Claimed by Callista

Chapter ✺ 22

He walks forward, clearly happy I am dressed in his kind of attire.

"Beautiful," he approves, "How do you like it?"

"I like it," I say, a bit forced.

"Yehseeka," he tut tuts, knowing I lie.

"It's the middle, a little hard to breathe," I say, shrugging my one good shoulder, "I like the colour, blood red," I smile.

"Crimson," he corrects me, and takes the lead, "We'll make this quick."

He quickens his step.

My whole heart is strained at the thought of what I'm about to see, wherever it is he is held. I hope he isn't too badly tortured or hurt.

I just can't wait to see him.

Callista.

****

I thought I'd be prepared but I was not prepared for this at all.

"DO YOU FEEL?" An echo, echoed... and still echoing with power. A man's high pitched command, a question – filtering up to my ears.

"A High Priest's chant," my father murmurs the explanation to me, holding my hand as we descend a narrow and confined cavern stairwell, etched into stone.

I say nothing.

Do you feel? I hear it again – this time a snake hissing it inside my head.

It feels intrusive, but I don't react to it and I continue on into the dark. My father leads the way, as no light is allowed down here, so we descend into pure darkness. I hold his hand tighter and he squeezes back on mine with his own promise of safety and protection.

I trust him in this, at least, that he won't put me in harm's way.

It feels like we are descending in a spiral forever under the castle, until light finally filters forward out of a gigantic circular cavern. It reminds me of Callista's Temple of Death... just much, much bigger.

The light is grey, everything is so dark, it's hard to understand what light this is, if any.

I stay close behind my father, while I look at what they're doing.

High Priests chanting at the warrior chained in the middle, as his Shamanic magic is pulled out of him and it flies around the room – a shadow of a bear, streaks of black, flying around the room chaotically in a mass like a storm cloud, it's as if souls of the dead that he took in war are being... extracted from his body?

Callista is snarling in pain and aggression, yanking on the chains, sounding like an animal.

I don't recognise my Magus.

The first time I saw him walk on coals, I thought he was a beast, godlike.

Right now he looks like a monster, writhing in pain, contorting in the dark, as the High Priests hold the chains and walk around at the sight of the King.

They spin Callista around and stop chanting.

I watch as Callista falls to his knees and then quickly gets back up, huffing, his whole body is shaking and trembling.

When he looks up, his eyes are yellow like the sun, glowing...

He is looking at the King, and then at me. Drool drips from his mouth – and it looks like he is salivating for them all to die. Blood lust.

His snarling stops. The drooling stops.

Callista goes quiet.

All the shadows in the room, slam back into him, locked in.

My father's hand loosens from mine.

"It actually worked?" he asks the High Priests, who looked just as shocked as the King does – but he doesn't seem to realise he let my hand go.

I dodge around him and silently approach Callista.

I hear a barking noise of complaint from the priests, but it's too late.

"Yehseeka," my father snaps my name, but I don't care.

I'm too quick.

I stand before Callista, my chained Magus, as he watches me, his eyes still yellow like the sun. He blinks once – but it's hard to tell if he's even breathing.

"Callista?" I say his name, "You're really alive," I raise my hand very slowly to his cheek, touching him, even as he flinches at my human touch. I can tell his soul is pushed behind the magic, as his magic is currently swirling at the forefront, but he still recognises me, I'm sure of it, "I just want to..." I can't finish the question, I just have to move in for it. I hug him closer, wrapping my one arm around his wide torso, and the chains creak around him – I think he wants to hug me back but he can't.

The only thing he can really move is his neck.

So I feel his hot breath over my head, down my neck as he breathes.

"I'm dead."

He sounds like an animal, Callista's voice had changed to be maniacal, it's deeper – even deeper than before.

It's pure death magic that speaks to me.

"What?" I whisper against his skin.

"I'm not what you think I am," Callista whispers into my ear – and he even sounds like a different person. It sounds like a warning.

I release him from my one armed embrace, and I move back to see him smiling without emotion, his arms still straining against the chains for me, his fingers buckled into claws, like he had been trying to get me... not... not embrace me.

I back up slowly, not liking that smile. He doesn't look like a man anymore.

I don't understand what it means.

I keep walking backwards until my back hits my father, and he holds both my arms, keeping me steady and still, "He's mother wasn't human," he tells me, quietly, "You're seeing the other half."

"Oh," I gulp.

"Come," my father urges me along.

I follow but I look over my shoulder at Callista, missing him... but not even knowing who I gaze upon anymore.

He is still watching me... surely he is in there, somewhere.

But he is no longer smiling. Just glaring with those yellow eyes.

That look is purely death charged up.

What the hell happened to the man, the warrior?

Right now, Callista didn't even seem real. I can only imagine what's happened to Nyaor.

And Orsunr?

Orsunr.

Maybe he managed to escape this transformation by submitting to them in the first place.

My heart beats with hope.

Maybe him.

Maybe he was still the same.