Chapter 16 #2
The trees around them began to twist, their trunks spiraling like corkscrews as reality bent under the pressure of her will.
Flowers bloomed and withered in seconds, cycling through entire lifecycles in the space of heartbeats.
The pond in the distance began to glow with an eerie phosphorescent light, and something that looked suspiciously like a sea serpent poked its head above the surface before diving back down with a splash.
Come on, she thought fiercely, pushing harder. I know you're watching. Fuck you, I know you're listening. Fucking talk to me. I need your help.
Power flowed out from her in waves, reality bending and warping as she reached across dimensions, across the barriers between worlds. She could feel something responding—a vast, ancient presence that seemed both amused and annoyed by her summons.
There you are.
C’mere.
You big bitch.
The air in front of her began to shimmer, like heat haze rising from summer pavement. For a moment, she thought she had succeeded. She could sense something massive pressing against the boundaries of reality, trying to break through—
But instead of the Morrigan materializing before her, something else entirely came crashing through the fabric of space.
A massive bronze statue of a raven, easily fifteen feet tall, appeared directly above her head and plummeted toward the ground with all the inevitability of gravity. It was magnificent and terrible, with wings spread wide and eyes that seemed to hold an ancient, malevolent intelligence.
“Oh for fucks—”
Ava woke up with a groan, face down on soft, cold, mossy ground. “Yeah. Okay. I deserved that…”
Now she knew how Rig felt.
She remembered that stupid statue from a class trip to the Edgar Allen Poe historical site in Philadelphia.
“Very fucking funny, by the way.” Pushing up to her knees, she let out a huff.
She still hurt from the impact. “Lesson learned, I get it, you don’t do casual chats.
” Looking up, she wasn’t entirely shocked to see where she was.
It was the same stone circle again, but this time she felt more aware, more present than in her previous visit.
The ancient megaliths towered around her under that impossible moon, their weathered surfaces seeming to pulse with a faint inner light.
The rough altar sat in the center, and on it lay… Book, open.
“Oh, hey buddy.” She smiled. She actually missed the silly thing. “I missed you. I thought I’d never see you again.” It’d been Serrik’s creation, after all. But it seemed it still had a purpose to serve. Something told her it was hers, now.
But before she looked at the tome, she took a moment to really examine her surroundings. This place felt different from the Web, different from Tir n'Aill. It was older. Primal. Like standing at the very foundation of reality itself.
The stones themselves were covered in markings she hadn't noticed before—but weirdly, she suspected they hadn’t been carved into the stone.
She had the real feeling they’d been there the entire time.
Like the rocks had formed that way. Some of them made her eyes water to look at, as if they were describing geometric concepts that human brains weren't designed to process. God shit, she figured. God shit she wasn’t supposed to understand, even if she was part whatever-the-fuck now.
She approached the altar cautiously. Book lay open to a page that wasn’t blank.
Three circles were drawn on the yellowed parchment in what looked like fresh ink, each containing a different figure. The artwork was incredibly detailed, almost photographic in its precision.
In the first circle, Alex—the woman who had once been human and was now Unseelie, with her purple hair and horns—was chained to trees with what looked like living vines.
But she wasn't struggling against her bonds.
Instead, her expression was one of grim determination, as if she had accepted her fate.
Around her were musical notes in the air.
In the second circle, Abigail stood trapped within a web that pulsed with silver light.
But this wasn't Serrik's golden web. This was something else entirely—more complex, more beautiful, and infinitely more like a tree in the same way.
The Queen's hands were pressed against the strands, but not as if she were trying to escape.
She seemed to be testing them, learning their patterns, accepting her role as their center.
And in the third circle, painted in swirling shades of green and blue that seemed to move on the page, was Ava herself.
But this version of Ava was…different. Her eyes were completely black, like pools of starless space, and her hair was shot through with silver threads that sparkled like distant galaxies.
She stood in what looked like an endless void dotted with stars, her arms outstretched as if she were conducting some cosmic orchestra.
“Anchor points,” Ava breathed, understanding hitting her like cold water. “Alex for Tir n'Aill, Abigail for the Web, and me for…what, Earth?” There was no other answer. Each woman bound to a realm, holding the worlds apart through their sacrifice. Never to leave. Prisoners in their own realms.
But the why of it, the greater purpose, remained maddeningly unclear.
“What's the point?” Ava demanded of the empty air. “What does any of this accomplish? Why have you done all of this? Centuries! Thousands of years, even. You’re to blame for all of this since the very beginning. Why!”
Only her echoing shout answered her. The standing stones loomed like ancient sentinels, keeping their secrets.
Ava tried a different approach. “Fine. What about Valroy?
Do we successfully kill him? I need to know what kind of power we're up against, what his weaknesses are, how to protect the people he's threatening. How to protect Serrik, the other child you abandoned and left to die! You’re making your children kill each other. Is that how you get your jollies?”
Still nothing. The stones continued their silent vigil, offering no guidance.
“How am I supposed to split the worlds apart in the first place?” Her voice was getting louder, echoing off the megaliths.
“How do I perform this ritual that Abigail mentioned? What are the actual fucking steps? Do I need specific words, specific tools, a certain time of day? Do the anchor points have to volunteer, or can they be forced? What happens if one of us refuses? And where the fiddly-fuck is Alex anyway? Huh? Hello!”
The silence stretched on, oppressive and maddening.
“Well, I know one thing. I know where the fae got their fucking obscure sense of communication style!” Ava threw her hands up in frustration, her voice rising to furious shouting.
“Even when I'm trying to save three entire motherfucking, cocksucking realities, you can't be bothered to give me a straight goddamn answer. Just more cryptic bullshit and mysterious imagery.” She gestured angrily at Book.
