Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
Valroy laughed as he pulled his sword from the chest of the human in front of him. The man had been foolish enough to fire a gun at him. Him!
A gun!
Loaded with lead!
How hysterical!
A shame the man did not appreciate the joke as he slumped over, eyes wide, blood pouring from the gushing wound in his ribcage.
The little toy weapon the man still clutched had been so amusingly noisy, shouting it ratta-tatta-tatta and instantly giving away the location of its owner. An owner dressed in some garishly obnoxious splotchy green pattern that he assumed was meant to hide the man, but instead made him stand out.
Humans.
Idiots, the lot of them.
But they were wonderful fun to slaughter.
The bullet wounds in his chest and wings were already healing. Rotating his wrist, he flicked the blood from his sword and continued his advance up the street. He needed to find the rest of his forces, and quickly.
When he had woken up in the direct, glaring Earthly sun, it had taken him a few moments to fully grasp what had transpired. The magnitude of how deeply a human could expertly, imaginatively, and entirely, bugger everything up in a single gesture always amazed him to no end.
Ava had done a magnificent job of ruining not one, not two, but three whole planes of existence in one fell swoop. This was why humans made terrible demigods.
His wife being the sole exception, of course.
He hoped Abigail was all right. But he was certain she was quite fine. He would locate her soon, after he found his armies, waged unholy hell upon the humans, took this opportunity for precisely what it was—his chance to finally achieve his ultimate goal.
Total and unstoppable war.
The merger had been…violent. Chaotic. Glorious. Three worlds smashed together by a novice little creature who had no idea what she was unleashing. The sheer audacity of it brought a smile to his lips.
“Magnificent.” He stopped to watch a flock of origami birds fly past overhead while a group of terrified humans cowered behind an overturned car that transformed into a nightmare creature.
The car roared, turning on them, its hood opening up to reveal rows of hideously rusty, jagged teeth.
It ate the lower half of one of the humans’ bodies, ripping a young woman’s legs clean off at the thighs. She screamed in agony.
The car made quick work of her friends. But it let the first woman bleed out before it ate her corpse.
Valroy smiled.
“Absolutely magnificent."
Somewhere to the north, London was being consumed by an apocalypse demon born from collective human fear. Closer to home, some manner of building that advertised banks and financial institutions had become a twisted collection of living architecture that was devouring anyone who tried to enter.
It was everything he had ever dreamed of and more.
Valroy stretched his wings to their full span—nearly twenty feet from tip to tip—and felt the delicious rush of power that came with being unbound.
For the first time in his existence, there were no careful political considerations to weigh, none of his wife's gentle restraint to consider, no ancient laws to navigate around.
Just pure, unadulterated opportunity.
A group of Seelie nobles stumbled into the clearing, their usual ethereal grace replaced by obvious panic. They were led by someone Valroy recognized—Lord Caelum, one of Abigail's more tedious advisors.
The fool actually seemed relieved to see him.
“Your Majesty! King Valroy!” Caelum called out, his silver hair disheveled and his pristine robes torn. “Thank the stars—we've been searching for any member of the royal family. The situation is—”
“Perfect,” Valroy interrupted. “This situation is absolutely…perfect.”
Caelum blinked, clearly having expected a different response. “Y-your Majesty, with respect, I'm not certain you understand the gravity—”
“Oh, but I do.” Valroy began walking toward them, his movements deliberately predatory. “For the first time, the barriers between worlds have fallen. The careful balance that has constrained me all these centuries has been shattered. Do you know what that means, Lord Caelum?”
The Seelie noble's face went pale. “M-my King? Certainly you must understand the direness of the—”
Valroy knew his smile revealed his fangs.
“It means I am no longer bound by the petty little agreements our courts have made. No longer forced to pretend that the worlds deserve consideration or protection.” He gestured broadly at the transformed landscape around them.
“Look at what the Weaver has given me! A place where dreams and nightmares walk among mortals, where my natural order can finally be restored! Where I can be free to work my will!”
