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Hunter had never slept in a bed as comfortable as the one Camila Noceda provided for him.
Caleb, he reminded himself. Not Hunter. Caleb. Though it seemed even that name didn’t belong to him. The others - Willow and Gus at least - still insisted on calling him by the name he had given them. It was, for as far back as he could remember, among the greatest of the small kindnesses people had been giving him. He still couldn’t understand what he'd done to deserve it. He had been raised from birth to be a soldier for the dictator of the Boiling Isles. He had adamantly refused to see the history of warning signs that now screamed at him from his past. He had hurt Luz, and distrusted her, the very same Luz who’d risked her life for him just days prior.
“Hunter” was a more proper name for him, he decided. Hunting was all he’d done his whole life. He’d hunted for witches who stepped out of line, the palismen his uncle needed to keep himself alive, jobs he could cling to as a way to prove his worth. And behind it all was a desperate hunt for the one thing that continued to matter to him when all else failed - that dingy little thing called approval. Looking back, the emperor was a little more on-the-nose than he’d once thought. His eloquence with words crumbled to dirt when you knew what was behind them.
Hunter rolled over. He had the bed - and the room - all to himself, a scarcely decorated “guest room,” as Luz had called it. The others had insisted on bunking with Luz, even though it meant sleeping on the floor, but he'd excused himself to get some more privacy. He would have told them that he had a million things to process, that guilt and horror at all he had seen and done were still eating away at him from the inside, or even that he could still feel the phantom sting from where his sigil had burned him. But, they would have given him that… look. That eyes-squinted, brows-furrowed, pouty-lipped look. That almost tore away at him more than anything else.
The Emperor’s Coven had made their mission clear - to shape the minds and harness the skills of the best and the brightest. People didn’t pity the members of the Emperor’s Coven. They looked up to them, modeled their lives after them, saw in them everything they could be, if they only put in the work. The Golden Guard especially should never be looked at with that look, like he might break down before their eyes at any moment. No one needed to protect the Golden Guard. He protected himself, and always had.
Hunter took the pillow from under his head and pressed it into both of his ears, disturbing Flapjack, who hovered for a moment beside him before settling in front of his face. The cardinal tilted his head at him and Hunter sighed, releasing his grip from the pillow to stroke his palisman’s head.
“I’m okay, buddy. Just can’t sleep.”
Flapjack’s eyes closed, and it was only a moment before he was fast asleep again, steadfast by his side as always.
“Why Caleb?” he asked, disappointed to hear the weakness in his own voice. “Of all the names, why give me that one?”
He had worked it out - why Belos had screamed that name at him, why he could remember a familiar outline in the staff clutched by the real Caleb in the images from his mind, why Flapjack had really chosen him over every other witch in the Boiling Isles. But, for the life of him he still couldn’t understand what it all meant. Did this little bird who had trusted him and protected him see him as nothing more than a replacement? Was that all that he amounted to, in the end?
He needed some air.
It was relatively easy to sneak out unnoticed, with all the training he had under his belt. The cold dark streets of Connecticut provided him with enough unfamiliar imagery that his brain was forced to process something other than his own self hatred, and the fog that escaped his breath reminded him that he was real, he was here, he was alive. The wind tugged a stray leaf from its branch and he watched its trajectory as it glided swiftly to the ground. The piles of them that had made their way to the streets crunched under his boots, and he almost smiled.
Just as he was looking back up, though, something about them changed. He sucked in a breath and covered his mouth, stumbling several steps back and nearly losing his footing. They were bones, scattered all over the streets as far as the eye could see, and just as he considered turning around and calling for help, the streets were gone with the leaves as well. It was a graveyard full of bones no one had bothered to bury, cracked masks with empty eyes. There was no way out, no sign that anything else had ever existed here. And the smell-
Hunter shut his eyes tight and ceased breathing. He had been in this nightmare before. If he could just picture himself in his bed, asleep, he’d be back there in moments and the masks would be nothing more than imprints on the back of his eyes.
An all-too-familiar voice was quick to silence that hope.
“Hunter,” Belos said, and Hunter’s eyes shot open. He looked around, stumbled to find where the voice had come from. His boot found a stray helmet and he shook it violently off of him, not looking to see it hit the ground and crack further. “I’m disappointed in you, Hunter. You abandoned me.”
“What?” Hunter said, with the voice of a child. “No… No, I didn’t! You’re… gone.”
“Oh, Hunter. You should know better than that.”
The voice was all around him - there was no direction to run from but he ran all the same, through the sickening crunches he could do nothing to avoid, against the wind which now picked up to sting his cheeks and fill his lungs with pain, but the voice found a way to follow him.
