had a functional Night King. I can’t wait to see it again.”
I didn’t know what she meant, but she was jogging away from us, and I could feel the need coming from the room that would become mine and Marcus’s.
Marcus held up a hand. “She’s waiting.”
He opened the door and we entered a room of exquisite beauty.
“I knew you were finally here when my roses bloomed again,” a quiet voice said.
She stood in the center of the room, a tall woman in a simple white sheath. Her hair was almost a pure white, her face ageless. She gestured to the walls of the room, covered in red and pink and white roses.
“They’re beautiful.” The whole room was fit for a Fae queen.
She looked to the other side of the room. The trellis that covered it was bare. “I almost wish I could see the jasmine again. They will come with the night.” She looked to Marcus. “A vampire Night King. That seems fitting. These lands will flourish again under you, and the outer planes will be safe. I thank you for taking this burden from us. That is the wrong word since it isn’t a burden at all. Forgive me. The last ten years have been a struggle.”
They had been a burden because I’d been stubborn. “I’m sorry. I didn’t understand.”
She held up a hand to stop me. “They were necessary. You had to find your king and he had to finish his journey. Are you ready to begin your lives here?”
I looked to Marcus, who gave me a sure smile. I nodded. “Yes.”
Her hand moved to offer me her guidance. “Then come with me. You must witness our passing. And I know the word that is going through your head, but like burden, death is the wrong word to define what will happen.”
I let her lead me into a circular chamber. This was the bedroom and it was open to the air, letting in the beauty of the sky. It wouldn’t rain in the Summerlands. The beauty of nature around us would be fueled by our magic, mine and Marcus’s. We would become the living heart of this paradise.
I stopped short of the big bed. A man lay there, his broad body dressed in trousers and a tunic, a crown of deep obsidian on his head. He looked like he was sleeping, a faery prince waiting to be awakened with a kiss.
She stood staring down at him with love plain in her eyes. “He was a boy in my village back on the Earth plane. This was long before real civilization. This was in the days after the fall, when Earth was populated by angels and demons. We were among the first of their children, the first balance to the planes. Even during those wars, when our notions of good and evil fought for supremacy, there was love between many of us. We were so young when we were placed here and told to rule the outer planes, to give all the flourishing creatures new homes. Millennia we spent here. When we took our places, we were also told how it would end, what we should do. Nothing is truly immortal. It is not the will of the universe.”
“What is its will?” I asked. Many answers were running around my head. Being in this place of power opened up worlds of knowledge to me, but that final question, the one we ask for all of our existence, eluded me.
“That we love,” she replied. “That we learn. I am a goddess of the outer planes and I do not know what will happen to me when I leave this form. I only know one thing.” She reached for his hand. “I know that I will be with him as we were before. We spent this time apart, in separate bodies, but he is the other half of my soul and wherever we go to, we will be reunited.” She smiled at me. “Maybe I know one more thing that you are about to learn. At the heart of all things, there is love. Only love.”
His eyes opened, a deep relief there, and he managed to stand. If he noticed Marcus and I were there at all, he didn’t show it. He had eyes only for her.
“It is time?” he asked.
She took him in her arms. “Finally.”
I gripped Marcus’s hand as I watched them fade, their arms wrapped around each other. Their living flesh gently turned to dust that mingled and