7. Tate
7
TATE
I hate that this is the only way, but it is. We fucked with fate, and now it’s biting us on the arse. “It’s the only way,” I mutter, feeling the wrath of Bram and Torin burning into my soul. But they know I’m right.
Bram snarls, grabbing my shirt and slamming me against a tree. “Don’t you fucking dare suggest that again. We’re not sending her back.”
I push him off, glaring. “You think I want to? But we don’t have a choice. We fucked up. Fuck knows, bringing me back from the dead, probably also messed with shit. We have to set things right.”
“There has to be another way,” Torin insists, his voice tight with desperation.
Ivy steps between us, her eyes blazing with determination. “Stop it. This is my decision to make, not yours.”
“The hell it is,” Bram growls. “We didn’t go through all that just to lose you again.”
She turns to him, cupping his face. “I know. But we can’t be selfish here. The fate of everything is at stake.”
I watch the conflict play across Bram’s features. He knows she’s right, but accepting it is another matter entirely.
Ivy looks at each of us. “I love you all. But I have to do this. It’s the only way to fix what we’ve done.”
Torin makes a choked sound. “There has to be another option. We can’t just give up.”
“It’s not giving up,” she says softly. “It’s doing what’s necessary.”
I clench my fists, hating this but knowing it’s true. “How do we even do it? Send you back, I mean.”
She takes a deep breath. “That is the tricky part. It happened when I was fighting Life’s minions. The ritual is neither here nor there. I’m not entirely sure how we go back to the point in time where I scattered without causing even more damage.”
“Then we don’t do it,” Torin states, feet planted, arms over his chest. He has taken on the role of badass vampire mage, and he will smite anyone who looks at him wrong now. I know that look. He won’t let this happen.
Ivy sighs. “Torin, we don’t have a choice. The longer we wait, the worse things will get.”
“She’s right,” I say, hating every word. “We need to figure this out fast.”
Bram runs a hand through his hair, his eyes wild. “Fuck. There has to be some way to do this without losing you again.”
Ivy’s expression softens as she looks at him. “I wish there was. But we all know deep down this is what has to happen.”
“No,” Torin growls. “I refuse to accept that. We’ll find another way.”
I shake my head. “We don’t have time for denial. We need to focus on how to send her back safely.”
“Safely?” Bram scoffs. “There’s nothing safe about being torn apart across realities, and it’s not even about sending Ivy back to the thousand realms. It’s about the point in time that it happened. You are all missing the entire point of this. It isn’t the action, it’s the time. The fucking time.”
“Yeah, the fucking time we messed with,” Ivy argues.
Torin chimes in, and I retreat as they fight amongst themselves. Bram has a very good point. It isn’t about just randomly tearing Ivy apart, it’s the time.
“How did you do it?”
“Hmm?” I look up at the voice and see Morrigan standing behind a tree, staring at me. “Do what?”
“Take the power of your ancestors?”
“It wasn’t intentional.”
She giggles. “These things never are.” She lifts her chin to indicate the three still fighting. “They can’t see me, in case you were wondering.”
“Great, so it looks like I’m talking to myself.”
She shrugs. “Think, warlock. This isn’t about destroying Death, which is exactly what you will do if you tear that girl apart to scatter her.”
“You’ve been here the whole time?”
“Never left. I can’t. I’m tied to this place.”
“This exact place?” I ask with a frown.
She nods. “This is where I reappeared.”
Interesting.
“Are you saying you died once upon a time, and our fuck up brought you back?”
“In a manner of speaking, yes. Everything dies, Tate. It’s the way of the world. It’s why Death is so important. You can’t let her go through with this inane plan.”
“Then what do you suggest?” I ask out of desperation rather than trusting whatever she will say will benefit Ivy and not herself.
Morrigan’s eyes gleam with a predatory light. “What I suggest, little warlock, is that you tap into that ancestral power you’ve somehow awakened. The key to fixing this mess lies within you.”
I narrow my eyes suspiciously. “And how exactly am I supposed to do that? I don’t even know how I accessed it in the first place.”
She smirks. “That’s for you to figure out. But you know the deal. It’s all about intention. Focus on what you want to accomplish, not just reversing time.”
“That’s not very helpful,” I growl in frustration.
“Did you expect me to hand you all the answers? Where’s the fun in that?” She laughs, the sound grating on my already frayed nerves.
I glance back at the others, still arguing heatedly. When I turn back, Morrigan is gone, well, invisible at any rate. Fucking typical.
But her words stick with me. Intention. Focus on what we want to accomplish. Not just reversing time, but... what exactly? Changing reality back to what it was? Undoing the damage without losing Ivy?
I close my eyes, trying to quiet my racing thoughts. I reach deep inside myself, seeking that well of power Morrigan says is in me. I know the power is boosted, and I can feel it is different from what it was before. It’s an immense weight on my soul, almost enough to drown me out completely if I let it.
Ancestral magick. The combined power of generations of warlocks flowing through my veins. It’s dizzying, overwhelming. I struggle to focus, to harness even a fraction of it.
“Tate?” Ivy’s voice cuts through my concentration. “What are you doing?”
I open my eyes to find all three of them staring at me. “I think I might have an idea,” I say slowly. “But I’m not sure if it’ll work.”
“Anything’s better than tearing Ivy apart again,” Bram growls.
I nod. “Morrigan said something about intention. That we need to focus on what we want to accomplish, not just reversing time.”
Torin frowns. “When the fuck did you talk to Morrigan?”
“Just now. She was here, but only I could see her apparently.”
“What exactly are you proposing?” Bram asks, eyeing me warily.
I take a deep breath. “I think... I think I can use this ancestral magick to reshape reality. Not just reverse time, but actually change things back to how they should be without losing Ivy.”
“Is that even possible?” Torin asks sceptically.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “But it’s worth a shot, right? Better than the alternative.”
Ivy steps closer to me, her eyes searching mine. “What do you need us to do?”
“I’m not sure,” I say. “But I think we need to focus our collective power. All of us. Bram, you’ve got Morrigan’s magick. Torin, you’ve got your vampire mage abilities. And Ivy, you’re literally Death incarnate now. If we combine everything...”
“Yes, but I became Death after we came back from the alternate dimension. How can we be sure I will stay that way?”
I meet her gaze. “We can’t.”
Ivy grunts and slams her hands to her head. She drops to her knees with a keening sound.
Lunging forward, I crouch next to her, gripping her elbow. “Ivy?”
“Death… all of them… say no.”
“No?” I ask with a raised eyebrow.
“A collective and very firm no. It will rip Death out of me, and seeing as David is already gone?—”
“Death will be floating around?” Torin asks.
“Something like that,” she grits out, opening her eyes and fixing her gaze on me. “We can’t do this.”
“Then you tell those ancient fuckers to come up with a better plan. Any fucking plan, then,” I growl.
She nods, and I see movement in the trees. I look up to see Morrigan glaring at me. She is pissed, and I realise that was her plan all along, so she could what? Take Death’s power? She said Ivy’s power came from her. Fuck. This is a disastrous nightmare.
“You’re right,” I state, tearing my gaze from Morrigan’s. “We won’t do it this way. But we need to hurry and find out what we are going to do.”
“In the meantime,” Bram states coldly. “It looks like we’ve got company, and they aren’t here for tea and biscuits.”
I glance up and see that we are surrounded by an army of—what I’m assuming—are souls that are back from the dead.
“Oh, fuck,” Ivy snarls. “I guess you had better leave this to me?”
We both rise quickly as some axe-wielding maniac storms towards us with a battle cry that chills me to my bones.