“Now, now, where did I go wrong with you? You were the best of all of them, you know. All of his best qualities and not a thought of your own to disobey me with. It surely couldn't have been my own wrongdoing, then, wouldn't you agree?”
Hunter fell to his knees and sobbed - days, weeks, years worth of tears falling freely from his eyes and gracefully blurring his vision. “I’m sorry,” he managed through tears. “I didn’t mean to betray you. I wouldn’t have. You’re family! But what you’ve done to all of these innocent people, I- how could you? How could you lie to me?”
“Hm.” And then he saw him. Belos stood before him in his robes like he’d been there all along. He had a small, disappointed frown on his face as he looked down at the mess that was Hunter, his arms folded behind his back. “Still ‘family,’ am I? Very interesting. You know, Hunter,” he said, stooping down amongst the bones to look him in the eye. “Perhaps there’s still a use for you yet. Perhaps if you simply learned by example, you’d see where you’ve gone wrong. There’s hope still, after all, even for the most struggling of students.”
“What are you talking about?” Hunter said. “What are you going to do with me?”
“Oh, nothing more, you’ll find, than you did to me. I can see why you did it, you and that human. Poking around in someone else’s memories is rather exhilarating.”
“What? Uncle Belos, please-”
But, no sooner had he uttered the words than the target for them vanished into thin air. Hunter whirled around, wiped the tears from his face, and readied himself for whatever he was about to face. But, what waited behind him wasn’t the graveyard of bones he had expected, nor the quiet neighborhood streets he wished so desperately to return to.
Instead, he found himself in the familiar halls of the Emperor’s Castle. A cursory glance around showed him he was right outside the same hall where he normally met with his uncle behind closed doors. The same hall where they'd both worked tirelessly on the portal Hunter now knew was meant to take him home. The same hall, a more distant memory reminded him, where he had inherited his staff.
He looked down. There was the uniform of the Golden Guard he had cherished for all those years, clean and freshly pressed. But, his hands were empty. Had Belos brought him back to that memory? But, why?
He brushed himself off, straightened his cloak so the clasp aligned with his belt (as was protocol), and prepared to step through the door. When his hand was mere inches from the door handle, he was stopped by the sounds of quiet sobs echoing in his direction from a short distance away. Hunter took another look at the door, then removed his hand and headed toward them.
Hidden away in the tread of a staircase leading down to a place Hunter had never been was a man he immediately recognized as Darius. He had the same broad stature, the same hair tied back that flickered like a heartbeat, the same cape draped ceremonially over his shoulder. But, rather than standing regally and looking down upon everything that crossed his path, he was sitting on the floor with his face buried in his knees, shoulders shaking with sobs.
“Darius?” Hunter asked, in a voice that was not his own.
Darius looked up with a start, and Hunter recognized instantly that this memory didn’t belong to him. His mentor was younger, younger than Hunter had ever seen him - perhaps in his early twenties or even his late teens. Hunter stepped back, his boot hitting the step behind it.
He had a million things to ask him, a million questions this version of Darius wouldn’t know the answer to, but instead he asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Are you joking?” Darius said, sniffing and turning his face away. “He’s going to kill you.”
“What?” Hunter said, startled. “Darius-”
“Don’t,” Darius spat, whirling back at him, and then he sighed, wiping away a tear and resting his chin on his knees. “Don’t try to tell me I’m wrong. I know what I saw.”
Hunter stood frozen. There was nothing he could say to that - he had no idea what he was talking about. So he sucked in a breath, let it out, and in an instant he became someone else. He became his predecessor. This young man - older than him, wiser - sighed sadly and sat beside his mentee. He took a moment to choose his words carefully as they looked down at the dark chasm before them.
“You were never supposed to see that.”
Darius scoffed. “Well. I did.” Then, some of the anger seemed to melt away as he looked up at him. New tears were glistening in his eyes. “What do we do now?”
“We do exactly what we would have done if we had never known. I inherit that damn staff, smile at Belos like he’s the very sun the planets orbit around. You dry your eyes and stand by me. Then, when we can, we think. We plan. We wait.”
Darius didn’t seem satisfied with this answer. He pushed himself up to sit straighter and face him head on. “How can you say that? You saw what he did to the others! If he finds out we’re onto him, we’re done for!”
“Except that we aren’t, Darius. We aren’t ‘onto him,’ because we have no idea what he’s planning. We can’t put a stop to him if we don’t know what we’re stopping.”
“We know enough! We know about the-” Darius cut himself off, a haunted expression crossing his face. “The grimwalkers,” he finished, hanging his head.
