Invisible String - Sebastian Sallow

Chapter Fourty-Four: Storm in the Offing

"It's Ominis and Poppy, Abbi. You don't want to do this to them," Sebastian pleaded, his voice cracking.

Ominis. Poppy.

No, that wasn't right.

I wouldn't hurt them.

Everything I did was to protect the three of them. Sebastian, Poppy and Ominis.

I looked down again as a different feeling flickered in my chest. Confusion. It wasn't possible, they hadn't been here. I'd left them at the castle, kept them from the Gaunt's and from me. I hadn't seen them, I had seen two enemies coming at me, wands out, convinced it was more of Ominis's insane family. I'd only meant to subdue the oncoming assailants.

But he was right, as Sebastian often was. Horrified, stared transfixed at the two figures kneeling before me. My best friends, covered in slithering blood red magic, while I attempted to control them with mine.

Their bodies seemed shrunken covered in my magic.

"No!"

I pulled the tendrils, my hands wrapping around the glowing strands, panic rising in my chest. If I could just get the magic off of them, they'd be okay. They'd be free of me, and I could let them walk away untainted.

Ominis who despised the Dark Arts and never wanted to be a Gaunt.

Poppy who had spent her whole life undoing the damage done by her poacher family.

"Abbi!"

Sebastian let out a sharp cry behind me, and I glanced at him, fear filling me as I watched the tendrils snake into him, binding him, and slipping into him the same way it was in Ominis and Poppy.

All of this felt wrong. The shimmering veil that had surrounded Sebastian was gone, the thrill of the magic was gone. Instead I was drowning in fear and despair, watching a scene I couldn't fully understand play out before me.

Sebastian struggled and attempted to pull at the tendrils, but they forced their way into him, his eyes glazing over. He stared unseeing back at me as his body slowly stopped fighting.

"Stop," I sobbed, my head pounding, heart hammering wildly in my chest. "Stop, not them!"

The voice my magic had gained in my head echoed loudly throughout the space. Words slammed violently against my ears, forcing me to release the tendrils from my hands and slam them to my head. An agonized scream ripped from my lips.

"You are the monster you promised to destroy," the voice called out as tears spilled from my eyes. "See what you've done to them. What you will do to them."

Ominis was first for the tendrils to fall from. He stood rigid, waiting for his command. Sebastian was next, the tendrils spilling from him, his eyes glowing red until Ominis's ghostly white ones. Poppy was still fighting, and I knew it was because I had never done any dark magic with her. She'd never been controlled by me, as Ominis had. She hadn't been bound to my soul, as Sebastian had.

She was innocent, pure and sunshine.

My shadow did not need to be cast over her, did not need to snuff her out.

"Abbi!"

Sebastian's voice called to me again, causing me to whip around in confusion. Sebastian stood next to me, still and lifeless, his eyes glowing red, his freckles more muted against his pale skin.

"Abbi, love, wake up," his voice pleaded as I stared right at him, mesmerized by the fact that his lips didn't move. "Please, wake up!"

"Seb," I cried, reaching for him, but my hand went through him, my hand plunged into cold nothingness.