Nobody made a sound while Benedict stood there, still staring at the wall. As I watched, a small smile curved up at the corners of his mouth. My blood ran cold.
He knows we’re here.
A few more seconds passed, and then Benedict turned away from the wall, heading toward the opposite end of the hallway from where we all stood. His steps were slow but sure, as if he knew exactly where he was headed, but was in no real hurry to get there.
I looked up at Tejus and he nodded. We followed him. Along the hallway we walked a few feet behind him, matching him step for step. The progress was slow, and I could feel my entire body trembling from the effort of holding myself back—not running and grabbing him, holding on to him till the entity left his form and my brother was once again at peace.
Without taking his eyes off my brother, Tejus reached down and took my hand in his. The grip was firm. It kept me from breaking.
Benedict walked on past empty rooms and the deserted hallways and corridors. Eventually we reached a part of the castle that I’d never been to before. The walls were barely lit by torchlight. A few dotted about kept it from complete darkness, but overall it felt unused and abandoned—the stone crumbling and the walls without any of the tapestries of vulture heads that adorned the main, habitable areas.
He started to climb a steep staircase, not dissimilar to the one that led to Tejus’s quarters. I realized that we were entering one of the other towers, but I’d lost my sense of perspective along the walk and couldn’t gauge which one it was.
He entered a room. It was in complete darkness except for the moonlight that flooded though the windows. It was well-kept, furnished with the same velvet sofas and carpets of Tejus’s living room. Benedict stopped for a few moments, as if waiting for something. Then, slowly, he bent down and moved aside part of the carpet. On the floor was a wooden door, flush with the stone floor. It had an iron ring in it, and Benedict pulled the door up toward him.
Tejus and I blinked as bright lights filled the room.
Another lock.
The stones danced in the strange formation that I’d seen in the passageway, looking as if they were almost alive and breathing—organisms in their own right. I watched in horror as Benedict ran his hand over the stones, then extracted one, taking it easily from its socket. As soon as he did so, he stood again, replacing the trap door.
Then he turned to face us.
Adrenaline and fear pumped around my body. My brother’s eyes were completely blank, unseeing and dead. But he smiled again, slow and mocking.
Tejus pushed me behind him, and I grabbed hold of his robe to stop myself from falling. I watched in horror as Benedict lifted the stone in Tejus’s direction, clasping it in his small fist. Tejus groaned, and I felt his mind enter mine, swiftly and desperately. As soon as the link was made, I could feel that Benedict was trying to drain Tejus of his energy.
“Benedict, no!” I cried out, trying to rush forward, but Tejus held me back, syphoning me harder as he tried to repel the power of the stone. I felt Tejus’s pain through our connection. His mind was screaming—it felt like it was being ripped apart from within, his entire skull throbbing with intense, unrelenting waves of agony. I tried to open my mind, to push all my energy toward Tejus, but I could feel the grey, swirling gloom of exhaustion washing over me.
“Please, please, STOP!” I yelled, holding on to Tejus so that I wouldn’t fall to the ground.
As Tejus’s pain continued, I fought against the limits of my body and tried to stay conscious. My gaze was fixed on my brother—watching, disbelieving as he kept the stone held aloft, his face still contorted in a mocking smile.
Not knowing if it was my imagination or not, I started to hear strange whispers echo across the room. The voices seemed to slither and merge in a discordant harmony, hissing and spitting, coming from everywhere at once.
Then I heard a voice. It wasn’t coming from within the room, but through the connection I held with Tejus. It had the same quality as the whispers, sounding just as inhuman, but I could just make out words being formed.
“Dost thou think thou art more powerful than I?” it hissed, curling its vowels around Tejus’s mind like dank mist. “False king, thou knowest nothing of my magic, nothing of my power! Kneel, kneel, false king, kneel down to your creator!”
“NO!” Tejus burst out, the cry tearing from his chest as he fought to repel the poison of the whispered voice.
He staggered back. Before I knew what was happening a huge blast of energy threw Tejus and I backward into the hallway. I slammed into the back of the wall, feeling as if I’d just been hit by a freight train.
Blearily I watched Benedict run past us, still holding his fist aloft.