“That’s right,” Hunter agreed, though the 16-year-old heart that was inside him hardened at the words. “And, we know that I’m not the first one he’s created. We know he’ll create many more, hundreds if he has to. We know he’s more powerful than either of us can hope to be right now.”
“This is ridiculous,” Darius insisted. “Ridiculous! I’m not risking you!”
“No,” Hunter said fondly, placing a hand on Darius’s cheek. “I’m not risking you. You’re a promising young witch who’s going to make a great coven head someday. You’re not dying today for a cause you don’t yet understand. I won’t allow it.”
Darius sighed, and finally his shoulders sank. He looked back at the chasm, and a feeling of dread sank into Hunter as he began to understand what might be down there. “I hate this,” Darius said, his voice barely audible. “I hate waiting.”
“You’re young,” Hunter laughed. “You’ll get used to it.” He handed Darius a handkerchief he had tucked into his sleeve and they sat there in silence for a moment while he collected himself.
Slowly, Hunter became aware of a presence over his shoulder. He held his breath, closed his eyes, and counted to three, then shot them open and turned to face it. Belos was standing at the top of the stairs, watching. Hunter turned over his shoulder to warn Darius, but the young man was frozen in time, his mouth open like he was about to say something.
“So, this is when you knew…” Belos said behind him, and when Hunter turned around his uncle was wearing that same expression he always wore when he was in trouble. Instinctively, Hunter hunched his shoulders and ducked his head, not looking up as Belos went on. “I’m impressed. You managed to hide your treachery from me far longer than I ever suspected.”
“That wasn’t me,” Hunter said, though when he looked down he was still in the body of his predecessor.
“It makes little difference.” Belos wrinkled his nose like he was smelling something mildly unpleasant. “But, you can see what happened, can’t you? What all that treachery and scheming led to? All you managed to do was get yourself killed, and lead your little protégé down a dark, rather annoying path.”
“What choice did you give him? What choice did you give me?”
Belos sighed a world-weary sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I can see you still haven’t learned your lesson. Very well.”
Before Hunter could react, Belos lurched forward and seized his arm, flinging him off the stairs and over the edge. Hunter screamed as he propelled downward. He scrambled for his staff, runes, anything that could save him, but there was nothing. Even if his predecessor had magic, he had no idea how to use it. Hunter closed his eyes and braced himself for impact, to face the same fate as all of those who came before him.
Instead, he met the ground with barely enough force to bruise a knee. Hunter laughed and pushed himself up with young hands, brushing dirt off of himself with a smile. Belos stood away from him in a large empty field a short hike away from the castle, clapping the dirt off of his own hands and shaking his head with something that nearly resembled affection.
“Oh, Scout. You’ll have to do better than that.”
Hunter - no. Scout, here - ran up to him, grinning ear to ear.
“Let me try again, Uncle, please, please, please! I think I’m getting it!”
“Very well.” Belos held his staff aloft and a large ball of light formed. He watched it grow for a moment, then swung his staff and the light shot forward, straight at Scout. Scout held his hands out in front of him, his feet planted firmly to the ground, but just as it got close enough for him to catch it he flinched, and it collided with him and shot him back. Scout hit the ground hard, and he was rubbing the back of his head when he sat back up.
Belos shook his head once again. “Perhaps this magic is just too advanced for you right now, Scout. After all, it doesn’t come as easily to you as it does for other witches your age.”
“No!” Scout shouted, jumping to his feet. “I can do it, I swear! Give me another chance!”
“No. That’s quite enough for today.” Belos planted his staff in the ground in front of him and closed his eyes, a small smile on his face. Scout ran up to him, and Hunter saw that his uncle towered above him in this form. Scout, then, must’ve been even younger than he was when Belos gave up hope for him being adept at magic. The field around them offered him some hints to the time this all took place, too. The tree he knew towered into the sky in his day was only a few feet tall here. The buildings that the Construction Coven studied as historic architecture weren't even under construction yet. This little boy must have been one of the very first of his kind.
“Then give me something else to do! Please? Let me bring in some wild witches!”
“Now, how are you supposed to do that if you can’t even stop a simple spell? No, better to return home where you’ll be safe.”
Scout frowned and turned away to hide his disappointment.
“You used to be like this, you know.” Hunter turned around to see Belos, his Belos standing there in the field. He looked out of place spectating in this memory, the sunshine glinting off of his clean white robes in a way that left Hunter feeling unsettled. “You wanted to please me. You believed in our mission.”
