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A WHOLE LOT OF BAD OPTIONS

Ryther

Beyond the gates, there's nothing but sand. An endless expense, void of all things, all life. Though there's light, bright and blinding, it's unbearably cold, freezing me to the bone.

And yet I feel them. There's too much in this emptiness.

I could no more walk to the end of this desert than to the end of the world; I'd die before I reach anything. Instead of playing whatever game is before me, I plant my feet, and gently lay her down before me.

"Well?" I call, my voice echoing in the depths. "Were we not expected?"

At first, there's nothing. Then a ruffling; an awareness.

Some have wandered in here over the years. Their bones have long turned to the sand under your feet. Yet I feel no fear from you.

It's not a voice so much as a breath, a rustling of wind.

I don't let it get to me. What would I have to fear, death? I know that's not my fate.

You know very little and understand less, child of the wild.

This is another voice, darker and considerably less kind. I feel them both surrounding me, closing in.

You come to take us away from our bonds, do you not?

I come so that you may bring her back. It is in your power, is it not?

Then I see them, finally. Both giants, higher than any mountain, but in one step, they stand before me no taller than the folk. They're built like any fae—any mortal, even, as their ears have no point. The female's golden, and he, pale as death. I'd be hard pressed to describe any of their feature with actual physical traits. I only know that they're beautiful and terrifying all at once.

"The heart's a mess," the male sneers.

"No matter. That can be replaced." The female kneels on the shifting sand, her hand unexpectedly stuffed in one of Darina's pockets.

She removes a fist size stone from it, translucent, with a purple shine. The dragon core Loch gave her so that she'd stand a chance fleeing from the lords, despite her wayward thoughts, too easy to follow.

"This will do," she says, her eyes glistening with the exact same shine as the diamond, reflecting its light.

I note they've agreed to nothing. And I understand this well enough; I was raised amongst the folk. We've not agreed to a bargain yet.

"You want out of here," I say. "And you can't leave without aid. I can take you."

"You will take us both, within yourself, amongst your flesh," the male states. Then, a smirk."This was the fate you so wish to escape, is it not, child?"

There's no denying it. They might have been bound here, but clearly their eyes were wide open.

I swallow. "What will it do to the worlds? Do you mean to destroy them?"

I don't know why I ask. They have no folk blood in their veins. They're not bound by anything other than the walls of this prison. They could lie.

"Destroy the worlds?" The All Goddess huffs. "My boy, I created them."

"Right. You. By yourself, I suppose."

"There's only one thing I mean to raze."

Him. They're in conflict, these two primal forces, and the coldness in the air is the force of their hatred, powerful enough to destroy so much in its wake.

"Why didn't you kill each other here?"

The All Goddess sets those unsettling eyes on me, and I have to straighten up not to flinch.

To my horror, she reaches out, her hand suddenly there, right against my cheek.

I shiver under the sheer jolt of power cursing through my skin...but while it's power, it's not skin. She has no flesh.

And that's what she—what they—want from us.

I remember my endless fight against the eldritch, who circle Ilvaris in order to come right here, into its heart, and take these primal powers for themselves. We can destroy their essence in their immaterial form, and they take a while to recover. But they come back. They cannot be killed. Not without flesh.

Here but not quite present.

"We've destroyed each other thousands of times, in millions of ways you couldn't begin to imagine," she tells me sadly.

"And after all that, you still aren't sated?"

"Never," she declares. "Not until he pays for his crime."

"It is time to end it."

End it.

End each other?

"Wait, you mean to kill her when she's flesh?" I laugh. "We're not going to kill each other. We're bound to each other."

"As are we," the Undoing replies, cold and unfeeling.

For the first time, I doubt this course of action.Marun, the human seer, said the All and Undoing were standing together. These two forces desire something else entirely.

"If we take you, who's in charge? You or us?"

And why would I take them at their world? But they've been plain enough so far.

"When our kind are lost, broken or forgotten, we're reduced to this. Power. Essence. Fleshless, but not without will."

A non-answer if ever there was one.

"Those who absorb our power take our will with them. What you do with both is up to you."

This is a dangerous path. It always was, but now, I truly understand the trick. If I want Darina to live, to take in that immense power, she'll possess the will of the All Goddess. And what she wants is to destroy the Undoing. Which would be me. I don't doubt they'll never make the deal unless both of us agree to it. And even then, I'd never let Darina hold this burden without taking in the power to stop her. To protect—her or the world, that's left to be determined.

The choice is simple. Either I let the high queen, my mate, die here and leave the fate of this world to Loch, the trickster, banking on him to never come here to seek this power for himself—or one of his descendants, in hundreds, thousands of years.

Or I trust myself, and Darina, to be able to handle it. I trust fate.

I see something else, Ry, right there by your side. That’s…everything. The All Goddess is right there next to the Undoing.

By my side. But is she there as my lover or my enemy? I try to recall the entirety of what I heard that day, every word, every intonation.

Nothing reassuring comes to mind.

And yet...

I think of the last hundreds of years, mostly spent waiting, bored, and imagine another eternity of that. It'd be kinder to kill myself now. I think of my brother, and the way he desperately clung to his own fate just to avoid the emptiness, the nothing that is the lot of immortals without purpose, without companionship.

The dead woman at my feet is the only future I could ever have.

Bottom line: I can let her die and destroy myself now, or I can take that leap of faith, and only maybe have to murder her later.

"What do I have to do?"