Page 68 of The Unseelie War
“A spell of my working,” he explained as he fastened it around her wrist. “It will not provide much protection against something like Valroy, but it might…if you are in true danger, it might buy you a few moments. Enough time to complete what you must.”
Ava looked down at the bracelet, feeling the way it seemed to pulse with a life of its own. “This bracelet actually does something this time?” She smirked up at him playfully.
His own smile appeared but faded quickly. “Yes. It does. More than a glamor. And it will—” He choked off.
“Serrik..."
“And it will remind you,” he continued, his voice growing softer, “that whatever happens tonight, whatever you become in the years to come, should you live—that you were loved. The day shall come you will look down and not remember my voice. Then, my name. My face shall fade in time. The stories of us shall follow. But I hope, nay,I pray—to any of the damnable gods and demons who may be listening. Hear me—gaze upon this poor offering of love—and let this fade last.”
A ragged sob burst from her throat. Throwing her arms around behind his neck, she clung to him like he was a raft at sea. She wept. She hadn’t cried so hard since?—
She didn’t want to go.
She didn’t wanthimto go.
“You realize," he said, his voice rough with emotion, “that this makes everything so much harder.”
“I know.” Ava smiled through her own tears. “But it also makes it worthwhile. We had this, Serrik. We had love. Real, honest, chose-each-other-despite-everything love. That's more than most people get in an entire lifetime.”
“Is it enough?”
“I don’t know. But we aren’t getting any more.”
He nodded slowly. “Then…I suppose this is goodbye.”
“No,” Ava said firmly, blinking away the tears, trying to wipe them away as best she could. “This is 'see you later.' Because I refuse to believe this is the end. Maybe we won't have the same forms, maybe we won't be the same people, but somehow, somewhere—we'll find each other again.”
“You truly believe that?”
“I have to. It’s the only way I can take another step forward.” She rose up on her toes to kiss him, pouring all of her love and hope and desperate faith into the contact. “I love you, my spider. In this life, in whatever comes after, in every possible reality, in every dream, in every nightmare, in every way you choose to find me—I love you.”
“And I love you, my Weaver.” He rested his forehead to hers. “Always and forever, regardless of what we become."
They kissed again, longer this time, as if they could somehow make the moment last forever through sheer force of will. When they finally broke apart, both of them were crying freely.
“We should go back,” Ava said, though every instinct screamed at her to stay here, to hold onto this moment for as long as possible.
“Yes.” Serrik straightened his shoulders, and she could see him pulling his composure back into place like armor. “The others will be waiting.”
“Serrik?”
“Yes?”
“Thank you. For everything. For making me feel like I mattered to someone.”
“Thank you,” he replied, "for seeing past the nightmare to find something valuable underneath. For believing I could be more than what I was created to be. For loving me despite everything I am.”
Hand in hand, they walked back toward the theater, toward the others, toward the mission that would destroy them both, come success or failure. But for just a moment longer, they had the warmth of each other's touch, the knowledge of being completely understoodand accepted, the bittersweet joy of loving someone enough to let them go.
In the grand scheme of terrible world-ending crises, it might not seem like much. But to them, in that moment, it felt like everything.
Because it might have not been enough.
But it had to last forever.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Valroy stood at the edge of his war camp, watching the fires burn in the distance with the satisfaction of an artist admiring his latest masterpiece. The smell of smoke and terror drifted on the evening breeze, carrying with it the sweet perfume of chaos unleashed at last. How long had he waited for this moment? How many centuries had he endured the careful political maneuvering, the endless negotiations, the suffocating weight ofrestraint?
