by Ciara Graves
“You were weak,” Antonio muttered as we watched memory-me ascend the stairs and disappear through the trapdoor. “So weak. Do you remember now how this day ended?”
I wanted to say I did, but nothing about this moment now seemed right.
A few minutes later and the trapdoor was flung open as mages poured into the hidden basement.
The demons grabbed the weapons. Matthew yelled for them to fight, but it was over before it had a chance to begin. White bursts of magic exploded, killing three demons. Two more fell as the mages drew their swords and easily cut through the weak weapons the demons had in their hands. The rebellion Matthew spent a year planning was over. He was yanked upstairs, along with all the others and thrown into the street.
Antonio and I appeared there with another snap of my brother’s fingers. They put the torch to Matthew’s home and shoved him to his knees.
Mages held me, and I looked at Matthew with shame in my eyes.
“You traitor,” he snarled at me.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered and was shoved down to the ground, too. The others came down after us, each with a mage standing right behind him. Tears streamed down my cheeks.
Another mage stepped into view.
“Lucas,” I breathed.
The mage who ruled the slums paraded down the street in his red and gold robe, hands clasped behind his back, shaking his head with a disappointed look on his face.
“My, my,” he said when he reached Matthew. “Such treachery I find these days. Here I am, providing for you and your families, ensuring you have food and roofs over your heads, barely asking anything in return, and I hear whispers you are planning a revolt, Matthew. What way is that to treat your ruler, hmm?”
Matthew spit at his feet.
The mage behind him smacked him upside the head.
He snarled and snapped his teeth as he growled, “You are not our ruler. You’re nothing more than a murdering bastard.”
That one earned him a punch to the gut. I moved to stop it but reminded myself there was nothing I could do.
Lucas glared at the spit near his boots. “What am I to do with you, Matthew? You had such promise. You could have done great things with me. Now, however, that future is gone.”
Matthew’s hand fisted at his side, and I caught sight of the steel there. A dagger, the one weapon he managed to steal. I wanted to turn away from the scene that was about to unfold, but some force kept me looking straight ahead. Lucas turned his back, announcing to all the demons present that such behavior could never be tolerated. That the bad in us had to be plucked out by the root, starting with Matthew.
Matthew bellowed as he threw himself forward and latched onto Lucas. They tumbled to the street, and the dagger came plunging down toward Lucas’s heart, went right through his body like a hot knife through butter. Matthew staggered backward, breathing heavily as he grinned. His smile only lasted a brief few seconds.
Lucas sat up, looking at the dagger protruding from his chest. “I was tempted to show you mercy,” he said, cringing as he reached up and slowly pulled the dagger from his chest. Not a single drop of blood was on it. Not one.
Gasps of shock were heard up and down the street as the mage climbed to his feet as if he hadn’t been stabbed in the heart. “You think I would come down here in this filth without any form of protection?”
Matthew staggered back another step, disbelief, and failure all over his face. I only spared a second for him, knowing what my past self saw at this moment. A ring on Lucas’ hand glowed with power. That ring was his protection.
This was the moment my life truly changed forever.
“Hold him.”
Two mages rushed Matthew, grabbed him by the arms, and held him steady. Lucas approached, dagger in hand.
“Whatever you do to me, we will never stop,” Matthew growled. “You hear me? You will die by our hands.”
“Perhaps,” Lucas said then drove the dagger up and under Matthew’s ribs.
I growled and yelled in outrage as loud as memory-me did, watching the life drain from my friend’s eyes.
Lucas twisted the blade within him.
Matthew gasped in agony.
“But not by yours.” Lucas tore the dagger free, and the mages let Matthew’s body collapse to the street.
Blood pooled beneath him, and as he took his dying breath, he turned toward me and whispered a single word.
“Traitor.”
That sharp pain pricked my temples, but then the mages were dragging me front and center to face Lucas and the bloody dagger he held in his fist. I eyed it, waiting for him to kill me, too, but he wiped the blood on my shoulder then sheathed it at his hip.
“You did well today,” Lucas said. “You will be spared punishment. The rest, however, are not so lucky. See to them,” he told the mage to his right then walked away.
The demons involved in Matthew’s failed rebellion yelled and fought against the mages, but they weren’t strong enough against their magic. White and gold flames lashed out like whips, hitting their backs and shoulders, burning them, scarring them forever. But none touched me. Cries of pain rang false in my ears, muffled as if coming from far away.
“So much pain you caused, so much suffering,” Antonio whispered in my ear. “Come. There is still more to see.”
I didn’t move. I reached around to my back, up under my shirt. The scars I earned were there, and I pressed my fingers to them. The scene shimmered around me, and I caught a brief flash of memory-me being the only one on the ground before Lucas. There was another being held at his side. I pressed harder, wincing at the pain it caused me, but just when I sensed the image cracking before me, Antonio grabbed hold of my arm and threw me aside.
I slid down the street and slammed into another door.
This one blood red and burning.
“We are not yet finished,” he growled and drew back his boot.
He kicked me squarely in the chest, and I flew backward through the door. This time, I only fell for a second then crashed to the ground.
