Page 78 of The Unseelie War
Through gaps in her assault, Ava caught glimpses of the others. Lysander had shifted to his cat form and was racing up the twisted tree where Alex hung trapped, his claws finding purchase on the nightmare bark. Bitty flew alongside him, her tiny hands working with an iron knife at the roots and branches that held the purple-haired woman captive.
“Hang on!” Bitty called to Alex, her voice tight with effort as she began sawing through one of the thicker roots with her knife. “We'll get you down!”
Alex's response was weak but defiant. “Aboutfuckingtime,” she gasped, blood trickling from her mouth. “Thought you were going to leave me up here all night.”
Nos and Ibin had positioned themselves between the tree and the advancing waves of Unseelie warriors, nightmare constructs, and the humans who had chosen to follow Valroy. The mismatched fae fought with the efficiency of someone who had spent lifetimes learning to survive impossible odds, his sword carving through attackers. Honestly, Ava was impressed. She didn’t think someone like him could move as well as he did.
Beside him, Ibin fired at her foes with her pistol, targeting the humans who ventured too close or who were firing at them from cover.
“Behind you!” Nos called, spinning to intercept a nightmare construct that looked like a cross between a wolf and a industrial shredder. His blade took its head off cleanly, the creature dissolving into smoke and bitter memory.
“I see it!” Ibin replied, already moving to counter a flanking attack from three Unseelie who had thought to overwhelm her with numbers. They learned their mistake quickly and finally. Three bullets. Three corpses.
Ava forced herself to look away from the battle and focus on the book in her hands. The pages fluttered in a wind that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. She could feel the power building around her, reality bending and warping as she began tospeak the words that would tear the worlds apart and rebuild them.
When she spoke, she couldn’t even hear her own words. It was like they didn’t even exist—orshouldn’texist. The language she was speaking in wasn’t one she recognized. One she shouldn’t even know. One that shouldn’t be spoken, because it…well?
It could rip apart worlds.
So her mind simply rejected them. Said they were not for her to hear.
But their effect was immediate and overwhelming. Reality lurched around her like a ship in a storm, and she could feel the barriers between the three merged worlds beginning to strain and crack. Earth, Tir n'Aill, and the Web—all of them pressed together like three pieces of glass about to shatter under pressure. Now, she just had to gently, carefully—carefully—pull them back apart. Without making things worse.
Y’know, like y’do.
Just don’t cut the red wire, Ava.
No pressure.
Through the chaos of battle, she caught sight of Valroy's face as he realized what she was doing. The predatory amusement vanished, replaced by something cold and terrible.
“No,” he said, and his voice carried such absolute authority that even Abigail's flowers seemed to hesitate. “I think not.”
What happened next wasn't grandiose. It wasn't dramatic or showy or accompanied by thunder and lightning. It was horrifying preciselybecauseof its simplicity.
Valroy didn't gesture. He didn't chant or call upon cosmic forces or spread his wings in theatrical display.
He didn’t need to.
He simply…was.
And everything around him…wasn't.
The change rippled outward from where he stood like a stone dropped in still water. The Unseelie warriors who had been pressingthe attack stopped existing. One moment they were there, swords raised and battle cries on their lips, and the next moment there was only empty air where they had been. No bodies, no ash, no sign they had ever existed at all.
The nightmare constructs dissolved like sugar in rain, their forms unraveling into component fears and anxieties that dissipated on the wind. The humans who had followed Valroy faded away like morning mist, their lives ceasing to be. Not violently, not painfully—merely gone.
Abigail's flowers withered and crumbled to dust in seconds, their red petals turning black and falling away like burned paper. The Seelie Queen herself cried out and dropped to her knees, her connection to the growing things around her severed so abruptly it was like having a limb amputated.
And then Ava watched in horror as the same nothingness reached her friends.
Nos was the first to notice what was happening. His mismatched eyes widened as he looked down at his hands and saw them beginning to fade at the edges, becoming translucent like morning fog. “Ibin.” His voice was surprisingly calm despite the circumstances.
“I know.” Her own form was already starting to blur and dissipate. “I can feel it.”
They reached for each other, their fingers intertwining even as their bodies became less and less substantial. Nos opened his mouth to say something—probably her name, probably some last declaration of love—but the words were lost as he…wasn't there anymore.
Ibin lasted a moment longer, just long enough to smile sadly at the space where he had been. Then she too faded away, returning to whatever realm of dreams and possibility she had come from.