“What good does knowing the end goal do me if I don't know how to get there?
It's like getting a map that shows you the damn destination but none of the fucking roads!”
Just her echoed shouts returned back at her.
Ava felt her temper finally snap completely. All the frustration, all the fear, all the crushing weight of responsibility that had been building since she'd first entered the Web came pouring out in a torrent of rage. She screamed.
“You know what? Fuck this! Fuck your riddles, fuck your cosmic chess games, fuck your inability to use actual words like a normal, sane fucking person! Fuck your mysterious ways and your fucking ravens and your fucking manipulation and your goddamn superior fucking attitude!” Her voice was raw with fury and echoing off the ancient stones with increasing volume.
“Fuck your refusal to take responsibility for the mess you've made. You created Serrik and tortured him for two thousand years. You created Valroy and set him loose on the world like some kind of cosmic plague. It isn’t even his fucking fault he is the way he is! I don’t even blame him!
I feel bad for him! He’s a dog barking at the end of the chain because he was made to be this way!
You created me and then threw me into this nightmare without so much as a fucking instruction manual! ”
Nothing but her anger.
“Fuck the way you sit back and watch us tear each other apart for your entertainment!
Fuck your silence and your distance and your complete lack of anything resembling a soul!
Fuck the way you act like you're above the damage you cause!
And most of all, fuck this bullshit where you make us figure everything out ourselves while people are dying because you're too fucking proud or too cosmic or too whatever to just tell us what you fucking need us to know!”
The echo of her words faded, leaving only the whisper of wind through the stone circle. But something had changed. The air itself seemed to be holding its breath, waiting.
And then, slowly, impossibly, a shadow began to grow between the stones.
It rose like black smoke, coalescing into a towering figure wrapped in a cloak of raven feathers.
The Morrigan stood easily eight feet tall, her face hidden in the depths of her hood, her presence filling the circle with the weight of eons.
When she moved, it was with the fluid grace of something that had never been truly solid, never been bound by the physical laws that governed lesser beings.
The feathers of the goddess's cloak weren't just black—they held depths of color that shifted and changed like oil on water.
Dark blue, deep purple, hints of green and gold that appeared and disappeared depending on the angle of the light.
The cloak itself seemed to be alive, individual feathers rustling and preening as if they were still attached to living birds.
The goddess said nothing. Instead, she simply raised one hand—pale and long-fingered, with nails that looked like they were carved from obsidian—and pointed at the tome on the altar.
“Okay, you goddamn Ghost of Christmas Future.” Ava looked down at the open pages, but nothing had changed. The three circles with their trapped figures remained exactly as they had been. “I don't see anything new. What am I supposed to—”
The pointing finger remained steady, insistent. The Morrigan's head tilted slightly, a motion that somehow conveyed both patience and warning.
Cautiously, Ava approached the altar. Book lay open, looking innocent enough. She reached out slowly, her fingertips brushing the edge of the ancient tome.
The moment her skin made contact with the book, agony exploded through her.
It was like being set on fire and having every nerve in her body flayed with broken glass.
The pain was beyond anything she had ever experienced, beyond anything she had thought possible.
It tore through her consciousness like a wild animal, shredding her thoughts and leaving nothing but white-hot suffering in its wake.
But worse than the physical agony was what came with it—knowledge.
Terrible, unwanted knowledge that crashed into her mind.
She saw the truth of what the three anchors would become.
Not just bound to their realms, but dissolved into them, their consciousness scattered across infinite possibility until nothing remained of who they had been.
She saw Alex's slow transformation from human to fae to something beyond either, her memories fading like morning mist until only the echo of her love for Izael remained.
She saw Abigail's essence woven into the very fabric of the Web, her personality unraveling thread by thread until she became nothing more than a function, a cosmic force without thought or feeling.
And she saw herself, standing in the void between worlds, watching as her humanity bled away drop by drop, year by year, until she was no longer Ava but something else entirely—a guardian without compassion, a force without purpose beyond the maintenance of separation.
She saw how long it would take. Centuries. Millennia. The slow erosion of everything that made them who they were, until three women became three abstract concepts, holding the worlds apart through the sacrifice of their very souls.
And she saw the only hope for them to keep themselves whole.
The only way to keep their selves intact against the battering of time.
For around each of the circles drawn there appeared another emblem.
Around Alex, the coil of a snake.
Around Abigail, the spread of a bat’s wings.
Around Ava, seven spiders’ legs.
Love was the only thing that would allow them to hold on for a little while longer against the inevitable press of time.
Except there was a serious problem, wasn’t there?
Izael was already dead. And Serrik and Valroy were doomed to destroy each other.
Tears stung her eyes. Alex’s sacrifice would be very different, now. Abigail’s hung in the balance of the war, as did Ava’s. A war that only had one ending.
She let out a choked sob. With the knowledge came the absolute certainty that this was the only way. There was no clever solution, no last-minute reprieve, no magical alternative that would save everyone. Just the cold, mathematical necessity of sacrifice.
Three souls to save three worlds.
The tome burned in her hands like molten metal, but she couldn't let go.
The knowledge kept pouring in, showing her exactly how the ritual would work, what words needed to be spoken, what prices needed to be paid.
She saw the moment when she would step into her circle and feel the void claim her, watched her own face grow blank and distant as her humanity drained away.
A humanity that would only survive if Serrik was there to keep hold of it. But she knew now that he wouldn’t be. He would be taken from her.
Just as Abigail would not have Valroy.
And Alex would not have Izael.
Their love would die. But the love of all the others in three worlds would live.
Ava screamed.
Sometimes…ignorance really was bliss.