“Your mission. To kill every witch on the Boiling Isles! If I had known-”
Belos sighed. “You still don’t understand.” He scratched his chin in thought, turning away from the child who looked up to him like he was a god to pace and mutter. “Perhaps that’s where I went wrong. Perhaps if you did know what I know, perhaps if you understood the truth like he couldn’t… Yes, perhaps then.” He turned back to Hunter.
“Why are you doing this?” Hunter asked. “Why not just kill me now and move on to the next one?”
Belos shook his head. “Oh, Hunter. There isn’t going to be a next one. What you and your ‘friends’ did to me has left me as nothing more than a shell of my former self. The only piece of me left is the one that made it into this realm with you. We may have made it home, but all we've worked for has been reduced to ruin, foiled by one loose end I failed to tie up. Still, I’m not one to give up so easily - there is hope for us yet. We can still be the saviors of humanity. Oh, just as soon as you’ve had a change in perspective.” He took a step toward him.
“Wait.” Hunter stepped back. “I can’t do this anymore. I can’t keep seeing through the eyes of all these people like me, these replicas you made to do your bidding. I won’t!”
“Then you’re in luck.” Belos smiled. “I’m giving you a chance to be the real thing.” He reached toward him, and everything went black.
“Caleb!” Caleb woke up with his hand pressed into his cheek, leaning on his desk. Beside him, his brother snickered at him behind his hand.
“Oh, come now, Phillip, I was just dreaming I was elsewhere,” Caleb muttered, stifling a yawn. “Why bring me back?”
“Look!” Under his desk, Phillip pointed to the chalkboard, where the teacher was drawing a sketch of a witch, snarling and mean with exaggerated, pointed ears. Hunter wished he could turn away, detach himself from this memory and run out the door, but he was powerless here. He could only bear witness.
The teacher, who seemed to him a bit too impassioned by the cartoonish sketch, turned back around to face the class with a wild look in his eyes. Caleb wiped away some of the drool from the corner of his mouth and sat up straight.
“Can anyone tell me what this is?”
“A witch,” most of the class was quick to answer, but Caleb stayed silent.
“That’s right. Witches have been a danger to our kind since the beginning of time. They harness magic through a vicious sack of bile attached to their hearts to cast their wicked spells, bringing death and destruction to our homes. But, worse than that, they use lies and deceit to lure innocent children away from their families! Away from their home! Away from the church! You must never let it happen to you.”
Caleb glanced over at his brother, who was staring at the illustration with rapt attention. He nodded along with the teacher’s words, a stern look coming over him.
As the teacher went on, Caleb’s attention wandered to the window. Though the sight seemed to spark no amazement in his ancestor, Hunter’s heart leapt at even the glimpse of what he saw. He had seen it since coming to the human realm with his friends - green trees, a blue sky, brightly colored birds flitting from branch to branch. But, he still hadn’t grown used to it. If there was one thing he understood about his uncle, the adult the child next to him would grow into, it was his desire to return here. Though the rest… his mind drifted off.
“Caleb!” Phillip whispered, snapping his fingers. Hunter returned to his senses to find the classroom emptying out, children exchanging words and laughter as they gathered their books and their bags. Caleb’s desk was still undisturbed. He scrambled to put together his belongings and shoved them in his bag while Phillip stood waiting, impatiently tapping his foot.
Outside, Phillip walked ahead of him, turning over his shoulder to deliver a speech Hunter got the sense was very familiar to Caleb. “I still cannot believe you’ve never been caught for it before. If I ever dared to doze off during a lesson like that, Mr. Wright would have my head for it.”
“Yes, well. You lack the grades to support it.”
“Pheh.” Phillip let out a huff of breath and looked indignantly away, holding his head high. Caleb smiled and scoffed, then ran up to walk beside him. “I can’t understand how you can doze off, in any case. Witches are threatening our land! We must stay sharp and grow stronger if we are to stand a chance against them.”
“We need to grow taller if we’re to stand a chance against them,” Caleb corrected, holding a hand high above Phillip’s head, who batted it away. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Phillip, but we’re the children being protected from those witches. No use training for a witch hunt our father will never let us be a part of.”
“I disagree. If we can only prove ourselves, show our dedication, he will see that we’re an asset to him. We just need an opportunity. And you-” He jabbed a finger at Caleb, who stumbled to the side. “-need to study up.”
“Hardly!” Caleb shoved him back. They both laughed. “You can keep your baby lessons for yourself. I’ve grown too old for such basics.” Phillip shook his head disbelievingly, and Caleb walked pointedly forward for a short moment, then seized his brother and rubbed his knuckles against his head. Phillip pulled away, shouting, and Caleb yelled, "Race you home!"
