I may not always know what's right, but I know I want you here tonight.

Now that he’d forced himself to concentrate long enough to get here, Mallos’ brain was firing in a million directions again. He hones in on all the details of the underground cave – the shape of the skulls, the way the pottery had smashed, footprints in the soil – getting half-way through a deduction before he picked up on some other feature which refused to be ignored. The colours of the room leapt out, more vibrant than usual, each wrestling for attention. Blurred in amongst the competing sights and smells were flashes of effervescent mental imagery. Memories, mostly. The sharp green of the broken beads on the floor just there were the exact colour of Tristan’s eyes, and the blue was like the lake he’d thrown Tristan into. Just as the image of the lake formed, it was shoved out of the way by the last image of Morgana’s face, as cold as the icy waters. That was replaced by the memory of the poster on the tree – then Mordred’s face last night – then – was that a bottle with a ship in it, in the corner of the room…?

The dog’s bark was startling, a ringing noise in the silence. Mallos whipped around, searching for the direction it had come from. A head – not the one Mallos had hoped to see, but not unexpected either – poked out from one of the side-tunnels.

“He’s in there.” Thoth pointed.

Mallos barely absorbed the details of the son of Aura – the way his hair was stuck up slightly at the back of his head, the sag of his shoulders, the downturned tips of his eyes and lips – before turning away, following the point of his finger. This tunnel was dark, the walls high and narrow, suffocating. Two figures sat among the shadows.

Divinity and hyper-activity helped Mallos’ eyes adjust in a fraction of the time of any mortal. His mind stopped jumping around and zeroed in on the taller of the two figures, sat hunched and facing the wall. Nothing – none of the horror of the last twenty-four hours – could have prepared Mallos for the hollow expression on his grandson’s face, the absence of eye contact, the removal of any sense of character or personality.

Light-footed, he crossed the distance between them and dropped to his knees. He wrapped his arms around Tristan and held him, conveying through touch the intensity of emotion better than he could or would have done with words. All the hurt, hopelessness and fear of the last day washed over him, catching in his breath and turning up the volume of his heartbeat.

Finally, so close to the end of this horror film, there was a new emotion too: relief.

You’re safe, he said without words. And I’m here.

Mallos
I've learned enough to know I'm never letting go