Melissa Marr - Fragile Eternity

She cried herself to sleep.

When she woke, Seth stood in the doorway of Keenan’s bedroom, not crossing the threshold to actually enter the room. “Is there something you were going to tell me?”

She blinked, clearing sleep from her eyes.

“Tavish wouldn’t tell me what was going on. The girls were either silent or tearful and hugging me,” he continued. “All they said is that you were in here. If you were here because you’re with him, I don’t think they’d be crying.”

“Seth—” She started to sit up and winced. She put a hand on her stomach.

“You’re hurt.” He was beside her. “Did he—”

“No. Keenan wouldn’t hurt me. You know that.”

“So who?”

She brought him up to date, telling him everything except how she felt when Keenan healed her, and added, “I guess rapid healing doesn’t take away all the tenderness.” She showed him her still slightly bruised stomach. “It’s mostly fine, but sore. Faery healing and all…”

He sat on the floor beside the bed. “So he healed you. Like you’ve healed him? With a kiss?”

“Not a kiss. Just his hand.” She blushed, and that blush said everything she hadn’t spoken.

“Tell me it wasn’t a big deal, Ash.” His voice was low and pain-filled. “Look at me and tell me that it wasn’t intimate for either of you.”

“Seth—”

“Tell me I’m not losing more of you to him every fucking day.” He held her gaze, looking for answers that she didn’t have. He closed his eyes and lowered his forehead to the mattress.

“Seth, I’m…I needed healing. You couldn’t…but I mean…I’m sorry. But we talked. He’s done pushing. We’re going to find a way to sort it out.”

“For how long?”

“As long as you…” she started, but she couldn’t finish the words.

“As long as I’m here? As long as I’m still alive?” He stood up. “And then what? I know how he looks when you touch his skin. I know this wasn’t…this isn’t casual. And I couldn’t help you. Again. I wasn’t even strong enough for you to call me.”

He shook his head.

“I’m sorry.” She reached out her hand.

He took it.

“I talked to him…about you. Changing things.” She felt tentative as she said it, but she wanted him to know she was trying to find a way. If I live long enough. Lately, it felt like threats were everywhere.

“And?” Seth looked hopeful for only a moment.

“He said no, but—”

“Just like that. Niall’s right about him. He’d rather I wasn’t in your life, Ash. And someday, I won’t be. He’ll have everything, and I’ll have nothing left.” He stopped himself, forced his expression to one that lied to her. Then he leaned down and kissed her forehead. “You know what? You don’t need this right now, not when you’re hurt. I’m going to head out.”

“Seth. Please?” Her heart thudded horribly. This wasn’t what she wanted: seeing Seth look like this hurt almost as much as the stab wound did. “I’m trying.”

“I’m trying too, Ash, but I…it’s like having heaven and then finding it slipping away. I just need a little space right now. Let me have that.” He let go of her hand and left.

And she was alone, injured and lying in a bed she didn’t belong in. Outside the door, innumerable faeries waited on her every command, but the two people she most needed had both turned away from her.

Seth didn’t look at or respond to the faeries in the living room. He didn’t honestly know if they spoke. Quinn stood and followed him to the door.

I can’t deal with him right now.

Seth crossed the street into the park where they held their revelries. The grass was trampled down in a big circle, the whole of it pressed flat like those pictures of crop circles. Rowan-people milled through the darkness of the falling evening. Summer Girls sat in little groups talking among themselves or twirled like small dervishes around the park. A few of the cubs had a drum circle going. It wasn’t entirely clear whether the vine-covered Summer Girls danced to the drumbeats or if the lion-maned faeries played to the dancers’ rhythm.

Here, in the Summer Court’s park, the world of Faerie looked beautiful.

“You don’t need to follow me. I’m perfectly safe in the park,” Seth said without looking over his shoulder at Quinn.

“Will you stay in the park?”

“Not forever.” Seth sat on a bench that was made from a twist of vines. Some faery artisan had shaped the vines into a braid as they grew. Now, they were a flowering seat. It was one of the myriad amazing things he could see with the benefit of faery Sight.

See illusions. Or maybe see truths. He didn’t know. At the edge of the park, a group of six ravens settled in an oak tree. The sight of them gave him pause, but Tracey, one of the gentlest of the Summer Girls, took Seth’s hands in hers. “Dance?”

She was already swaying with his hands in her grasp. She was reed thin, but she was still a faery—which meant that she could pull him to her even if he resisted. Tendrils of vines snaked out to draw him closer.

“I’m not really in the mood, Trace.” He tried to extricate his hands from hers.

“That’s why you should.” She smiled as she tugged him to his feet. “It helps you be not sad.”

“I just need to think.” He had enjoyed the few times he’d spent empty hours dancing with the Summer Girls or listening to them talk. It was like the parties he’d lost himself in. Before-Ash . That’s how life was divided: Before-Ash and With-Ash.

“You can think on your feet too.” She pulled him away from the bench, inside the ring, and once his feet touched that soil, he was lost.

He could see the stone sculptures and the fountain as she led him into the circle. He could see the knowing grins on the cubs’ faces as the tempo of the music changed. Seeing didn’t change anything, though. He saw all sorts of things in his life, but he was powerless to remake them as he wanted them to be.

Vines entwined his waist as Tracey came closer to him; fleeting touches of her hands and hair made her seem all the more ethereal. There was nothing he could grasp and hold; nothing was solid.

“You need to let me leave.” He said the words although his feet were moving still. “I need to go, Trace.”

“Why?” Her wide-eyed expression seemed guileless, but he knew better. The Summer Girls weren’t as unaware as they appeared. Frivolous? Prone to random bursts of glee? Amorous? Definitely. But they also had agendas. They’d lived centuries, waiting for their queen, watching their faery king struggle. You don’t live that long under adverse circumstances without developing agendas of your own—or learning how to use people’s perceptions to support your illusions.

“Tracey”—he backed away from her—“I’m upset.”

She followed, twirling to him, and the music switched to a samba beat. “Stay.”

“I need to—”

“Stay.” She reached up and tore away his charm, leaving him vulnerable to her glamour.

The chain slithered like a living thing as she dropped the stone into her top. He stared at the flower petals that were raining around them.

“Stay with us. It’s where you belong.” Tracey tugged him into her arms.

Some brief awareness pressed on him: he needed that stone. This wasn’t right, but the thought was no more lasting than the brush of butterfly wings. The world shifted. All he felt was joy. This was where he wanted to be. Somewhere inside he knew that he shouldn’t stay here, but the Summer Girls had taken such pains to teach him to dance the ways they liked, and the cubs were playing so beautifully, and the earth was humming under his feet.