“Oh, you’re on!” Phillip ran ahead in a full sprint, Caleb jogging behind.
Hunter’s mind was racing. This is what Belos’s childhood had looked like - his brother believing in all the same things he did? What had torn these two apart? In his distraction, he tripped over a tree root his brother had leaped effortlessly over and he fell to the ground in a puddle. Caleb was quick to push himself up, but Hunter caught a glimpse of his reflection in the water. It was his face. His face. Just as it was now, save for the scar and the pointed ears.
“Out of all the grimwalkers, you looked the most like him.”
He felt like he was going to be sick.
“This is the brother I remember.”
Hunter stumbled to a halt. Phillip was far ahead of him now, but he didn’t look back. He was alone in a small forest of trees, none of the other students left anywhere in sight. After a moment, Belos emerged from behind a tree, a solemn look on his face.
“Even after all the lies and betrayal, I can still remember when we were like this. When he was like you. It’s a shame what happened to him, but you’re still here. Aren’t you?”
“You killed him,” Hunter said, more to stop him from talking than anything else.
“Only because I had no other choice.”
“You’d kill me.”
Belos chuckled. “Straight to the point, hm? Hunter, you’re missing what I’m trying to show you. Your story doesn’t have to end with such a pointless death. I could see your hesitation in our battle. I’ve seen the way you remember it, right here in your mind. It was your friends who wanted to stop me, not you - that much is clear to me now. That’s why I’m offering you a way out. Help me stop those witches. Help me do what I and my brother could not. We can be what we once were again.”
“No,” Hunter said, surprising himself with how quickly the word came out. “I’m done running back to you. What did it ever get me? Pain, dismissal, false praise?” As he spoke, memories rose from the ground behind him in frames, circling and surrounding Belos as he stood there frowning. At first, it was only his own - all of the days in training when he had pushed himself to the limit, surrounded by candidates far older and stronger than him. The sleepless nights he had spent drafting plans to accomplish his uncle's goals without a thought to what was behind them, only to present them in the morning to an indifferent audience. The days he'd been left behind, criticized, questioned, hurt. The hands of his friends that had once reached out to him, only to be pushed away.
Then, more and more frames came up from the ground as if rising from their graves, black and white and sepia-toned images of the lives Belos had ruined swarming and surrounding him, closing him off from the memory of his childhood he'd clung to far more than Caleb ever had.
Hunter stood tall amongst the chaos with a strengthened resolve. “I’m getting away from you for good. Me and my friends are going to make sure that those people you hurt are safe. And you? I’ll make sure you never see them again.”
Somewhere among the swirling memories was an image of the Darius he knew. He looked away from his prey and toward Hunter, a beaming smile on his face and pride in his eyes. One by one, his ancestors looked up and silently acknowledged him, each in their own way. His predecessor bowed, Scout gave him two big thumbs up, and Caleb offered him a small, sad smile. He'd once imagined his ancestors would be ashamed of the person he was, but now he could see clear as day that he couldn't be further from the truth.
The memories slowed, and Belos stepped out of the circle, his frown turned into a snarl. “You’re making a mistake. You think you’re a match for the likes of me? You’re nothing. Weak.”
Hunter let the words pass through him. He thought of his friends, of the kindhearted Camila Noceda who provided for him without a second thought. He thought of his home and all of the people in it who lived full, rich lives. He prayed to the Titan they were safe and he breathed. In, out, in out, just like Gus had shown him. “If you wanted to hurt me… if you could… you would’ve already done it.”
They stood there for a moment in the stillness, surrounded by their pasts. Before long, the forest they’d stood in was gone. The graveyard where all of this had started appeared and vanished, and there was nothing but the street, him, Belos, and the cool rain that poured down around them.
“When you’ve changed your mind,” Belos said, breaking the silence at last, “You’ll know where to find me.”
“Not happening. And Belos? Stay away from our memories. They don’t belong to you.”
Belos grit his teeth. But, there was nothing more to say. In the blink of an eye, he was gone.
Hunter exhaled, immediately feeling his face and his hair. The scar tissue that stretched across his cheek was there, and his ears came to a point. His hair was short, messy, and damp from the rain. All his life, he’d wished he was taller, stronger, anything but himself, but now he was relieved to find all the things that made him him. The dark circles under his eyes, his broken fingernails and eternally aching legs. The scars that stretched from the sigil on his wrist. He saw them all now as a mark of pride.
He took a moment to stand there in the rain, to quietly thank all of those that hadn’t made it here, and then he turned and ran home.