Wyrd: Book One of the Witch War Trilogy - WATTYS 2018 WINNER!

Chapter 32: Where Will Grapples with his Past(s)

Loving him was the most painful grief in the worlds. And if ever she got too weary, too tired, stopped, he would die the true death and his soul would perish, as if he had never been. He would go to a place of undoing. Nothingness.

But not yet.

Sky was not ready for defeat. She would hold. Forever if she had to.

Will was going to die again. Will was going to die again soon. Will was the martyr. His end was somewhere on the horizon, waiting. The pain of losing him, for his family and friends, for Sky, it could be no other way. Earth Htrae was worth saving. This was the only way. Everyone and everything Will had ever loved hung in the balance.

Will would walk to his imminent end bravely.

It wouldn't be long now.

He just wasn't sure how he was going to tell Laina.

***

Will had come to with an angel staring down at him, and for a moment he had thought he was in heaven until he realized that no matter how many times he died he was never going to make it to heaven. It was all a lot to process if he was being honest.

Sky was still in her formal wear, still dressed to the nines, but for once, she didn't look immaculate. She looked stricken. Concerned.

Will smiled, his hand caressing her face. "Don't worry, my liefsde," he said in the first language of love they had shared, the one he had spoken as Aman, in Afrikaans. "I'm fine. I just need some time." He took her hand, kissed the back of it. "There are no more secrets."

It was Will's way of saying he remembered. He knew. All of it. With that intense kiss, past memories had flooded into him. He remembered each life, so many stolen moments and recovered memories.

It looked like Sky had more than a thousand things to say in response, all fighting for dominance.

"I," she started, but Rowan strolled towards them on a mission. Sky's thoughts were discarded as quickly as they had come, giving way to the rippling energy of impatience flowing off Will's eldest sister.

"Hard night, Kid?" Rowan asked, and Will had to admit that it had been, at the very least, an illuminating night. But also, hard.

Rowan had come to fetch Sky, to get the show on the road, so they could get the Fae to join them. She clearly wouldn't take no for an answer.

Will had so many words he needed to exchange with Sky. He wanted to reassure her. He wanted to think everything over with her. He wanted to express his love.

They had some time, if not a lot. Now wasn't the right moment though, so he nodded at her, encouraging her to deal with everything else. For now, it could wait.

"Go," he mouthed, as three florescent, sphinx-like fae creatures sauntered out of the forest to look after him. There was only one place Sky wanted to be and it was beside him, he knew, but she left with Rowan begrudgingly.

Will still felt slightly off.

Aman Solam may have been a soul as old as the earth, but Will was still a teenage boy in a teenage body and there were some urgent concerns weighing on him.

He was starving.

And he couldn't eat any of the Gods-damned grapes the fairies kept forcing on him, so he decided to go find Joel. The wizard could magic up some tasty morsels to tide him over.