Page 59 of The Unseelie War
She had a goddess to goddamn yell at.
Sinking back down to her feet, she broke the kiss and let out a long sigh. “Right.” Taking a step back, she shut her eyes and once more reached out with her power. “Here we go.”
She focused on the Morrigan, trying to picture the towering figure of feathers and shadow she'd encountered before. The cosmic force that had created Serrik and Valroy, that had set all of this chaos in motion. The goddess who seemed to delight in riddles and half-truths while reality burned around them.
But summoning a goddess, Ava quickly discovered, was nothing like the super-casual, no-big-deal reality-fuck-upping she'd been doing lately. This was different. Much different. Like trying to pull a whole-ass mountain through a keyhole.
The power flowed out from her in waves, reality bending and warping around them. The grass beneath her feet began to change colors, cycling through shades that had no names like a tacky LED display at a Chinese restaurant. The air itself seemed to thicken, becoming almost viscous as her energy pressed against the barriers between dimensions.
Serrik stepped back, his expression tense. “Ava, perhaps you should?—”
“No.” She gritted her teeth, pouring more power into the summoning. “I’m done with her games. I'm done with cryptic bullshit. She's going to get her feathery bird butt down here and give me some straight answers forfuckingonce.”
The trees around them began to twist, their trunks spiraling like corkscrews as reality bent under the pressure of her will. Flowers bloomed and withered in seconds, cycling through entire lifecycles in the space of heartbeats. The pond in the distance began to glow with an eerie phosphorescent light, and something that looked suspiciously like a sea serpent poked its head above the surface before diving back down with a splash.
Come on,she thought fiercely, pushing harder.I know you're watching. Fuck you, I know you're listening. Fucking talk to me. I need your help.
Power flowed out from her in waves, reality bending and warping as she reached across dimensions, across the barriers between worlds. She could feel something responding—a vast, ancient presence that seemed both amused and annoyed by her summons.
There you are.
C’mere.
You big bitch.
The air in front of her began to shimmer, like heat haze rising from summer pavement. For a moment, she thought she had succeeded. She could sense something massive pressing against the boundaries of reality, trying to break through?—
But instead of the Morrigan materializing before her, something else entirely came crashing through the fabric of space.
A massive bronze statue of a raven, easily fifteen feet tall, appeared directly above her head and plummeted toward the ground with all the inevitability of gravity. It was magnificent and terrible, with wings spread wide and eyes that seemed to hold an ancient, malevolent intelligence.
“Oh forfucks?—”
Ava woke up with a groan,face down on soft, cold, mossy ground. “Yeah. Okay. I deserved that…”
Now she knew how Rig felt.
She remembered that stupid statue from a class trip to the Edgar Allen Poe historical site in Philadelphia. “Very fucking funny, by the way.” Pushing up to her knees, she let out a huff. She still hurt from the impact. “Lesson learned, I get it, you don’t do casual chats.” Looking up, she wasn’t entirely shocked to see where she was.
It was the same stone circle again, but this time she felt more aware, more present than in her previous visit. The ancient megaliths towered around her under that impossible moon, their weathered surfaces seeming to pulse with a faint inner light. The rough altar sat in the center, and on it lay…Book, open.
“Oh, hey buddy.” She smiled. She actually missed the silly thing. “I missed you. I thought I’d never see you again.” It’d been Serrik’s creation, after all. But it seemed it still had a purpose to serve. Something told her it was hers, now.
But before she looked at the tome, she took a moment to really examine her surroundings. This place felt different from the Web, different from Tir n'Aill. It was older. Primal. Like standing at the very foundation of reality itself.
The stones themselves were covered in markings she hadn't noticed before—but weirdly, she suspected they hadn’t been carved into the stone. She had the real feeling they’d been there the entire time. Like the rocks had formed that way. Some of them made her eyes water to look at, as if they were describing geometric concepts that human brains weren't designed to process. God shit, she figured. God shit she wasn’t supposed to understand, even if she was part whatever-the-fuck now.
She approached the altar cautiously. Book lay open to a page that wasn’t blank.
Three circles were drawn on the yellowed parchment in whatlooked like fresh ink, each containing a different figure. The artwork was incredibly detailed, almost photographic in its precision.
In the first circle, Alex—the woman who had once been human and was now Unseelie, with her purple hair and horns—was chained to trees with what looked like living vines. But she wasn't struggling against her bonds. Instead, her expression was one of grim determination, as if she had accepted her fate. Around her were musical notes in the air.
In the second circle, Abigail stood trapped within a web that pulsed with silver light. But this wasn't Serrik's golden web. This was something else entirely—more complex, more beautiful, and infinitely more like atreein the same way. The Queen's hands were pressed against the strands, but not as if she were trying to escape. She seemed to be testing them, learning their patterns, accepting her role as their center.
And in the third circle, painted in swirling shades of green and blue that seemed to move on the page, was Ava herself. But this version of Ava was…different. Her eyes were completely black, like pools of starless space, and her hair was shot through with silver threads that sparkled like distant galaxies. She stood in what looked like an endless void dotted with stars, her arms outstretched as if she were conducting some cosmic orchestra.
“Anchor points,” Ava breathed, understanding hitting her like cold water. “Alex for Tir n'Aill, Abigail for the Web, and me for…what, Earth?” There was no other answer. Each woman bound to a realm, holding the worlds apart through their sacrifice. Never to leave. Prisoners in their own realms.
