Chapter 17 #2
“I become the void between worlds that holds up Earth like it’s a marble, I guess.
The negative space between the silver threads you shall become.
The empty space that keeps them from touching, from destroying each other.
” Ava's voice broke. “I—” She had to stop to breathe through the tears.
“I become nothing that defines the everything, watching over realities I can no longer truly comprehend, protecting people I can no longer remember caring about.”
The silence that followed was deafening.
It was Lysander who spoke first, his voice small and lost. “How long?”
She shrugged helplessly. “Different for each of us.
The process varies based on the nature of what we're anchoring. But the Morrigan showed me…” Ava closed her eyes, remembering the visions that had burned themselves into her mind.
“Centuries. Maybe millennia. A slow erosion of everything that makes us who we are.”
“This is bloody fucking madness,” Ibin said, standing abruptly. “I do not accept this! This is surrender, and we don’t accept surrender! There has to be another way.”
“There isn’t.” Ava looked down at the tome. “I saw what happens if we don't separate the worlds. The realities tear each other apart, creating a cascade failure that consumes not just our three worlds, but every realm, every dimension, everything that exists. Total entropy. Complete void.”
Nos and Ibin exchanged a look, then turned to Ava with expressions of growing suspicion.
“This isn't like you,” Ibin said, crossing her arms. “Since when do you just accept what the gods tell you to do? Since when do you accept what anybody tells you? Since when do you give up without a fight?”
Ava blinked. “I’m not giving up—”
“You are!” Ibin's voice rose as she jabbed a finger at her and the tome in her hands.
“You're accepting a solution that destroys you and your friends without even looking for alternatives. The Ava I know would be plotting some impossible scheme to save everyone, not calmly planning her own cosmic suicide.”
Nos nodded grimly. “She's right. This surrender…how do we know this isn't just more lies planted in your head by the Morrigan?”
The accusation stung because it was exactly what Ava had been trying desperately not to think about. How could she trust anything she'd learned from a goddess who had spent centuries manipulating everyone around her? She shut her eyes.
And gave up.
Just gave up.
“I can’t keep doing this. I just can’t. Maybe you’re right.” She sighed. “But what am I supposed to do if you are? Just to go around again? More suspicion, more lies, more maybes, more games? No. I’m done. Let it be over.”
“But—” Bitty started.
“We're running out of time!” Ava's composure finally cracked, her voice echoing through the theater.
“Because while we're debating the trustworthiness of cosmic beings, people are dying!
Worlds are dying! Valroy is slaughtering innocents, the merged realities are becoming more and more fucked up, and in a few hours he's going to demand an answer from Abigail that means all the Seelie could either live or die, and we kinda fucking need her!”
Gripping the book tighter, she forced herself to calm down. “I can feel it now. The worlds are like gears in an engine without any oil. They’re shredding—and about to break. Maybe the Morrigan is lying, maybe there are other options, but I don’t know if we can take that risk.”
Nos clenched his fists. “May we talk?” He glanced to Serrik and Abigail. “Privately.”
Ava looked around the group—at Serrik's coldness, at Abigail's resigned acceptance, at the fear and confusion on everyone else's faces. “Yeah. Fine. But make it quick.”
Nos, Ibin, Bitty, and Lysander formed a huddle near the side of the stage. Ava followed them, leaving Serrik and Abigail alone in the center.
“This very much isn't like you,” Ibin repeated once they were out of earshot. “The Ava I know doesn't follow orders from gods who've been lying to her from the beginning. She fights. She finds another way. She refuses to accept that good people have to suffer for the greater good.”
“First, you knew me for a hot second. Second, maybe I'm not that person anymore,” Ava said tiredly. “Maybe becoming the Weaver changed me more than either of us would like to admit.”
“Or maybe,” Nos said grimly, “the Morrigan is in your head, making you think this is the only way.”
Bitty looked between them all with wide, frightened eyes. “What if…what if there really isn't another way? What if Ava's right and we're just wasting time?”
“Then we'll deal with that when we've exhausted all other options,” Lysander said firmly. “But not before.”
“Maybe you’re all just dreams and I’m standing here fucking arguing with myself.
