Page 76 of The Unseelie War
“But millions won’t,” Ibin pointed out.
“And?” Valroy seemed both amused and blissfully ignorant.
“And even if you said you’d agree to a truce, it’d just be the same treaty bullshit.” Ava shut her eyes and felt the familiar sensation of defeat fall over her. “This is just the same snake eating its same tail again, and again, and again.”
“Precisely, Ava.” Abigail spoke up. “We must end this cycle, even if by doing so, it ends ourselves. It demands that we endhim.”She turned to Ava. “Begin the spell.”
Ava felt her heart rate spike as she opened Book, its pages fluttering in a wind that seemed to come from nowhere. The words of the ritual were there, burning in her mind with clarity, but she hesitated. Once she started this, there would be no going back. “Abigail?—”
“You seek to destroy me, my love? Very well. We shall see how well you fight when you are in chains.” Valroy snarled. “Attack!”
Abigail smiled. “And we shall see howyoufare in turn.” Suddenly the ground around them began to change. Red flowers burst from the earth in expanding waves, their petals gleaming like fresh blood in the strange light. But these weren't the gentle, decorative blooms Ava had seen before. These were something else entirely—predatory,hungrythings that turned toward Valroy's forces like sunflowers following the sun.
The nearest nightmare constructs shrieked as the flowers engulfed them, their forms dissolving as the blooms fed on their essence. Unseelie warriors tried to retreat, but the flowers followedthem, growing faster than anything natural had a right to grow, turning the battlefield into a garden of beautiful death.
“Finally, yes!” Valroy's voice carried genuine delight even as his forces scattered before Abigail's assault. “At long last, you wield your Gle’Golun in battle! You show your teeth! This is what you were meant to be, my love—not some passive guardian, but a force of nature unleashed!”
Abigail didn't respond. Her attention was focused entirely on her flowers, guiding their growth with gestures that were almost like conducting a symphony. Where her power touched the earth, reality itself seemed to bloom with new possibility.
Ava felt the ritual pulling at her consciousness, demanding her attention. The words were there, waiting to be spoken, the pattern of power ready to be woven. But as she raised her voice to begin, a shadow fell across her.
Valroy stood above her, having moved faster than should have been possible, his sword raised and gleaming with dark fire. His expression was almost regretful. “I am sorry, little Weaver,” he said, his voice gentle despite the circumstances. “But I cannot allow you to cage us all in separate worlds again. Perhaps it is time we discovered just how immortal the Weaver truly is.”
The blade began its descent, and Ava found herself staring up at her own death, Book clutched to her chest, the ritual half-formed on her lips.
Time seemed to slow as the sword fell toward her, and she had just enough time to wonder if this was how it all ended—not with noble sacrifice or tragic gestures, but with steel and blood and the simple mathematics of violence.
The blade cut through the air toward her heart, and Ava closed her eyes, hoping that someone, somewhere, would remember that she had tried.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The forest and ruined stone structure that surrounded the heart of the Maze was a living nightmare, twisted and hungry in ways that defied any and all natural laws. Ancient trees with bark like blackened bone reached toward a warped and twisted sky, their branches ending in thorns that dripped sap the color of old and rancid blood. The air itself seemed thick with malevolence, pressing against Serrik's skin like oil as he moved deeper into Valroy's domain.
Behind him, the sounds of Puck's diversionary chaos grew fainter—explosions of silver light and manic laughter that drew the attention of Valroy's outer defenses. Ahead lay only darkness and the promise of death.
Serrik welcomed both.
He moved through the undergrowth with the fluid grace of something that had never truly belonged to the world of sunlight and safety. His human glamour had long since fallen away, revealing the magnificent horror of his true form—seven spider legs carrying him forward with deadly precision, his multiple golden eyes tracking every shadow, every movement in the predatory forest around him.
The first attack came from above. A branch thick as a man's torso whipped downward with serpentine speed, its thorn-tipped end aimed at piercing his skull. Serrik didn't bother to dodge. Instead, he raised one hand and released a stream of golden threads that sliced through the attacking limb like hot wire through butter.
The severed branch hit the ground with a wet thud, already beginning to writhe and reform.
“Persistent,” he murmured, stepping over the twitching wood without breaking stride. “But pointless.” The clinical detachment in his voice did nothing to reflect the despair that drove him forward.
He warped space around him like he used to wield the Web. Walls of polished marble burst from the trees, bending them and twisting them as his creations merged with the Maze, fighting for dominance. But the Maze was not prepared for such an unexpected intruder, and it provided him a shortcut through the twisting labyrinth of thickets and trunks that pressed close together to cut off his passage.
More branches lashed out from all directions, the trees themselves awakening to his presence like a immune system recognizing an infection. Serrik moved through the assault with mechanical efficiency, his golden threads flowing from his fingers in complex patterns that turned the attacking forest into kindling. He made no effort to conserve his strength, no attempt to preserve himself for what lay ahead.
Why should he? There was nothing waiting for him beyond this moment but the certainty of failure and loss.
A root erupted from the ground beneath his feet, thick as a python and studded with barbs that leaked venom. Serrik's response was instantaneous—threads shot downward, wrapping around the root and contracting with enough force to crush stone. The root severed with a sound like breaking bone, its poisonous sap spraying across his legs. Where it touched his chitinous skin, it hissed and steamed, but the pain he felt was insignificant. Irrelevant.
The deeper he went, the more aggressive the forest became.Thorned vines whipped through the air like flails, flowers opened to reveal rows of needle teeth, and the very ground itself seemed to shift and buckle beneath his feet. Each attack was met with the same cold efficiency—golden threads that cut, bound, and destroyed with mechanical precision.
A cluster of trees ahead began to move, their trunks splitting open to reveal hollow chambers lined with digestive acids. They swayed toward him like enormous pitcher plants, ready to engulf and dissolve anything foolish enough to venture too close. He did not hesitate slow down.
Instead, he began to murmur a spell to himself, his threads forming an intricate web between the predatory trees. When he was finished, he simply walked forward.