The same eerie greyness surrounded me. My brother wasn’t here, but a part of me was.
“I told you to remember,” that part of me said. “You’re failing.”
“I’m trying,” I contended, reaching around to touch my scarred back again. “This is wrong. All wrong. What did he do?”
“He’s punishing you.”
“Why?”
“You know why. Now stop wasting time. If you don’t figure this out, you’ll be trapped with him in these memories forever. Is that what you want? To be on an endless cycle of pain and death until you finally lose your mind completely? They’ll lock you away forever. You can’t afford that, not when there’s something much worse than Lucas or your brother’s memory looming on the horizon.”
“What? How would you know?”
“Because while you’re in here, the rest of the world is moving on without you.” He waved his hand to the side, and the greyness parted like a curtain to reveal another scene, but this one I sensed was happening at this very moment.
“Mercy?”
She was in a room I didn’t recognize, talking to someone else I couldn’t see. Her face was drawn, bruised and cut, like she’d been in a fight. The last time I saw her, she was fine, but then she went off grid. Who was she hunting? I growled, wanting to go to her, but when I reached the image, I walked right through it.
“Damn it.”
“You have to finish what you started.”
I was reliving the worst moments of my past but was no closer to understanding why I saw these specific memories, or why I was continually tortured by them. I frowned, thinking over the last one. Once again, Antonio had been nowhere in sight. I vividly remembered his being there, seeing his face as I was tortured by the mages. Only in this version, that hadn’t happened. Was he changing my memories somehow?
“Rafael.”
My head shot up when I heard Mercy say my name, but she wasn’t speaking to m
e. At least not the me inside my head. Her blue eyes had gone cold, and her mouth was set in an angry frown. She was angry. At who? Me? The image blurred and then was gone.
“You’re running out of time.”
“Where’s the door?” I growled. “It’s time I finish this. She needs me.”
“Yeah, she does,” he agreed. “More than you know.” He pointed ahead of me, and the burning door appeared again. “Remember, don’t witness. If you fail this time, you will be trapped here forever. And Mercy, the only person to care for us in a long time, will be lost to us.”
She was the only person I’d cared for in a long time, too. Whatever shit she’d gotten herself into, I was going to be there to help get her out of it.
I stormed toward the door, ready to end this and get out of my own head. I pushed it open and strode through.
Right into the nightmare that had plagued me for weeks.
“Yes, the final and worst of your failures,” Antonio mused standing beside me, not seeming to notice I was late arriving next to him again. “The night your brother was killed. This will be a good one. Don’t you agree?”
Chapter 13
Rafael
Remember. Don’t witness.
I repeated the words in my head as I moved forward into the room. We were in another hidden basement, but this time there were three times the number of demons ready to lay their lives down for the cause. I stood at the head of the table, running through the plan one final time. It would work. This plan had to work. That was what I’d told myself back then. And it would have worked if we’d had enough demons. Not that I blamed those who refused to fight that night. They saved themselves from a horrible fate.
“The patrol switches out at midnight,” memory-me said. “We make our move then. The distraction near the gate will give us our chance to hit the armory and get the weapons we need for this attack to work.”
“All families are safe,” a demon informed us. “The mages can’t use them against us tonight.”
“Good. And their escape plan while we’re attacking?”
“Is in place. We left ten strong fighters to take one of the transports and get as many out as we can before they shut us down.”
“It’s the best we can hope for. Lucas is our target. We kill him, we have a chance to drive them out. Remember, we need the ring on his finger. Otherwise he can’t be harmed. Any demon who wishes to back out now will not be thought less of. This is probably a suicide mission.”
Not a single demon made a move to do so.
I nodded in approval. “Right then, move out.”
Antonio snapped his fingers, and we were taken from the basement and landed right in the middle of the fighting. I found myself with a sword in hand, battling my way through the mages. We’d already broken into the armory and were inside the mansion. Lucas, we were on our way to get to Lucas. We walked along, ghosts really in this fight.
“You nearly made it that night,” Antonio mused. “Too bad it was never going to happen.”
The scene shifted completely, and we were in the domed hall. Demons stood behind me, bloodied, but swords in hand ready to keep fighting. Lucas stood before us along with the mages left alive.
“You’ve come so far only to fail,” Lucas said, not appearing frightened at all.
More mages poured into the room behind us, and my heart plummeted seeing this play out all over again. Despite our vast numbers, we were never a match for their magic. When I looked back to Lucas, suddenly Antonio was at his side. I growled, both versions of me taking a step toward him to save my brother.
Remember, don’t witness.
Lucas grabbed hold of Antonio’s hair and dragged his head back. “Your punishment for starting this rebellion, Rafael. Let it be your final reminder before I take your life next.”
“Rafael,” Antonio pleaded. “Raf.”
“Don’t you touch him,” I snarled.
“You should have kept him somewhere safer. You failed,” Lucas said, but the words coming out of his mouth didn’t match the way his lips moved.
I tilted my head, moving through the memory as those words repeated themselves in my mind.
Remember. Don’t witness.