” She put a hand over eyes. “Look. I understand your concerns, and you might be right. But I don't know what else to do. If this is what she wants? If this is what her game really is? So be it. I’m tired of being forced to suffer and being asked to be in charge while at the same time everyone second-guesses every decision I make.”
Nos's expression softened slightly. “Ava—”
“Shut the fuck up, Nos! What do you even care? They’re my friends, I know why they’re upset, but why you?
” She looked up at him with tears in her eyes.
“What is it that you’re going to lose, Nos?
Nothing. Only me. And you hate me. Abigail?
You don’t even know her. And I doubt you know Alex very well, either.
What do you stand to lose? Why do you even care? ”
He went rigid at her shouting.
“I’m going to lose the man I love. I’m going to lose myself.
I’m once more being asked to kill myself, to—to sacrifice my humanity.
The one thing I fought to save through all this bullshit and I’m—” Her heart shattered in her chest. “I’m right back at where I started, but only now I have so much more to lose in the process.
And if he’s still alive, and he—” She stopped as a rock lodged itself in her throat.
She choked it down. “I’ll have his suffering on my soul, too.
So shut the fuck up, Nos. You aren’t losing shit. ”
When the stitched-together Unseelie spoke, his words weren’t cruel, they weren’t angry. In fact, if anything, they matched her sorrow. “You do not know how very wrong you are.” He turned and walked away into the darkness of the opera house.
Wiping at her tears, Ava sniffled. Fuck him. Fuck that stupid, goddamn—
With a growl and a sigh, she threw up her hands. “I’ll go talk to him…” She went after Nos. She found him standing in one of the hallways, leaning against the wall, his head lowered, rubbing the back of his neck. His long, stringy dark hair was hanging down obscuring his features. “Nos.”
“Leave me be, Weaver.”
She stopped walking some five feet away from him, and leaned against the opposite wall. “I love him.”
He huffed. “It is obvious.”
“Why do you hate me, Nos?”
He shut his mismatched eyes. “I do not hate you, Ava. I never have.”
“Then what is your problem with me?”
“You have always represented a danger to Ibin.”
“She can fucking handle herself, from what I’ve seen.” She laughed quietly, leaning her head back against the wall. “Pretty sure she could kick my ass in a fistfight.”
Nos looked abjectly miserable. “I love her, Ava…”
It was her turn to huff. She mimicked his voice. “It is obvious.” That earned her an angry glare that made her laugh louder. God, it felt good to laugh, even if it was for something like that. “Oh, come on. It is! I knew it from the second I met you two.” She smiled at him. “Doesn’t she know?”
He glanced away. “We have never spoken of it.”
Ava’s expression fell. “What? Why not…?”
“She is my dream, Ava.” His hands clenched into fists. “I created her.”
Oh. Well. That made sense, she supposed. “Ok?”
He put his head in his hands, letting out a groan. “How can you not understand the situation that places me in, Weaver? She is a being made of my existence. I fell in love with a dream—a wish. A prayer. If she were to love me in return, it—” He couldn’t continue.
“I’m sorry. I…didn’t know.” She let out a long sigh. Nothing was easy, was it? Nothing could just be easy. “Maybe she thought you were obnoxious when you first met. There’s always hope.”
He let out an exhausted, sad chuckle. “Perhaps.”
A long stretch of silence passed between them.
Finally, Nos spoke up. “I hold no grudges against you, Ava. Nor shall I hate you for choosing to sacrifice yourself, and your love, for the worlds in your care. I shall lay my heart on the altar next to yours.”
“Thanks, Nos. And…I hold no grudges against you, either.” It wasn’t exactly a vote of friendship.
They’d probably never be buddies and she was fine with that.
She pushed away from the wall to head back toward the main theatre, and when she walked on stage, with Nos not far behind, she pulled up short.
Puck stood center stage, his chin-length silver hair wild and his usual manic grin nowhere to be seen. His clothes were torn, and there were scratches on his face that looked suspiciously like claw marks.
“Well, well, well,” he said, his voice lacking its usual playful lilt. He sounded downright serious. “Look who's finally returned from their cosmic chat.”
