Arthur
My wife listened in silence. Any other would have thought she was taking the news well as Seraphine related what she’d told me on the way to the library.
But I knew her. The slump in her wings. The stiffness in her neck.
When Reshina refused to abide by the rules set in place before her, that was when she was most fragile.
Not fragile like a rose, but fragile like the lighted fuse of an explosion.
When Seraphine explained the sickness, I knew right away what it was. It was not just the role of a Goddess of the Veil to look after her people, but also to heal them and give her essence from the Veil for them to thrive.
Morella was with child, we’d learned, and appeared to fare with the same sickness Reshina had suffered when she was pregnant with her.
They’d been searching for Reshina for weeks without end, getting word out, desperate to uncover what had happened to the Goddess of the Ravenfae.
And it wasn’t until Piff had overheard something about it in the marketplace that he’d sent that letter to Korven—the one Reshina had never meant to send telling where she’d been.
“You think I chose to stay here for over a year?”
The cut of her words hit me solidly, like a heated knife across my skin. I knew what she meant, but the way we’d been living as if we were free from the outside world was suddenly a burn on my heart—a lie we’d fashioned together.
“You disappeared!” Seraphine cried. “We thought you’d chosen another life!”
“I have been trapped inside a curse I delivered here decades ago. I cannot leave. The curse does not allow it.”
Seraphine’s lip trembled again. “Give me your hand. I’ll shift us away from here right now.” She pulled Reshina to the wooden bench along the wall. So Seraphine was a Forestfae then, able to move herself and others across the land through the wood of the trees of Revelry.
Seraphine gripped the armrest, squeezing her eyes shut. When nothing happened, she groaned in exasperation, pacing again. “I know all curses can be broken. What must be done to break this one?”
I stepped forward. “There is a way.”
“No.” The snap of Reshina’s word resounded through the corridor.
I reached for her, pulling her to me. “I told you it would come to this.”
“NO!” She yanked her hand from mine, backing away. “The curse cannot be broken,” she muttered, her eyes frantic.
I followed her, softly pinning her against the tapestry along the stone wall. “You can do this,” I breathed. “You must go. You’ll never forgive yourself if you don’t.”
“You are wrong, Arthur,” she said with ire. “I. Cannot. Do. This.”
“Look at me.” She turned her head, squeezing her eyes shut in refusal.
“This is not the end. Do you remember what I said?” She shook her head, tears streaming freely down her face.
“I said I have been immortalized by you. All of this,”—I stroked her cheek, gently turning her back to me—“all of it was real. And I have loved you—” My voice broke.
But I’d not been through years of torment and months of bliss just to fall apart when the time came to be strong for her.
I swallowed all of it down. “So much. It’s time for you to go.
Save your daughter. Enjoy your grandchildren and children and don’t forget to take care of Piffle along the way. ”
“Fuck you,” she seethed, grabbing my face. “I said no.”
She shifted between my arms, soaring down the corridor without another word.
“Fuck,” I heaved, already feeling the heat of the Beast’s blood pulsing through my veins in the shift.
Seraphine twirled around. “Is she going to try to leave?”
“No,” I called, racing down the corridor after her. “She’s going to try for the western corridor!”