No matter what happens, Aeric, I’ll never regret knowing you and loving you. But you must take her out of us. I’m sorry to ask you to do it, but you are the only one I truly trust to fix us.
I’m killing you Lissa, I feel it with each slice of the darkness. I feel you tremble around me, I can’t do this. Please don’t ask me to end you this way. I…love you.
The warmth of her own love flooded him, filled every empty, hollow spot inside of him and all he wanted to do was close his eyes and drift away on it. With her. He’d finally found his truth, found his one true love.
I love you too, so much. Now you have to let me go…
Breathing a final word of adoration to her, Aeric forced his sands to split the final root of darkness in half.
Chrysalis jerked, her body spasmed all around his. Aeric had just seconds to gather up every fleck of black and rush from out of her, before she heaved a final breath and died in her godfather’s arms.
Reforming immediately, he tossed the dark, jelly like matter to the ground and pulled Chrysa into his arms. She was limp; her head dangled and there was no warmth. No life. No laughter.
She was gone.
“Lissa? Chrysa?” He lightly tapped her cheeks. His eyes frantically searching for any spark of life, or hope…
But there was nothing there.
And he didn’t know how to take it. There should be tears. There should be wailing and moaning. But he felt strangely void. Just… empty.
Then another set of arms was snatching her out of his and he didn’t fight it, he didn’t move.
And now there was wailing. Female wailing—great and keening and loud and so full of pain that it hurt to listen to it.
A large hand clapped his back, making him stumble in the water. He turned, and Jericho just shook his head and there was a wet sheen reflected in his dark eyes. “I’m sorry, Huntsman, I know you tried.”
He may have muttered something back, Aeric wasn’t sure.
There was so much droning of noise all around.
The mad chattering of a broken man. The agony of a mother’s shattered heart. And the quarreling of fairies casting blame all around.
“Aeric!” Danika’s voice finally cut through his stupor.
“Huh?” He glanced up.
“I said,” she took a deep breath, but he could see that her lower lip was quivering, she fought to keep herself together, “you’ll catch a chill in that water.”
He looked down, only just realizing he was still standing in the moon pond, but no longer did it glow, no magic to fill the night. Wonderland rang with the sounds of a happy forest. Buzzing bugs, hooting owls and the strange laughter of a vaporous cat.
Hatter was on the ground, Alice beside him, Chrysalis was in his arms and they were rubbing her limp arms, cooing and humming to her.
The sight made a hard lump work its way to the back of Aeric’s throat. Swallowing hard, he walked out of the water.
He needed to get away. To go back to his court, to his people and away from the madness of a world that for a moment had filled his bleak existence with laughter and light.
“Wait.” Esmeralda shook her head. He turned to her.
She looked as she normally did. Her eyes were a deep mossy green. “I need you here to help me pass down final verdict in this case.”
He wasn’t exactly sure what it was that they still needed, but Aeric was too exhausted to care. “What?” he snapped.
But rather than get angry or hurt at him, she merely gave him a soft smile, as if she sympathized with him. It infuriated him to receive such a pitying glance. He didn’t need anyone’s pity or remorse.
“Aeric, what was it that you found inside of Chrysalis?”
Closing his eyes, hating all of them for all their past sins that caused the death of his woman, he snarled and pointed at the pile of gelatinous goo. “That.”
“And that is what exactly?” Esmeralda continued to ask softly, being so much more patient with him than he would have been with her. “Is it a soul, hunter?”
Aeric knew what it was, and he knew she knew what it was. He looked into the eyes of all of them. Galeta and her petty jealousies. Danika and her foolishness that led her into being cursed in the first place. Jericho and his desire for more than he’d been allotted. Alice and Hatter with fat tears still streaming from the corners of their eyes. Esmeralda and her guileless eyes.
He sighed. His anger was distorting everything. None of them had asked for Siria’s duplicity in this matter. Even Galeta with all her flaws, hadn’t known what the sun planned to do to Chrysalis.
And it would be so easy to fix all his hate into that black puddle on the forest floor, but what purpose would it serve? Siria’s plan had worked perfectly. It didn’t matter that she’d been caught and that now she’d be punished. All she’d ever wanted was to hurt Danika and Jericho, using their goddaughter had been the perfect way to get back at them.
She won.
“That thing is a sliver of Siria’s own soul.”
Danika’s lips curled.