder the Witch Hunters feared powerful women—and Eleanor was the greatest of them. A witch with access to magic we hadn’t seen in centuries. And there she was, tied to a stake, as a Hunter re-lit a torch and brought it down to the stack of straw at her feet.

It caught. Fire sparked.

The crowd watched, fire reflecting in their eyes. Eleanor held her head high, chin jutted out as she surveyed her own people, people she’d protected with her blood, who’d turned their back on her the moment she needed them.

Eleanor wormed the rope out of her mouth, ire bubbling over in her gaze.

‘After everything I have done,’ Eleanor called above the licking flames. ‘You see me as a stranger. A demon. I have healed your pains, served to ensure your children were brought into this world alive and well. I protected you from monsters of shadow, beasts that you claim that I am infected by…’

Something darkened Eleanor’s tone. Even the flames that began creeping up her skirt and legs, shifted shades until they were almost black. I watched as Eleanor lifted her eyes over Witch Hunters and the crowd of humans, to something beyond. Not something—someone.

‘Bahmet, I call on thee. I wish to make a deal.Bahmet. Bahmet. Bahmet.’

I didn’t realise I was fighting against Arwyn until Romy had to help hold me back. Caym flew down to me, joining their attempts. My throat bled with pain as I screamed and screamed, watching as the fire crawled from the straw, over the hem of Eleanor’s dress and up her body. Tongues of destruction lapped up her flesh.

We all heard the next sound. A cracking. Like the splitting of a mountain, or the breaking of earth. Then came the screeching. Far in the distance, a cloud of demonic birds had gathered. They speared towards the village, but instead of stopping at stone boundary, they flew right in.

Her shield was down. Eleanor had broken it, shattered it, and brought true evil into the village.

‘Run,’ Arwyn shouted, ‘we need to run.’

Run? The concept wasn’t even an option. Because if the shield was down, my gift was back.

It rose in me like a hungry viper, poised to strike down everyone who watched Eleanor burn. Unbridled fury overwhelmed me as I took a step forwards.

Arwyn was suddenly before me, placing his body in front of me. ‘I can’t let you do that, Hector. This is the trial. Go against the natural order of time, and you will fail.’

‘Does this look fake to you?’ I asked, shouting over the screaming crowd as dark birds tore into humans, all whilst Eleanor laughed amidst the fire that devoured her.

‘It is real, but it is also not. Remember what we are here to do. Remember why we must survive.’

Another hand, softer but just as strong, grasped my shoulder. Romy. She came in to my side, pleading the same. ‘Please, Hector. I know this is hard. But we must endure this.’

It was the same request Eleanor had asked of me.

The scent of burning flesh fondled my nose as the billowing smoke rolled out across the village. It engulfed it, a wave of dark grey smog. It drank everything up from view, sweeping over Witch Hunters and humans alike, racing towards where we hid.

‘Can you hear that?’ Romy said from my side, her face pale from horror.

I couldn’t hear anything but the spitting fire and hissing flesh. Not the cheers of the Witch Hunters and the crying of those who watched the guardian of the village perish. It was all swallowed by the smoke.

As silence engulfed the scene, I caught the deep rumble of a bell. Eleanor’s words repeated as the wall of smoke moved towards us.You must endure this.

The Trial was over. And yet the fire still burned, and Eleanor still suffered. I had to act. I sent out a blast of my power, unsure what I wanted to achieve. But the billowing cloud of darkness had formed a wall. Just like the dark fog that had brought us here dispersed against my gift, it happened again. But it wasn’t to reveal what I was expecting.

Red burning eyes. Horns. The face of a goat on a man’s body. I blinked, unsure what I’d seen as the darkness swelled over it, swallowing the strange being whole.

‘Don’t let go of me,’ Arwyn commanded, wrapping his arms around me. There was another toll of a bell. Arwyn, Romy and Caym pressed themselves into me just as the smoke reached us, swallowing us like the mouth of a beast.

I expected it to smell like Eleanor’s burning flesh, but it was scentless and quiet. All I knew, as the ringing of a bell continued to toll, was we’d completed the second trial.

The Enduring.

I just never realised what it could’ve meant, not in my wildest of dreams. And as the smoke deposited us in the great hall of the castle, back in our time, the reality of what had been done to us weighed heavy on me. As did Eleanor’s Letcombe’s grimoire, which still rested in my pocket, proving that everything that had happened was real and not a vision fabricated by magic.

‘It’s over,’ a deep voice sounded at my side, a gentle hand running circles across my back. ‘It’s over.’

I looked up, through eyes full of furious tears, to find Arwyn knelt before me. Behind him was Romy, her fingernail caught between her teeth. I didn’t need to look around to know Caym was missing. He’d not been brought back into the Witch Trials. Whatever magic ruled this hallowed ground still kept him out.

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