Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
The silence in the theater stretched was deafening.
“You’re going to just…pop in and drop that?
” Ava shook her head dumbly. “You’re just going to…
what? Kill him?” Ava felt something cold settle in her stomach—a familiar dread that came with realizing the people around her were making decisions that would fundamentally alter their lives without consulting her first. She really thought she’d fixed that problem. “How?”
“No, my dear. Not precisely. We are going to destroy him.” Abigail smiled at her mournfully. “I am not certain if a creature like him can be killed.”
“Right. Cool. Back to vague half-speak and riddles.” Fucking fae. Ava tried to temper her nerves. Again. She was already worn thin because of Serrik.. “Can you please explain the difference?”
“It is very much the same way that you could be destroyed but the Web could not be killed, I suppose.” Abigail shook her head.
“It is neither here nor there. Regardless, I am hopeful that I have a way to solve both our problems—my freed and violent husband and this…bit of trouble you have caused.” She chuckled, glancing at the amalgam of world still visible in the opera house around them.
“Creative though it may be, I hardly think the state of things is tenable. Nor terribly fair to many of the more unsuspecting residents of any of the three worlds.”
“Which would be…?” Ava was really desperate for Abigail to get to the point.
The Seelie Queen let out a long and heavy sigh. “The Web, or rather, the creature that became focused into what you know as the Web—was fashioned into that shape because of him.” She shot a look at Serrik.
The spider might as well have been a painting of a man for all he reacted.
“I know.” Ava gestured at her arm with all its winding, spiderweb tattoos. “And now it’s also me. In the same way the Maze is also a cosmic thing but also Valroy. What about it?”
Abigail walked up to her and gently picked up Ava’s wrist, placing a hand atop her ink. “But it is also a prison, Weaver. It was designed as a cage. You are a Web, and that Web must hold its prey. It needs someone at its center, a single point to which all the threads must attach.”
“A linchpin,” Serrik added, his tone exhausted. “An anchor point. It was meant to be the Morrigan.”
“But then it was you.” Ava frowned. “And when I freed you…”
“It unraveled.” Abigail’s mournful smile never wavered. “And you pulled upon the threads that connected the worlds. It all came together as one. And here we are. So if we are to rebuild the Web? We will need someone to take his place. And it shall be me.”
“Wait.” Ava laughed quietly, pulling her arm out of Abigail’s grasp. “Why you?”
“He will certainly come to stop me. It will provide the distraction necessary for Serrik to destroy the tree at the center of the Maze. That which binds him to his physical form.”
“No. I’ll be the anchor point. Not you.” Ava took a step away from her. “I’m not sending you to an eternity in the Web. It’s my fault we’re in this mess.”
“You are the Web itself. You cannot be what holds it.” Abigail’s shoulders slumped. “Would that it could be that simple. And Valroy would not care enough to be distracted.”
“Then Serrik goes back in, and we come up with another ploy to distract Valroy.” Ava ran her hands through her hair, trying to calm the curls. “No offense Serrik, but—”
“None taken.” Serrik folded his arms over his chest. “However, consider this: he will remain an unsolved issue.”
“How so? He’ll go back to Tir n’Aill.” Ava glanced to Serrik, then to Abigail. “Right?”
“Why would he? He has broken the treaty. Actions have been taken that cannot now be undone. I have lost all power to hold him there.” A look of pure and total exhaustion came over the Seelie Queen, and for the first time, Ava saw her look…
old. Not physically aged—she still looked barely twenty-eight.
But still, somehow in years, Abigail looked ancient.
The way she carried herself was the way of a woman who had been through the wringer in the two hundred years she had been putting up with keeping Valroy at bay.
“But if you go in there, you’ll…you’ll be trapped there forever. Or else this will happen again.” Ava felt her chest tighten.
“Yes.” Abigail’s smile was serene. “A manner of death, I suppose.” She chuckled. “Or perhaps a very long interlude.”
“And you’d…you’d sacrifice yourself like that?” Bitty's voice was small, almost lost in the vastness of the theater.
“For my people? For all our peoples?” Abigail chuckled. “Of course. In a heartbeat. A queen once sacrificed it all so that I might have a chance to play the shield against Valroy. And now I must do the same.”