“This isn’t right,” I said quietly, watching without emotion as Lucas ran Antonio through with his dagger.
The other me reacted with howls of rage and screaming curses. But I knew this memory better than any of the others because it haunted me for so long. Not because Lucas had managed to get my brother from where I’d hidden him safely away. No. Because of what Antonio did that night. He was supposed to escape with the others and instead, he joined the fight without my knowledge. He was never meant to be there.
“You.” I whirled around to face the remaining part of my brother’s soul. “You changed it all, didn’t you?”
“I merely accompanied you on this journey,” Antonio said.
“You’re lying. This? This is not what happened that night. In fact, none of what you showed me is the truth. Where were you in those first two memories?”
He clasped his hands behind his back. “I was where I was.”
“You want to blame all of this on me, all these deaths, all these failures. They were never mine,” I growled fiercely, “they were yours.”
All these years I’d been beating myself up over losing our parents, our friends, the death of my brother. None of it was because of what I’d done, or not done.
The scene in front of me froze and then cracked right down the middle like we were standing in a mirror. All this time I let myself be dragged into the darkness because my brother’s anger put me there. It twisted every last memory I had, until I felt nothing but the guilt, nothing but the pain. Growing up in the slums had been far from easy, and yes, we lost people, far too many people. But there had been moments of happiness, of friendship and love. I glowered at what remained of my brother as the last bit of the memory shattered, falling to dust at our feet and left us in the dimly lit recess of my mind. The other me never said face my guilt. Only the guilt. My brother’s guilt.
“You bastard.” My demon rage flared to life as reality slammed into me. “You’ve been torturing me for years.”
“I’m not the one who got all those people killed.”
“Neither did I,” I growled and took a step toward him.
A faint outline of my other self appeared beside my brother, and his words came to me one more time. Remember. Don’t witness. You were there, Rafael, time for you to remember exactly what happened. Time for his soul to face the truth.
I closed my eyes, tuning out Antonio’s rant, and focused on remembering. Truly remembering. The ground shifted beneath my feet, and I was moving back through my memories, back to the beginning where this all started.
When I opened my eyes, I was no longer a witness in my house the day my parents were killed. I was back in my body, seeing through my own eyes as the day replayed. Antonio’s soul fragment stood in the corner, his eyes black, and his mouth set in a furious snarl.
“This changes nothing,” he snapped at me.
I didn’t respond, stuck in my younger self.
The truth. I was here to see and remember the truth, not Antonio’s twisted version of it to make him seem like the victim.
The mage knocked on the door and Mom went to answer it. She was thrown back as it was bashed open and the mages stormed in. The exchange happened just as it had before. Mom was torn from Dad’s arms, but everything after that was different.
This was what truly occurred that day.
“Mom,” Antonio’s younger self cried out. “Where are they taking her?”
“You have to be strong now,” Dad told him, crouching down, so they were eye level. “We all have to be. If we pray hard enough, we might see her again. But she would not want you to be sad over her leaving, Antonio.” He wiped at my brother’s cheeks, mopping up his tears. “Be strong.”
Antonio glared past Dad to the front door.
“Don
’t,” I said as he started to move away from Dad. “Antonio—No!”
He ducked around Dad and bolted for the front door.
I gave chase, but he slipped through my fingers and made it out the front door. He sprinted barefoot through the snow. Dad and I rushed to catch him before he did something stupid.
“Antonio!” I yelled.
Mom turned around, eyes wide as she spotted her youngest son rushing toward her.
“Mom, run.” Antonio barreled into the mage to Mom’s right, taking him to the ground.
Mom yelled for him to stop, but it was too late.
He grabbed a rock off the ground and bashed the face in of the other mage. “Go. You have to get out of here.”
“Enough of this,” the mage in front snapped. Gold and white flames stretched up his arm, and he directed the blast right at Antonio.
I put my head down, charging to get there in time, but Dad yanked on my wrist, sending me to the ground as he bolted past me, shouting for Mom and Antonio to get down.
I saw their eyes meet, saw the resolve in Mom’s eyes and my heart slammed against my rib cage as time slowed. The magic meant for Antonio struck Mom in the back as she blocked him from the hit. She gasped, her eyes growing wide. Dad screamed her name, voice ragged in anguish as she managed a step, then another, then collapsed in the snow. Dad slipped and slid to get to her, wrapping her up in his arms. Antonio dropped the rock in his hand, jaw fell as tears formed in his eyes.
“No,” Dad whispered, shaking Mom, but she was gone.
I choked back a sob, then growled.
The mage looked on as if he hadn’t just killed our mom. I was going to attack him, but Dad beat me to it. He grabbed a dagger from the fallen mage and threw himself into the enemy. I rushed to aid him but, a mage easily threw me to the side, and I could do nothing but watch as Dad fought. It was all for nothing. The mage’s power swirled around Dad, lifting him off his feet.
“You should have controlled your children better,” the mage sighed. “Such bad manners.” He twirled his fingers and Dad’s body flipped as it was lifted off the ground. “Take this lesson to heart, boys, for your next one will be much harsher.”
