Chapter 22
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The silence stretched like a held breath, broken only by the whisper of wind through the twisted branches of the tree that had been Valroy's source of power for so long.
Deep in his mind, he remembered what it was like before he was flesh and blood.
The part of him that was other. The part of him that yearned for the return to the void.
But it was like a dream upon the rise of the sun’s first rays. Fleeting and ephemeral. And in this moment, utterly pointless. He stood facing his half-brother across the clearing, shadows still wreathing his form like living smoke.
Valroy felt the crushing weight of solitude settle over him like a burial shroud.
He would fight with no one at his side.
Alone.
The word echoed through his mind with the finality of a death knell. When had it come to this? When had he become the singular figure standing against the combined will of almost everyone he had ever claimed to care about?
How grateful he was that Anfar was absent from this ordeal. He could not take the leviathan’s brooding and disapproving glares. Nor would Bayodan be with him. Nor Cruinn. Nor anyone else.
Alone.
Abigail knelt in the grass behind him, her red hair matted with dirt and blood, her green eyes filled with a sorrow so profound it made his chest ache. She had chosen. And she had not chosen him. His wife. The one person in all of existence who should have stood beside him through anything.
Alone.
Alexandra hung limp against the base of the tree where the dark magic had deposited her, her purple hair darkened with blood, her body pierced and drained by the roots.
She had been Izael's love, and Izael had died questioning Valroy's methods, choosing some abstract future over the glorious present of war.
Another betrayal, another voice raised in opposition.
Alone.
And there was the little Weaver, clutching her precious book, tears streaming down her face for the dream-constructs he had been forced to erase. Did she not realize how much greater the sacrifice his had been, destroying his own people? Destroying those he had known for far longer?
Did she not realize how much his own heart ached at their deaths, much more than hers could for those vapid whispers she called friends for barely more than a few weeks?
She looked at him with such hatred now, such absolute condemnation, that it was almost beautiful in its purity. Even she—a creature he had helped create through his actions, whose very existence was tied to his so intrinsically—stood against him.
Alone.
But it was Serrik, strangely, whose enmity hurt the most.
For who should agree that all should die more than him?
Who had been wronged more than his half-brother?
His half-brother. Another pawn of the Morrigan’s schemes.
They should have been allies, should have understood each other in ways no one else could.
They were both abandoned children, both shaped by the Morrigan's design, both creatures of such terrible power that the world feared them simply for existing.
Yet there stood Serrik, his golden eyes cold as winter stars, his multiple gazes fixed on Valroy with the promise of violence.
Alone.
“I used to wonder what it would be like to meet you properly.
Away from the politics and the careful maneuvering, away from Abigail's restraining influence and the weight of our respective kingdoms.” He smiled, though he found a genuine sadness in himself.
“I imagined we might find common ground. Two creatures abandoned by their creator, shaped by forces beyond our control, struggling to find meaning in a universe that sees us as aberrations. Driven by a need to destroy.”
Serrik's expression didn't change. “And instead?”
“I find you have abandoned your calling.
I find you've chosen them over your clear purpose.” Valroy gestured at the women behind him without taking his eyes off his brother.
“Chosen the very people who would cage us, diminish us, force us to be less than what we are.
You've fallen in love with your jailer and decided that makes imprisonment preferable to freedom.”
“Freedom,” Serrik repeated, his voice carrying notes of dark amusement.
“Is that what you call this? Standing in a forest of death, having murdered your own followers, having driven away everyone who ever cared for you?” Golden threads began to weave themselves around his fingers.
“If this is freedom, brother, it looks remarkably like damnation.”
The words hit deeper than Valroy had expected. Because yes, this was freedom—the freedom to be exactly what he had been created to be, without compromise, without restraint. But it was also solitude so complete it felt like someone had their hand wrapped around his heart in a vice grip.
“At least I am honest about what I am.” Valroy spread his wings. “I do not wander about in meaningless preamble, pretend to be noble or redeemable. I do not lie to myself about my nature.”
