30. Willow
Willow
My heart shatters into a trillion pieces, and my first instinct is to follow him into the abyss. Cin, Dravik, Nyx, Rhune… we can be together again.
I take one step over the edge, and a pair of strong arms wrap around my middle, hauling me back onto the ledge. I’m hit with a wave of déjà vu, only this time, I know it’s not Dravik saving me from the abyss.
“No! Let me go!” I fight, kick, scream, but it does no good. He won’t let go.
“He’s gone, Willow. They’re all gone.” Vhalthor’s voice is thick with emotion—the finality of the horror I do not want to accept.
“No!” I cry. “No, they’re not! They can’t be!”
I sob brokenly, still fighting toward the edge.
Vhalthor is barely standing from his injuries, but even half dead, his demon strength wins out over my desperation.
My boots slide against the melting ice, and I claw at Vhalthor's forearm hard enough to draw blood, but his hold doesn't budge. “Please! We have to go after them!”
“They went into the abyss. There is no getting them back,” Vhalthor chokes out. “They’re gone.”
“No,” I moan. “No…”
Above us, the Welwig has turned black, and the roots are no longer pulsing red, but falling from the walls in thick clumps.
They hit the ground with wet, rotten thuds, releasing a stench of sulfur and spoiled meat that clings to the back of my throat with every shuddered breath.
Ice breaks loose from the ceiling in slabs, crashing down around us in a fantastic spray of chaos.
One slab shatters an arm's length away, spraying razor-sharp shards that slice into my exposed skin, but I don't even flinch. I can’t feel it. I can’t feel anything.
Everything is dying. The world is coming apart. It’s over.
Amid the destruction and chaos, Vhalthor lets out a cry of pain, unintentionally freeing me. I slump to the ground out of Vhalthor’s grip, my breaking, aching heart the only thing telling me I’m still alive.
“We have to go!” Vhalthor yells, attempting to snap me out of my trance. “Willow! We need to retreat!”
His voice barely reaches me through the ringing in my ears. “What’s the point?” I stare blankly up at the collapsing ceiling. “They’re gone. Gone. Gone…”
“Fuck!” Vhalthor jumps back, retreating from a particularly large slab that crashes down two inches from where I’m kneeling.
The serafyn’s voice breaks out in the back of my mind, filled with authority and… fear? In all the time it's lived in me, I have never heard it scared, but it is now. For me? Why?
Willow, you need to move! You’ll be crushed! I can only protect you for so long without full control of your body!
Ah. So that’s why none of the slabs have crushed me yet. Here I was, thinking I was lucky. I just laugh, the sound ugly and hollow. So? Maybe that’s for the best.
Spoon makes a noise somewhere between a yell and a sob. It has ordered me before. Demanded control and expected it. This time, it begs. Willow… please… if you won’t run, then let me take over. Let me save you. Please.
I just stare at the pit, remembering how their faces looked as they fell into the dark. I am already gone. There’s nothing left to save.
The serafyn goes quiet, searching for something I can’t name. When it speaks again, its voice sounds softer, farther away. Almost… sad.
This feeling. Wh-what is it? I’ve never… I have never experienced this. It hurts. Why does it hurt, Willow?
I don’t respond. I can’t. I can’t breathe, can’t think. It feels like my whole world is ending—because it already did.
Heartbreak, the serafyn says. I have not felt this pain before. The voice is silent for a long time—long enough that I almost forget it's there. No… No, that’s not right. I remember now. I had forgotten for so long, but I remember.
Flashes of memories play like a slideshow in my mind, but none of them belong to me.
A dark-haired woman with a wide smile and beautiful, strange, red-ringed eyes.
A sunset. A series of explosions. Blood, and death, and a single blooming flower in the middle of a barren field.
A woman and a man, grinning down at a beautiful baby girl.
A car accident. Flashes of light, color, and the feeling of loss. So much loss, and pain, and heartache.
And above it all, a single, pleading voice breaking through the fog. Please, it says. Please, save my Willow.
Slowly, the pictures fade, and I come back to reality. Ice is still crashing behind me, and Vhalthor is shouting for me to move, but for a moment, I’m stuck in that memory. The woman's smile. The baby girl. The wreck. A voice that begged someone to save my Willow.
I don't understand what just happened. Those weren't my memories, yet I felt every one of them as if I had lived them. And then, it hits me. Those were Spoon’s memories. It showed me something important. But what? And why?
I remember her now, Spoon says. I… I remember what she asked me, what I promised.
Time stops.
The roar of destruction and rushing wind cuts off in the same instant, and the cavern goes eerily silent. Every shard of falling ice hangs suspended in the space between us. Vhalthor is frozen mid-shout, his mouth formed around my name and his eyes comically wide.
