Page 60 of The Unseelie War
But thewhyof it, the greater purpose, remained maddeningly unclear.
“What's the point?” Ava demanded of the empty air. “What does any of this accomplish? Why have you done all of this? Centuries! Thousands of years, even. You’re to blame for all of this since the very beginning.Why!”
Only her echoing shout answered her. The standing stones loomed like ancient sentinels, keeping their secrets.
Ava tried a different approach. “Fine. What about Valroy? Do we successfully kill him? I need to know what kind of power we're up against, what his weaknesses are, how to protect the people he's threatening. How to protectSerrik,the other child you abandoned and left to die! You’re making your childrenkilleach other. Is that how you get your jollies?”
Still nothing. The stones continued their silent vigil, offering no guidance.
“How am I supposed to split the worlds apart in the first place?” Her voice was getting louder, echoing off the megaliths. “How do I perform this ritual that Abigail mentioned? What are the actualfuckingsteps? Do I need specific words, specific tools, a certain time of day? Do the anchor points have to volunteer, or can they be forced? What happens if one of us refuses? And where the fiddly-fuck is Alex anyway? Huh?Hello!”
The silence stretched on, oppressive and maddening.
“Well, I know one thing. I know where the fae got theirfuckingobscure sense of communication style!” Ava threw her hands up in frustration, her voice rising to furious shouting. “Even when I'm trying to save three entire motherfucking, cocksucking realities, you can't be bothered to give me a straight goddamn answer. Just more cryptic bullshit and mysterious imagery.” She gestured angrily at Book. “What good does knowing the end goal do me if I don't know how to get there? It's like getting a map that shows you the damn destination but none of the fucking roads!”
Just her echoed shouts returned back at her.
Ava felt her temper finally snap completely. All the frustration, all the fear, all the crushing weight of responsibility that had been building since she'd first entered the Web came pouring out in a torrent of rage. She screamed.
“You know what? Fuck this! Fuck your riddles, fuck your cosmic chess games, fuck your inability to use actual words like a normal,sanefuckingperson! Fuck your mysterious ways and your fucking ravens and yourfuckingmanipulation and your goddamn superiorfuckingattitude!” Her voice was raw with fury and echoing off the ancient stones with increasing volume. “Fuck your refusal to take responsibility for the mess you've made. You created Serrik and tortured him for two thousand years. You created Valroy and set him loose on the world like some kind of cosmic plague. It isn’t even hisfuckingfault he is the way he is! I don’t even blame him! I feelbadfor him! He’s a dog barking at the end of the chain because he was made to be this way! You created me and then threw me into this nightmare without so much as a fucking instruction manual!”
Nothing but her anger.
“Fuck the way you sit back and watch us tear each other apart for your entertainment! Fuck your silence and your distance and your complete lack of anything resembling a soul! Fuck the way you act like you're above the damage you cause! And most of all, fuck this bullshit where you make us figure everything out ourselves while people are dying because you're too fucking proud or too cosmic or too whatever to justtell us what you fucking need us to know!”
The echo of her words faded, leaving only the whisper of wind through the stone circle. But something had changed. The air itself seemed to be holding its breath, waiting.
And then, slowly, impossibly, a shadow began to grow between the stones.
It rose like black smoke, coalescing into a towering figure wrapped in a cloak of raven feathers. The Morrigan stood easily eight feet tall, her face hidden in the depths of her hood, her presence filling the circle with the weight of eons. When she moved, it was with the fluid grace of something that had never been truly solid, never been bound by the physical laws that governed lesser beings.
The feathers of the goddess's cloak weren't just black—they held depths of color that shifted and changed like oil on water. Dark blue, deep purple, hints of green and gold that appeared and disappeared depending on the angle of the light. The cloak itself seemed to bealive, individual feathers rustling and preening as if they were still attached to living birds.
The goddess said nothing. Instead, she simply raised one hand—pale and long-fingered, with nails that looked like they were carved from obsidian—and pointed at the tome on the altar.
“Okay, you goddamn Ghost of Christmas Future.” Ava looked down at the open pages, but nothing had changed. The three circles with their trapped figures remained exactly as they had been. “I don't see anything new. What am I supposed to?—”
The pointing finger remained steady, insistent. The Morrigan's head tilted slightly, a motion that somehow conveyed both patience and warning.
Cautiously, Ava approached the altar. Book lay open, looking innocent enough. She reached out slowly, her fingertips brushing the edge of the ancient tome.
The moment her skin made contact with the book, agony exploded through her.
It was like being set on fire and having every nerve in her body flayed with broken glass. The pain was beyond anything she had ever experienced, beyond anything she had thought possible. It tore through her consciousness like a wild animal, shredding her thoughts and leaving nothing but white-hot suffering in its wake.
But worse than the physical agony was what came with it—knowledge.
Terrible, unwanted knowledge that crashed into her mind.
She saw the truth of what the three anchors would become. Not just bound to their realms, butdissolvedinto them, their consciousness scattered across infinite possibility until nothing remained of who they had been. She saw Alex's slow transformation from human to fae to something beyond either, her memories fading like morning mist until only the echo of her love for Izael remained.
She saw Abigail's essence woven into the very fabric of the Web, her personality unraveling thread by thread until she becamenothing more than a function, a cosmic force without thought or feeling.
And she saw herself, standing in the void between worlds, watching as her humanity bled away drop by drop, year by year, until she was no longer Ava but something else entirely—a guardian without compassion, a force without purpose beyond the maintenance of separation.
She saw how long it would take. Centuries. Millennia. The slow erosion of everything that made them who they were, until three women became three abstract concepts, holding the worlds apart through the sacrifice of their very souls.
And she saw the only hope for them to keep themselves whole.
