Chapter 257: Silence before storm
"Althea!"
Hex called, hoping to catch her attention. He shook her. He even slapped her. But nothing got through her.
He sat beside her. The golden beam and threads swarmed and connected with her. Hex suspected her to be the Fated One. It was the only explanation he could come up with so far.
She told him once, during a spar behind the castle, that she was supposed to be a Heaven’s Chosen. One bestowed with luck and talent. Were those things connected? Was this happening because she was both?
It didn’t sound bad. Not to Hex. But she didn’t seem happy to be a Chosen then. Then she knew the Templars would be her best option. Yet, he remembered her saying she wished to join the Paladins. According to her, it would help her remain connected with the Hawks. Perhaps, Hex thought, she wasn’t willing to part with the Commander.
Even now she resisted the beam of golden light. Hex understood that despite failing to pull her out of whatever caused her to attack like this. She clutched her head and lay in a fetal position. To him, it looked like she was trying to transform into a closed-up ball.
She stopped crying but she continued to hold her head. She also mumbled some incoherent stuff. Nothing he could understand. He tried lifting her but his muscles failed. It wasn’t because of his injuries only.
When he tried to lift her, the threads coiled around her and tightened. Hex felt like she was strapped to this place. And to the golden beam.
He racked his brain for ideas to undo the strings but he had very little information to work with. He could walk through them and even stand in the middle of the beam. But the light just warped around him. It didn’t hurt him or help him recover. The silky threads just parted and moved around him. The way they acted reminded Hex of the streams he used to drink from. They flowed around the rocks in their path or over them.
’I guess, as someone without a proper birth, I am just like a lifeless rock in their path.’
Despite failing to reach her, he couldn’t give up. The biggest danger, the King, had gone silent. Hex didn’t lose him out of his sight. At first, the man shouted, even pleading to Heavens, to save his wife. But suddenly he stopped. He sat there, with his wife in his arms. Frozen in place. The slight tremors of his skin caused by his heartbeat were the only proof of him being alive.