The brambles are hiding another entrance after all. 

Nothing so sophisticated as a door. But it is something: a hole, just big enough for Hector to get through if he crouches. Cold air whistles past the tiny gaps between the brambles and into the unknown space beyond.

Hector presses the pad of his thumb against one of the intimidating thorns and pulls it away with a hiss. The point had pierced straight through his leather gloves. He frowns at the spot of blood that blooms from the minor cut. Magic moves quickly to close it again, but Hector can see the potential damage the thorns are capable of. 

Like with the lack of rope, Hector regrets not searching any further for a sword or a dagger. A cursory inspection around the beach tells him that there’s nothing else he can use to hack into the branches.

Fine. That's what my magic is for, anyway.

Except—

Except when it's not. 

Except when the rules are different in Damien's head.

Magic leaps from Hector's splayed hands and starts to eat away at the barrier. But the blue only gets a few bites in before it fizzles out like a wet fuse.

Hector stares at the brambles, affronted. Too easy to cut through and burn it all to hell. He suddenly understands. The tests had begun as soon as he left the forest. Here, he has to accept what he feels—what he knows—he has to do. Part of him recoils at the thought. 

The better part of him steels his heart and closes a fist around a bramble branch.

As he pulls, a thorn slices through the side of his hand. Hector grits his teeth as he feels the pain shoot up to his elbow. Thankfully, his magic gets to the wound before he can lick the blood away.

Snap.

The branch gives way. Hector tosses it to the side. As it hits the sand, the branch sinks and disappears without a trace. Though he'll never admit it to himself, he feels a spiteful pleasure watching it.

A second branch—he repeats the process. It's a hardier limb than the first, so he uses two hands and earns fresh cuts. His skin glows blue. He heals. He tries again.

Third, fourth.

The branches break easier as he goes on, but the thorns don't get any duller. Hector struggles to breathe through the pain—the overwhelming agony that has him screaming out of desperation and fear. He doesn’t want to look down at what might be left of his hands.

By the time he's at the (twentieth? fiftieth? hundredth?) the last branch, he thinks there's no way his magic can keep up with all the lacerations that only the vambraces have kept from travelling up his forearms. He feels almost possessed as he tears and snaps, tears and snaps. Numbness in his hands would have been a mercy, but pain sluices through him relentlessly.

Everything is red rather than blue. His boots are stained scarlet. The sand doesn't take his blood like they do the branches.

He's crying as much as he's bleeding. Hell, it's unbearable. I want to give up, he thinks. If I give up here, I'll never get up again.

It's Damien that keeps him standing.

He thinks of Damien, remembers him in the window, and conjures the image of his gravestone to the forefront of his mind. Not of the parody he saw in the clearing, but the one standing in the same cemetery as his parents.

If he gives up here, he'll lose Damien a second time.

And he can't bear that any more than he can bear another thorn in his arm.

When his fingers find empty air and no branch, relief almost sends him to his knees. Before him: a gaping hole, a pool of his blood, and darkness.

It hurts too much for Hector to drop his hands to his side, so he holds them at chest level as his magic slowly repairs the damage he wrought. With one last look at the remaining thorns still being swallowed by the sands, Hector steps into the tower.