"Outwitted (Part 32 - final part)" an original work of fiction for #365daysofwriting

This is today's offering (day 222) for @mydivathings' #365daysofwriting challenge (click here to see her current post)

Today's picture prompt (below) is a Photo by Jared Rice on Unsplash

“Stop!”

I had felt the shimmering in the power before I heard her voice, certainly before she materialised before me, her face twisted with anger and pain.

I smiled and pulled back the power just enough to halt the death of Grevyl - to allow Mathilde to watch her mentor suffer - but not enough to release him from his agony.

Grevyl’s eyes were open, bulging unnaturally, they looked almost comical. They looked like two hard boiled eggs. Veins on his face were raised, swollen and thobbing. Beads of blood appeared like sweat on his brow. He was still standing but only because I held him there with my power.

“Hello, sister!” I said, cheerfully. “So glad you could be here to watch this. I was afraid you were going to miss it.”

“Release him! For all that is Good, dear brother! Please, release him!”

“I think not,” I said. “The battle is over, the war almost won. And when my friends arrive I will be King. Will you bow to me, sister?” I asked, enjoying myself now. “Will you be a good subject?”

I watched my sister’s face as she looked from me to Grevyl, to her husband and back to me again. She was conflicted, I could see. Not because she was unable to choose. She just didn’t know whether I would believe her lie.

“No,” she said, eventually. True to form, Mathilde had chosen to tell the truth, even if a lie might have had a chance of getting her out of trouble. I nodded.

“I thought not.”

She had been the same as a child. Once, just after we moved to the big house, we were chasing each other around the large rooms, and Mathilde slipped on the polished wooden floors and skidded into a table. I recall watching the vase on the table top teeter back and forth, for what seemed like minutes - as if time had been slowed somehow - before it went crashing to the floor splintering into a hundred pieces. Blame, Gertrude, I had said, pointing to our old and rather clumsy Retriever, who lay by the fire, looking stupid with her tongue hanging out. But Mathilde would have none of it, she would not - could not - lie. Mother was angry and Mathilde had to clean out the pigs for a week. But I remember the look Father had given Mathilde: he was proud of her.

“Let him go,” Mathilde said, firmly. “I’ll trade you my life for his.”

“No!” Mathilde’s husband, still restrained by my powerful grip, unable to move, spoke through gritted teeth.

“I think not,” I said, and let the power flow more strongly. Grevyl’s eyes pulsated and a vein on his forehead burst.

Mathilde made her move. I felt the dust in the air shimmer as her power poured out of her. Knowing I would need all my energy to fight her - to control her - I released my grip on her husband and on Grevyl, too. The old man slumped to the floor and I focused on melding my power with hers.

I watched Mathilde’s eyes widen in surprise as she felt the power surge. Her face reddened with the effort, with the strain as she tried to fight it.

“Who is the strongest now, sister?” I said, laughing.

And then I felt a ripple in the power. Someone was interfering as I battled to take control of my sister. I looked down at Grevyl: he was barely alive, his remaining power dripped weakly from him. I turned, just as Mathilde’s husband’s power merged with my own, and I felt it take control of me.

“No!” I yelled, withdrawing the power from Mathilde, fighting to take back control. Why had I not detected the power within Mathilde’s husband? Why had I not even thought that it would even be a possibility? Of course Mathilde wouldn't marry a powerless fool! I gritted my teeth. He was strong too!

Stronger than I.

“Are you alright?” I heard him say to Mathilde.

“Yes,” she replied.

“And my father?”

“He is weak, but still alive.”

I stared at the three of them, my own face contorted with effort and pain, my vision beginning to blur, as my own eyes began to swell.

“Yes, dear brother,” Mathilde said, kneeling beside the old man, a sad smile on her face. “Perhaps you did not think to properly introduce yourself, when you met my husband. This is Marcus, Grevyl’s son.”

…

I do not know when I blacked out but I remember the pain, Mathilde’s sad smile and Marcus Grevyl bowing deeply. At first, before I opened my eyes, I thought that perhaps it had all been a dream. When my eyes fluttered open, I found myself lying on a cold hard surface. Perhaps this was the dream, I thought.

Or the afterlife.

My head thumped with pain, my bones ached. I had barely enough strength to sit up. But I did so. I was in some kind of cavern.

Perhaps I was in Hell.

High above me was a hole in the rock, through which sunlight streamed in.

“Hello, little brother.”

Mathilde stood beside me, suddenly. I did not feel the power marking her arrival by transport. Perhaps she had been standing there all along.

“You should have killed me,” I croaked, my throat sore.

“Oh, brother,” Mathilde said, kneeling beside me. She gave me a flagon. “Death is not the answer to everything. Drink.”

I drank. The water was cool, soothing.

“Why didn’t he kill me?”

“Marcus, like his father, is a kind man. He believes in hope, not hate.”

“Then he is a fool,” I said.

Mathilde smiled. “Perhaps,” she said. “Perhaps we are all fools. But I would rather be a fool, and believe in a better world, than be bitter and full of self hatred…” she let the sentence hang, uncompleted. I finished it for her.

“Like me, you mean.”

“What happened to you, brother? What happened to us? Why did it have to end like this?”

“Who says it’s ended, sister?” I said, trying to smile. “You’ve let me live. If I recover my strength perhaps I will seek my revenge.”

Mathilde smiled her sad smile.

“Can you not feel it?”

“Feel what?”

“The emptiness, dear brother.”

For a moment, I didn’t know what she meant. For a second I thought she was talking about the emptiness in my soul, or some other nonsense. And then I reached out with the power... and gasped.

“What have you done?” I whispered.

“We took it, dear brother. I could not kill you, not you, my baby brother. But Marcus, and Grevyl - yes, he lives, he is weak, but he lives - said you can not be allowed to let free. And they were right. You could not be left as you were. So we took the power from you.”

“Then you might as well have killed me!” In vain, I tried to reach out with the power again. But there was nothing. “You’ve taken the only thing in my life I cared about.”

Mathilde nodded, and I thought I saw a tear well in her eye.

“And that makes me sad, dear brother.”

“I will have my revenge, sister. When I get well, I will have my revenge.”

“This,” Mathilde gestured around her at the stone walls of the cavern. “This is your prison, dear brother. You will be kept here, away from the temptation of dust, away from others. You will be cared for. You will be fed. We will not kill you. But we will keep the world safe from you.” She stood up. “I love you, dear brother. But I do not like you. And I can not trust you.”

“Kill me!” I said, beginning to panic. The thought of being without power was crushing. “Please.”

Mathilde shook her head.

“Take care, dear brother,” she said. And the air shimmered and she disappeared. And I was alone.

Outwitted, and alone.

...

The End