Ava shook her head, backing away from her. “No. Absolutely not. There has to be another way. I'm the Weaver now—I should be able to figure out how to separate the worlds without needing a prisoner. This is too risky. Also, the whole ‘distraction’ tactic isn’t guaranteed to work.”
“You are the bars of the cage, dear one, as we said.” Abigail’s tone was almost impossibly patient. “The framework that holds it all together. You cannot be both the prison and the prisoner.”
“Then we'll find someone else. Someone who volunteers. Someone who—”
“Who else could contain the Web's power?” Serrik's voice cut through her protests like a blade.
“Who else has the strength of will to maintain consciousness while surrounded by the dreams and nightmares of three entire realities? The anchor point must be a soul of great strength. There are few who could withstand that manner of storm. I fear we are standing in the room with most of the candidates. And likely the only willing ones.”
Ava opened her mouth to argue, then closed it again. Because he was right, wasn't he? She'd barely been able to maintain her sense of self when she'd been in the Web, and that was with Serrik there to help her. The idea of someone weaker trying to hold the center…
She hung her head. It was inevitable. They were right. It would destroy them. She knew it. “But. For serious. What do you think the real odds are that Valroy will show up to try to stop you?”
For the first time since her arrival, Abigail's composure cracked slightly.
“I do not know. Despite everything—despite his rage and his need for revenge—he loves me, as much as a creature such as him can love. As for what might happen next? I do not know as any of us can predict it. And if I remove myself from this reality, if I place myself beyond his reach…” She paused, gathering herself.
“He will lose his last tether to any manner of restraint.”
“Oh, grand.” Lysander’s tail swished behind him. “That sounds like a fantastic way to get us all slaughtered.”
“Perhaps,” Abigail admitted. “But it is the only plan that I can see before us. Valroy will not be reasoned with, will not be negotiated with, will not be deterred by any force short of love or death.”
Taking a deep breath, Ava held it and let it out in a rush. “Somewhere out here is the Maze. And that tree. And we can find it and destroy it. Without a distraction.”
“Without his attention diverted elsewhere, it is suicidal. It is no longer protected by the veil of Tir n’Aill—and if Valroy were to be distracted with his war…
” Abigail’s gaze trailed to Serrik. “Then those who remain will have to stop him by any means necessary. We will need someone of nearly equal strength to him to even stand a chance.”
And given everything Serrik had said about his inability to control his rage when facing the fae…
“No.” Serrik's voice was like winter wind.
Now all eyes turned to him. He had stepped to the very edge of the stage, his human form rigid with tension. “I will not be party to this scheme. We leave. Now.”
“Serrik—” Ava started, but he cut her off with a gesture.
“No. This is precisely what we were arguing about. This is exactly the situation I am seeking to avoid.” His golden eyes were hard as flint.
“You ask me to stand against Valroy, knowing full well what that means. You ask me to become the monster you have spent so much effort convincing yourself I am not. I will not become a pawn in such useless and childish games.”
“I’m asking you to protect innocent people,” Ava shot back.
“There is no such thing as innocence!” He laughed, the sound bitter. “You would merely have me murder all fae to save the mortals, and then what? What would come next? The inevitable. You would look at me with loathing in your eyes, knowing what I had done.”
“You wouldn't be to blame—”
“Oh, but I would,” Serrik interrupted. “I would be to blame. I would be the weapon. A killer. The spider that devours everything in its web.” His voice dropped to barely above a whisper. “And you would learn to fear me, as you should have from the beginning.”
Abigail stepped forward, her presence a calming influence in the growing storm of emotion. “Serrik, I understand your reluctance—“
“Do you?” He turned his attention to her, and there was something predatory in the movement. “Do you truly understand what it means to be loathed? To know that every moment of peace, every glimpse of happiness, every connection you make is nothing but a manipulation of your own doing?”
And then came the echoing, booming truth.
The ragged shout of fury that was at the heart of the matter. Serrik snarled down at Abigail, his words gravelly and thick with emotion. “Every second of my life has been in design toward a moment I now have come to realize will destroy me.”
Silence. The words echoed off the walls.
Serrik turned away from her, his movements sharp and angry. “I will assist you in evacuating the humans, if that is what you wish. I will help you shepherd them away from Valroy's path. But I will not stand against him.”
“Serrik, please—” Ava took a step toward him, but he held up a hand to stop her.