Knight of Converse

Knight of Converse - Chapter twenty

A/N: I want to apologise for how long it's taken me to upload. It's been tough, the journey to finally getting this chapter written. I've had writers block with this story, as well as the fact that my life is a complete whirlwind at the moment. But it's finally here. It's here. Enjoy.

Knight of Converse

Chapter twenty

Consciousness didn’t come slowly like it always. I sprang up, with my hand on my chest, breathing heavily. My body shivered with a strange feeling, as though something had walked right through me. The pain was gone, and the screaming in my head had stopped. I looked around wildly, trying to recall what had just happened, but I couldn’t remember much since I stepped into Fran’s house. How long had it been? Five minutes? Twenty? The eeriness in her empty attic was frightening. I tried to stand up but slumped down to my knees weakly, my head started to spin.

Footsteps clacked up the stairs, and Fran walked into the room with a black bowl in her hands. As soon as she spotted I was awake, she hurried over to me and sank down to her knees, urging me to drink from the bowl.

“What’s going on? What is that?”

Her eyes were frantic. “Please, drink this first.”

“There’s no way I’m ingesting a concoction I don’t know!” Thirst clawed at my throat like a blazing heath. I cursed my tiredness as I grabbed at the bowl and gulped the soothing cool liquid down. It smelt and tasted of lavender and honeysuckle. “That was a one off.” I breathed in relief. My heart continued to beat erratically nonetheless.

“Oh Sol,” Fran cried, before pulling me into a hug. I felt disorientated, and slightly uncomfortable at her odd display of affection.

“What’s going on with me?” I asked her. “Did I just die?”

“No! Of course not… what can you remember?”

I racked my brain, and vague memories of my crazed trip here sprang to mind. I remembered the tearing feeling in my chest, I remembered the fear. My head ached the more I recollected. There was something wrong with me, I knew it.

I grabbed my head. “Fran, this is about more than I ever thought. Misty—Duran—this entire thing is bigger than I might be able to handle. I’m so afraid – and the portal they were here and I had to protect him because that’s what I had to do – and Misty was there, and she–”

“Shhh,” she soothed and stroked my back. “Take a deep breath, let the calming brew do its job.” I felt the lightness of the liquid spreading through me and sighed. Fran moved back, and placed her hands on my shoulders. I noticed then, that her eyes were rimmed with red, and furrowed my eyebrows.  “Sol, I need to you listen to me very carefully, alright?” I nodded. “You are good. You are good in here.” she patted her heart. Foreboding began to close in.

“Okay…”

“You blacked out because you were possessed.”

“What?” I screeched. “I’m going mad aren’t I?”

Fran shook her head and bit her wobbling lip. “No,” she whispered. “Merlin. He was here.” She squeezed her eyes once before opening them again. “He’s always been here.”

I was suddenly too aware of myself, too aware of my body. Merlin was here. Merlin was me. It didn’t make any sense, and then it made too much sense. “Why?”

She pointed to the ground beside me, and I finally noticed my grimoire there, along with a blood stained dagger. The book was sprawled open on a page I’d never seen before. Gold patterns were sprawled all over the spell entry. I reached out to grab it, and felt a stinging in my hand so I turned it over. There was a red line running across my palm as though a fresh slash had been healed and running all over it was a strange branding of patterns. I gasped before I grabbed the grimoire and threw it in my lap. “He did this to me?”