“Puck?” Ava walked up to him slowly. Abigail was keeping her distance. “The fuck happened to you? You look like you've been in a fight.”
“Oh, I have been. Several, actually. Turns out Valroy's forces don't appreciate reconnaissance.” He held up a hand that was definitely not the same color it had been the last time she'd seen him, but several shades of purple and blue.
It was broken in several spots. “But I found who and what you were looking for.”
“We didn’t send you looking for anything…” Ava furrowed her brow.
“Yet. But you were about to, weren’t you?” Puck sniffed dismissively. “Namely Alex. And you’re going to send your spooder-boyfriend here after the tree in the Maze while you commit functional suicide. I’m just saving you all time nobody has.”
“I.” She blinked. “I really don’t understand—”
“Time.” Puck waved his non-broken hand. “I’m all up in it. Everywhen.”
“It’s best not to ask questions,” Abigail said through an exhale.
“Yeah, okay, fine, whatever.” No wonder Valroy always looked like he had a headache around the little silver-haired “Where’s Alex?”
Puck held up a finger, then snapped his arm back, which caused it to let out a violent crack sound. He groaned and let out a series of obscenities in about six languages that Ava didn’t understand. Doubling over, he groaned out the words, “Valroy has her.”
Abigail stepped forward, face pale. “Is she alive?”
He straightened back up and let out a long and unhappy sound.
“Alive? Yeah. Battered? You bet. Chained to a tree trying to suck out her blood? Yuppers. But alive.” Puck's grin was sharp and utterly without humor. “And Valroy is real eager to make that deal. You don’t show up at midnight, he sends Alex to join Izael. Told me, while he was breaking all the bones in my damn hand, to tell you that he was trading ‘one anchor point for another, so the spider can go back in his Web where he belongs.’”
“He knows. Somehow, he knows what we're planning. How is that possible?” Abigail shook her head in disbelief.
Ava couldn’t help but laugh. “The fucking Morrigan. She told him. Could have easily shown him the same visions she showed me.”
“Or,” Serrik said darkly, “she told Alex and Valroy procured the information via torture.”
Abigail closed her eyes. “It doesn't matter how he knows. What matters is that he's forced my hand. I have to go.”
“Like hell you do.” Ibin stepped forward. “This is a setup, clear as day. Once you go, we’ve lost.”
“Of course it's a trap. But it is also our only chance at this. And I did not say I was going alone.” Abigail opened her eyes, and there was steel in her green gaze.
“The plan remains the same. Ava, you must rebuild the Web. We must become the anchor points. We simply change the location, as we must bring the ritual to Alex. It will simply make this more challenging, is all.”
Ava snorted. “More challenging? So. Let me get this straight. You plan to have us walk right up to Valroy while he’s holding Alex prisoner and…what…you’re going to distract him while I un-break reality in front of his face? And you think he’s going to be okay with that?”
“Well. It solves the question of whether or not he will come to me in my time of sacrifice, does it not? There will undoubtedly be a confrontation.” Abigail smirked.
“It will not be our first and hopefully…it will not be our last.” She drew her hand upward as if she were pulling something up from the ground.
Sure enough, a vine formed from the wood floor and in fast-forward, grew up to meet her hand.
A red flower bloomed beneath her palm. She stroked it tenderly, smiling at it as though it were an old friend.
“We will weaken him. Serrik, are you ready to attack the tree at the center of the Maze while I lead an attack on his encampment?”
It was hard to say whose task was more of a guaranteed suicide run—Ava’s or Serrik’s. They were about matched. He was most likely to die outright at Valroy’s hands. Whereas she was most likely to die a slow death of attrition into apathy.
She didn’t know which she preferred.
Serrik remained silent for a long pause, neither agreeing or disagreeing with the plan at first. He seemed more withdrawn than usual, lost in thought, though what those thoughts were he had no idea. “Ava. A word.”
Well, she was about to find out. “Yeah.” They had a lot to discuss. A lot to straighten out.
They were both about to sacrifice themselves, after all.
This was their last chance at a peaceful goodbye.
Whether or not she wanted to face it. Whether or not she wanted to admit it.
He walked off into the theatre, and she followed him into the darkness.
One last time.