Melissa Marr - Fragile Eternity

She sighed. “There’s no stalling it, is there?”

With a small gesture, she bent space to open a doorway into the park across from Aislinn’s loft. Sorcha was silent as Seth crossed the veil into the park.

He’d had the Sight before, so seeing the faeries who loitered in the park was not surprising. Aobheall was shimmering in her fountain; she paused as Seth appeared before her. Rowan guards stared at him. Summer Girls stopped mid-dance.

“Well, aren’t you unexpected?” Aobheall murmured. The water around her froze, droplets held in the air like tiny crystals.

Seth stood, speechless as the differences in perception assailed him. Aobheall’s voice was unchanged, but the pull to reach out to her was gone. There was no charm in his hand. Reality was different. He was different. The earth breathed around him, and he could feel it. The sighs of trees were a music that wove among the seeming silence of no one speaking to him.

“You are like us,” Tracey whispered. “Not mortal.”

She walked toward him with a sad expression that was common for her, but as far as Seth saw it, not warranted by the circumstances. Tears filled her eyes. She hugged him. “What have you done?”

For the first time since he’d met any of the Summer Girls, Seth was not affected by her touch. He didn’t feel the temptation to hold her longer or feel the fear of her injuring him in her forgetfulness.

He released her. “I’ve changed.”

Skelley took Tracey in his arms and held on to her as she began to sob. Other Summer Girls wept silently.

“This is a good thing.” Seth felt stronger, more alive, and sure of his choices. “It’s what I want.”

“So did they,” Skelley said. “That’s why they weep. They remember making that same foolish sacrifice.”

Aobheall didn’t frown or weep. She blew him a watery kiss. “Go see our queen, Seth, but know that life as a faery isn’t as kind as you thought. She had to do what was best for her court.”

The pressure in Seth’s chest, the fears of what else had changed, grew. He hadn’t felt that unease so strongly when he was in Faerie with Sorcha. There, he had calm. There, he had certainty. Now, he was walking into his beloved’s home, hoping that what he’d built with her was still strong enough to be saved.

He didn’t speak to the guards he passed; he didn’t knock. He opened the door and walked into the loft. She was there. Her cheekbones were more obvious, as if she’d lost a bit too much weight, and she sat much closer to Keenan than she had before. She was smiling, though, looking at Keenan, who was midsentence.

Everything stopped as Seth came into the room. Keenan didn’t move away from Aislinn, but his words and gestures stilled. Aislinn’s smile vanished, replaced with a look somewhere between amazed and unsure. “Seth?”

“Hey.” He hadn’t been so nervous in months. “I’m back.”

There were so many emotions racing through her expressions that he was afraid to move, but then she was across the room and in his arms, wrapped in his embrace, and in that moment everything was right in the world. She was crying and holding on to him.

Keenan stood, but he didn’t cross the room. He looked furious. Small eddies of wind lifted around the room. Sand bit Seth’s skin. “You’re not mortal anymore,” Keenan said.

“No, I’m not,” Seth acknowledged.

Aislinn pulled back and looked at Seth. She didn’t let go of his arm, but she stepped back. “What did you do?”

“I found an answer.” Seth pulled her closer and whispered, “I missed you.”

Keenan didn’t say another word; he was almost mechanical in his movements as he walked past them and out the door.

Aislinn tensed as he passed, and for a moment, Seth wasn’t sure if she was going to go after Keenan or stay with him. “Keenan? Wait!”

But the Summer King was already gone.

Donia knew it was him when he knocked at her door. Her spies had told her that Seth had returned to the mortal world as a faery. Keenan’s arrival was inevitable.

“You knew where he was.” She needed to hear it. They’d spent too long with half-truths. The time for such tolerances was past. “You knew Seth was in Faerie.”

“I did,” he admitted. He stood just inside her doorway and looked at her with the same summer-perfect eyes that she had dreamed of for most of her life and silently asked her to forgive him, to tell him something to make it all right.

She couldn’t. “Ash is going to find out.”

“I’ve ruined everything, haven’t I?”

“With her?” Donia stayed at a distance, not touching him, not approaching. It was what she had to do. He’d given her words of love and then abandoned her to romance Aislinn. It wasn’t unexpected, but it still hurt. Now he’d come seeking comfort. “Yes.”

“And with you?” he asked.

She looked away. Sometimes love wasn’t enough. “I think so.”

“So I am left—” he broke off. “I’ve ruined everything, Don. My queen is going to…I’ve no idea what this will do to my court. I’ve lost you. Niall hates me…and Sorcha cares for Seth, the mortal—the faery I…” He looked at her. The sunlight that usually shone so brightly when he was upset had all but faded from him. “What am I going to do?”

He sunk to the floor.

“Hope that some of us are kinder to you than you’ve been to us,” she whispered. Then, before she could soften again, she walked away and left the Summer King kneeling in her foyer.

As her fey started filtering into the room, stealing glimpses of Seth and whispering things she didn’t want to hear, Aislinn led Seth to her room and closed the door. It was the only room in the loft that was just hers, so it was the only place she could think without feeling like she was in their space. The loft was their home now. It had changed. She had changed.

Seth sat on her bed and watched her, patient as he’d always been. He’d changed too, not just what he was, but who he was.

The words wouldn’t come. She’d thought them, spoken them to him in scenarios she played out in her mind, whispered them in the dark as if he could hear her. Now, they weren’t there. She wanted to tell him she hated that he’d left her, that she was devastated that Niall had known where he was but she hadn’t, that she’d thought she’d never be whole again, that she’d never love anyone else the way she loved him, that it hurt to breathe when he was away. She didn’t know how to say any of that, not now, but there was something she had to tell him. “Keenan and I are…were…dating.”

Seth crossed his arms over his chest. “Which means?”

“It means I told him he could try to make me…love him. That I was willing to give us a chance….” She hated that he was looking at her like she was the one who’d messed everything up. He’d left her. He’d stayed away. He hadn’t even called. She flopped down on the bed. “What was I supposed to do?”

“Have faith in us?”

“You vanished without any explanation and were gone for six months….” She tucked her feet up under her. “I thought you weren’t coming back. You left me without a word…after refusing to talk to me.” She wasn’t sure if it was temper or sorrow that was welling up inside of her. “You vanished.”

“How long?” he asked.

“What?”

“Until you were with him? How long did he wait, Ash?”

She had never been truly angry with him, not once, but right then she would’ve gladly struck him. After six months of being worried and hurt and afraid, she finally felt the anger she hadn’t allowed herself before.

“You left me.” The words were bitten off.