The Golden Chalice

✰✦✰ Chapter Thirty-Six ✰✦✰

✰✦✰ Chapter Thirty-Six✰✦✰
" The Aureate Witch "

A PAIR OF strong hands were wrapped around my throat as I finished the drink, causing some of the last of it to be spat at Apheses's face whilst he strangled me.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" he screamed at me, pinning me against the cave's uneven wall. For the first time I noted the satanic fury discernible in his gaze. An excruciating pain zoomed through my head as it was slammed against said wall, but I forced it away and ignored it as best I could.

The drink hadn't been half as bad as I'd believed, almost tasty, really. But it was still—

A flash of golden fireworks

Agora laughs softly

A painting is being drawn—it's a picture of me but I'm wearing a golden crown

"You're more powerful than they ever were, Your Majesty"

Screams

Blood

Violence

Fighting and wars against the Shadow Stealers

"YOU RUINED EVERYTHING—" Apheses was yelling—

Thirteen Isles burning

Apheses stands in the background, eyes triumphant and victorious

Knives

Swords

Cuts

Death

PAIN

Agora's bleeding body ascending to the heavens of Olympia

SUSPENSE

FALSE SECURITY

"—JUST LIKE YOUR—"

THIS

ISN'T

PEACE.

I gasped, straining for air but it wasn't being granted to me. I tried to claw him off me—to get him away but Apheses was still clutching at my throat, swearing and cursing and spitting and crying out—Euphemia did nothing to stop him.

A sickening, stomach-churning pain shot up, from my toes all the way to my brain, spinning my head and beating it endlessly. I couldn't breathe. I was trying to keep my eyes from closing, to make sure that Apheses knew I wasn't going down.

Had this been a trick? Had the Chalice truly been poisoned?

You're—a voice in my head—not dying.

I whispered, How do you know?

I KNOW.

That was somehow all the confirmation I needed. Confusion washed away. Uncertainty was gone. I knew now that I wasn't dying. This was something else, something more meaningful. Whatever this was, it was changing me. From the inside out, I could feel my veins surging with a sort of burning power.

What's happening to me? I asked the voice.

You are becoming the Aureate Witch.

What?

Scarlett Solaris is no longer who you are. You are now the Aureate Witch. No one can stop you now.

I wanted to ask what the voice meant and what they were talking about but my throat was losing air and I was slowly slipping into whatever haze I was feeling inside of me.

"SCARLETT!" A scream for my name.

He was here. Darius was here. I could hear his voice.

"Get the boy out—" Apheses demanded.

Euphemia stammered her response, "S-Sir, she's—look at her—"

I broke apart, screams enveloping the entire cave. My own screams. Inhumane and unapologetically violent and shattering. Apheses's hand dropped from my throat and he stumbled to the floor, pathetically. My eyes closed and I felt the power take over me. Golden, unstoppable, controlling power that made me feel like there was nothing on this earth that could ever cross me. I sounded hysterical. Savage and wild. Perhaps even indignant. I cried out and cried out until I felt like my body was going to explode from the pressure beating against my mind. Every memory of mine was thrown against it and I was left feeling overwhelmed. Hurt and abandoned. Like a wounded animal lashing out.

I stretched out my arms to my sides and pushed them forward, like I might be shoving someone away. Instead, something burst from them and my palms felt so, so warm, I was forced to open my eyes, my cries coming to a halt as I watched beams of golden light erupt from my hands, boring into the walls and causing them to crash apart and fall down on us. Apheses screamed something at Euphemia and only then did I notice Darius's face by the doorway. The Guard was gone and he was here. He had a cut on his forehead and one on his lip, both of them bleeding. Still, his eyes met mine and I slowly rose to my feet as his eyes widened, stunned.

"H-He—Help—" I choked out. My voice was barely heard over the thunderous vibrations of what I knew now were my abilities. My body shook with power and the cave was quite literally caving in. Falling in on us. Bringing us closer to our deaths.

Darius rushed over to me and I wobbled on my feet, my powers stammering in a way. "Hel—Help me—" I whispered weakly before I went to drop to the ground. Thankfully, Darius caught me in time and tried to keep me awake and strong, saying things to me I couldn't quite make out. His lips were moving but I was beginning to see stars. To see darkness that would engulf me.

"No, no, no—" I heard him say.

He held me close and the cave split in two.

And just like that, Darius was speeding us out of there, right as my eyelids fluttered close.