My throat works around a swallow, and with a shock of clarity, I realize that I alone am unaffected by this strange power. The serafyn’s power.
Willow?
"Yes?" My voice is unusually tinny in the quiet.
This world… those males… Do they really mean so much to you?
I'm not able to speak. Instead, I nod weakly. Yes. Yes, they mean everything. I would give my life for theirs in a heartbeat. I would give anything just to see them one last time. To hold them. To tell them that I love them.
There is a low laugh, but it is more sad than anything else. Then… this gift is for you.
What are you talking about?
My magic. That hoarse, sad laugh again. It’s yours, little human. Just for a short while and this one time. Use it wisely.
Power builds beneath my skin, starting in the same place it did before, spreading out to the tips of my fingers—but there's no pain behind it this time.
No feeling of being torn apart, or being dipped in acid.
It flows through my veins, filling me with a comforting warmth, a thousand tiny bolts of lightning, a million shots of adrenaline.
This is what the serafyn’s power is supposed to feel like. It’s… incredible.
At that moment, I realize that everything is at my fingertips. I could go anywhere, do anything I want. I could bring down the ceiling. I could destroy this world. I could rip the fabric of the universe apart piece by piece.
I could save my mates and heal The Far Place.
I don’t need to think about my options. My heart makes my decision for me. I take hold of the power thrumming inside me, and it answers instantly. Wings of raw energy spread from my spine, beating hard against the frigid air.
My feet leave the ground, and I fly up, up, up toward the dying Welwig.
I press my palm flat against the bark and close my eyes. Power pours out of me, more than I've ever moved through my body, more than I ever thought was possible. Black recedes wherever the light touches, giving way to a bright, healthy blue. The stench of rot fades from the air.
As if someone pressed rewind on a tape recorder, the broken slabs of ceiling return to their places. The roots reattach to the walls. The wreckage is put back in order. The horrible, broken creatures are turned to puddles of ash, then whisked away by a gentle breeze.
My pulse slows, and the serafyn’s slows along with it.
This is what it costs to fix something this broken. I finally understand.
The serafyn doesn’t answer, so I pour more and more of myself into the tree, desperate to heal this world. Heartbeat by heartbeat, a little more of my soul is lost. A fraction of the world is restored.
A faint blue shimmer catches my attention, as if emanating from the center of the Welwig. There is a blast of raw power, the sound of a foghorn, then four shapes materialize midair, held aloft by the ancient magic of the Welwig.
It only takes me a second to recognize them, but it feels like the moment stretches on for an eternity.
Rhune. Nyx. Dravik. Cin.
They’re there. They’re really, truly there. The Welwig brought them back. But how? Why?
I don’t have the strength or time to figure it out. Instead, I watch silently as their bodies drop out of the open air, their limp forms plummeting down toward the frozen ground.
I scream, but no sound exits my throat. Instead, a blast of power fills the cavern—not mine, but the serafyn’s—and that power cradles my mates’ bodies, lowering them gently to the ice.
My wings give out along with the remnants of my power, and I drop out of the sky, slamming into the ice beside my four mates hard enough to knock the breath from my lungs. There should be pain, but I don’t feel it. All I know is relief.
Rhune's chest rises and falls, slow and even, and Nyx's fingers twitch faintly against the frost beside him. Dravik's expression is relaxed in that rare way that only happens when he’s in a deep sleep. And Cin…
Amazingly, the lower half of Cin's face has been restored. The awful metal mask is gone, but there is no longer exposed bone or muscle. Just smooth, unbroken skin.
My chest clenches with grief as I stare down at his full lips. I wish I could kiss him—for once, for the very first time—but I don't think I'll get the chance.
A tired smile spreads across my face despite all the pain and longing bleeding out of my veins. I feel my heart stopping, my organs shutting down. But I know it was worth it. It has to be worth it.
I call out to the serafyn, but Spoon remains silent. Whether she is sleeping, dead, or too tired to respond, it does not matter. I used all of her power to heal this world, and the serafyn cannot help me anymore. She cannot heal all that has been broken.
I gaze up at the healthy, shimmering blue Welwig, tears brimming at the corners of my vision as I take it in. I remember when I first came to this world, I thought that color was so strange. I missed the hues of my world. But now… I’d give anything just to have another minute to take it in.
With the last of my strength, I turn back to my mates, counting their breaths.
Alive, I remind myself. They are alive. I saved this world.
The only cost was my life. And it was worth it.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, allowing my eyes to close as I succumb to the dark. “I love you all. So much. So, so very much…”
Someone screams my name, and everything goes black.