“No.” Serrik began to circle him with a remarkable amount of grace, given his size in his true form. “You simply lie to yourself about what it means to love. About what it requires, if you were brave enough to accept it.”
“Love?” Valroy's laugh was bitter. “Love is what brought us here, brother.
Love is what forces impossible choices and demands sacrifices that strip away everything that makes us who we are.
Abigail loves me, but not enough to stand beside me.
You love your little Weaver, but not enough to protect her from the slow death she's chosen. Love is the cruelest lie the universe ever told.”
“Perhaps.” Serrik did not even glance to Ava, likely knowing that Valroy would take the moment to strike. He was no fool. “But, if so, it is the only lie that makes existence bearable. So I will tell it to myself gladly.”
Valroy felt something crack inside his chest. The last vestige of hope that his brother might understand, might choose to stand with him instead of against him. “Then we have nothing more to discuss.”
The attack came without warning, faster than thought, born from centuries of accumulated fury and the desperate need to make someone else feel the isolation that was consuming him from within. Darkness erupted from Valroy like a physical force, reaching out to unmake everything it touched.
Serrik was ready for him. Golden threads snapped through the air with the sound of singing steel, cutting through the advancing void like light through shadow. Where they met, reality sparked and screamed, the fundamental forces crackling against each other with nothing but fury.
They collided in the center of the clearing, and the impact shattered the air around them.
Valroy's claws, wreathed in darkness, met the razor-sharp lines of Serrik's threads in a symphony of destruction that made the earth itself cry out in pain.
The tree at the heart of the Maze shuddered, its twisted branches reaching toward them as if trying to drink in the violence.
Joy filled his heart.
And despair rose to match it in equal measure.
Two voices in perfect symphony.
This was what he had always wanted, Valroy realized as he fought. This pure expression of power, this moment when all the careful political maneuvering and restrained aggression could finally be set aside.
This was honesty. This was truth.
Even if it was the truth of mutual annihilation.
Even if it was the final confirmation that he would face the end alone.
So be it.
Let it end.
Let it all end.
Ava had to focus. She had to not worry about Serrik and focus on the spell.
He was a big spider. A very big and ancient spider. He could take care of himself.
The ritual pulled at Ava's consciousness like a tide, demanding everything she had and more.
She could feel the three worlds straining against each other, reality groaning under the pressure of forces that were never meant to coexist. Book lay open in her hands, its pages fluttering in winds that came from everywhere and nowhere, the words of separation burning themselves into her mind with perfect clarity.
Words were falling from her mouth that she couldn’t hear.
Couldn’t process. But they came out of her all the same by instinct alone.
The air itself began to fracture, hairline cracks appearing in space like breaks in a mirror.
Through the fissures, she caught glimpses of the other realities—Earth's blue skies and concrete cities, Tir n'Aill's silver trees and eternal twilight, the Web's infinite library of dreams and nightmares.
Had they been there the whole time…?
Or were they were trying to separate?
She couldn’t stop to think it through. She had to keep pulling them apart like magnets with opposing poles, but the process was agonizing. Behind her, the battle between Valroy and Serrik raged.
Her spider moved like liquid death, his seven legs carrying him around his half-brother in perfect circles while golden threads sang through the air.
Each strand was sharp enough to cut through steel.
But Valroy was entropy incarnate, and wherever the threads met his darkness, they simply ceased to exist.
“Is this all you have, brother?” Valroy snarled as he backhanded a cluster of threads out of existence. “Two millennia of rage, and this is how you choose to express it?”
Serrik's response was wordless. He held his hands out in front of him, and instead of the golden webs, the world around him twisted and warped like a kaleidoscope, structures of hallways and familiar Baroque architecture mixing with the forest and ruins around them, jutting out at odd angles that had no business being there.
Up became down became right became left became everywhere.
It was dizzying to even comprehend.
Right. Serrik was an architect of reality as well.