“Your…natural order?” Another of the Seelie—a woman Valroy didn't recognize—stepped forward. “You speak madness. This is madness.”
“I speak of work long constrained, finally unleashed.” His voice dropped to a dangerous purr.
“Humanity has had their long-awaited day of judgement finally come calling. For too long, they have been spared. Long ago, Mother Morrigan had a moment of brilliance in making me, only to have her conscience get the better of her. But now? The chains are gone. And where is she to stop me? Hm? Indeed, it seems to be her machinations with the Weaver to thank for all this.”
Lord Caelum was backing away now, finally understanding the true scope of what Valroy intended. “But—the Queen—your wife—she would never sanction this. When she learns what you're planning—“
“My beloved Abigail is somewhere, and no doubt dealing with her own crisis at the moment.” He shrugged. “The merger has scattered us all across this new reality. By the time she finds me? It will be too late.”
The Seelie were clearly preparing to flee—a wise choice, though ultimately futile. Before they could move, the air around them began to shimmer. Someone was coming. Valroy felt it too, a familiar presence that made his skin crawl with anticipation.
Nos materialized first, his mismatched form solid and real in a way it hadn't been for centuries.
Rendered unto a dream and once more given flesh.
How charming. But even more interesting, was the living lie that came beside him.
Ibin, the never-born fae, given physical substance by the merger of the worlds.
Both of them looked around the chaotic street with expressions of wonder.
It seemed moving through space was unpredictable. Valroy was impressed that Nos was daring enough to try it.
“Well, well.” Valroy shifted his attention to the newcomers. He was a bit annoyed to be interrupted, but he still had plenty of time to murder the Seelie. “How lovely to see you, Nos.”
Nos's mismatched eyes fixed on Valroy with obvious wariness. “Where is she? Where is Ava? I cannot find her.”
“I am insulted! And here I was thinking you were looking for me.” Valroy laughed.
“I hate to disappoint you, but I do not know.
Somewhere in this delightful mess she's created, I imagine.” He gestured at the chaos around them.
“Three worlds merged into one, reality itself made malleable, the barriers between conscious and unconscious thought dissolved completely.
It's really quite impressive for someone with so little experience to have buggered things up so perfectly.”
“You have to help fix this,” Ibin said, her voice carrying a note of desperation. “We need to put the worlds back to the way they were.”
“Fix this? Fix this?” He cackled as he gestured at the chaos around him with a hand. “Why would I ever seek to right this chaos? This is such wonderful fun! I am finally free to fulfill the purpose for which I was created.”
The Seelie had been listening to this exchange with growing horror. Lord Caelum found his voice first. “You truly are mad. You’ll destroy everything—Seelie, Unseelie, all life itself. You must stop!”
“Do you think I am here to take orders from you, Seelie? Your choice is either to serve me or die. I care not how your life is spent.” He lifted his sword and pointed it at the woman.
“Either at the end of a blade or at the end of a leash in my army. But make no mistake—this new world belongs to me now.”
Nos stepped forward, his expression grim. “Ava won’t let you do this. When she realizes what you’re planning—”
“Do you think she does not know? My designs upon the world have never strayed.
And the Weaver is powerful, yes. But she's also inexperienced, overwhelmed, and currently struggling to control abilities she barely understands.” Valroy smiled.
“Besides, why should she oppose me? I am simply doing what needs to be done. She set this all in motion, after all, did she not? She knew precisely what would happen if I were to be let loose on Earth. And here I am. Well. In what remains of it after all. Though if the humans are left to their own ends for much longer, I may not be needed too much to destroy them.”
As if to emphasize his point, a nearby tree suddenly burst into flame—not from any external cause. Simply because. The merger had made thought itself a force of nature, and of course the weak-minded humans had no idea how to control it.
“You see?” Valroy gestured at the burning tree. “Mortals cannot handle the power they have been given. They never have been able to. They are once more destroying themselves through their own unconscious fears and desires. I will simply put them out of their own misery.”
“By murdering innocents,” Ibin said flatly.