Will had lived before. Not once, not twice, but at least four times. In each life, he had found Sky. He had loved Sky. She was his soulmate. Romantic though Will was, he had never expected to be drawn through lifetimes and across worlds, beyond time, always back to his twin flame. She called and he answered.

Sky was his port in the storm.

Will had died before. Not once, not twice, but at least four times. According to his math, to have lived each of those times and to have known Sky, he must have died young in each one. He knew, the way you know these things about past lives, that he had been spared the memory of all but one of his violent deaths. In each he had gone unwillingly. Brutally. He'd been wrenched from his bloody body again and again and again and again.

Sky was the eye of the storm.

With the summation of the knowledge Will had gained, he knew: the Gods had written the end of the story for Earth and Htrae. They had said their goodbyes and wiped their dirty hands clean on a cataclysmic conclusion for human and wizardkind, and all life on both worlds; not once, not twice, but at least four times. The first time Sky had fought the will of the Gods, the Gods had laughed and scoffed at her. What is a demi-God stripped of her title, only a Valkyrie, nipping at the heels of the verses' most powerful deities throwing their power behind a cunning Empress?

Will saw Sky for what she was: a warrior. But she had something more important, even, then her will to fight. She had something so paltry, so mortal, that the Gods underestimated its power.

She had love. Love for the twin world she was saving, for the wizards and humans she had come to know, for all the form of wildlife she'd witnessed,but also for something else.

Love for a man.

Someone else.

Love for Aman Solam.

The memories had streamed into Will, and now all he could do was remember.

Sky had loved Aman Solam with all of her supernatural being.

Sky's rebellion against the Empress and the Gods had cost her many friends, but it wasn't until Aman picked up a pitchfork to help defend the country town he lived in that everything went sideways. One minute Aman was holding that pitchfork, ready to defend, the next, he was holding hands with Sky, holding court with the Gods at the base of the Yggdrasil tree.

Twisted roots, each the size of a giant Sequoia tree lay at their feet, a trunk so large it seemed to go on for eternity, extending into the fathomless abyss of the heavens above them. Gods, some taking the form of formidable or terrifying creatures, some beings of sheer light, some almost humanoid, peered at them expectantly. At their front was Sky's mother, old and gnarled and angry.

"You will," she said, "stop fighting us."

Sky just smirked at her mother defiantly. Aman could only admire her ferocity. Not a chance his warrior wife would lay down arms and stop defending those she loved. Nor would she abandon the worlds she believed in.

"Fair enough. Keep fighting, you fool. Keep fighting and," she pointed at Aman, "we will kill him. Not a year from now, but today."

Aman smiled at the Goddess, a smirk befitting a man who believes he has nothing to lose.

"It's not much of a bargain, Dear Mother, when I die at the end of the Worlds, regardless of your threat."

Aman could not look at Sky. There would be fear written in her eyes at the prospect of his imminent death. Pain. Heartbreak.

It was as if the tree rumbled, the earth beneath their feet shifting and groaning with malcontent.

"Fine," the Wyrd said. "Convince my daughter to stop this madness and I will grant you demi-God status. Immortality will be yours. The two of you lovebirds can choose to never grow old, to be together, forever."

Sky and Aman gasped. It was more than they'd ever dared dream.

Their eyes met, both filling with tears.

"I love you," they whispered to each other.

They stepped forward, still clasping hands, their decision made.

"The worlds you dispense of so cavalierly are filled with life, families and love. We can only do what's right. We must defend them. We choose," Aman said, "to fight you until you surrender."

"We fight," Skuld said. "Remember Mother, I know the future if you choose to kill Aman. And I know you will not like any of the outcomes. For once, just listen to me."

Uror simply turned her back to them and walked through the crowd of Gods up the steps hewn in the tree, leaving naught but a stagnant cloud of shame for her progeny.

All eyes were on her. She stopped abruptly midway up, turned back, projecting from her pulpit at the height of the first branches.

"I curse you, daughter of Wyrd, Skuld, knower of the possible futures. Always, shall your love of loves find you only to wither on the vine. Not once shall your love age. Never shall your love's soul see the splendor of Valhalla or true death until the day you concede, and the twin world perishes. Then his soul shall be obliterated, as if he never was. This as punishment for your disobedience!"

The curse rang out, prophecy and invocation.

What Will remembered after that was grim. The Gods and the tree dissipated like a dust of dreams. Then, he, Aman, was standing on the gallows, skin stripped bare. The lacerations screamed. He searched for Sky in the crowd, finding her gaze. He knew what was coming for them. He knew, but just as the trap door swung, as he fell, and as, mercifully his life ended, quickly, and what was coming was forgotten. Who he was, discarded, to be brought back, a resurrection in a foreign body.

Aman had been a martyr. He had known an extraordinary love, a love that had defied Gods and sustained worlds. Sky and Aman, their love, had been the sacrifice. Never would they know a long, happy life. They would never grow old together.

That was the price Sky and Will were asked to pay to protect the worlds they loved.

What Will had not been aware of was what his death had done to Sky. When he died, her heart had broken, shattered into a thousand sharp pieces and she, through her anger and vengeance, had been reborn. too. She had become Ware Liefde Se Wraak – True Love's Vengeance. The Gods' curse had crafted the only weapon capable of battling the intended Armageddon.

All Will could feel was pride when he realized, while lying on a grassy knoll in the Fae Kingdom of Tara, that Sky had been at war with the Gods for over 300 years. She'd been winning against all odds for centuries. The Goddess, the Valkyrie, the woman Will loved had been holding the mantle, fighting for their worlds relentlessly, as her heart broke anew each time he died.

Will knew now. He knew what Sky was so afraid to tell him. Why Sky was so afraid to love him. It would hurt. It would always hurt. To let him go.

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.

He thanked Sphynxla and the other two fairies, taking his leave of them and heading to the boys' treehouse. Joel was splayed and propped up, looking rather put out, at the base of the great oak that hid their accommodations.

"What's up?" Will asked, in lieu of hello.

Joel quirked his eyebrow at him. "Our cabin?" He said, querulously, like Will had asked something strange.

"You don't use that expression here, eh? It means how's it going?"

"Oh!" Joel said. "It's all crap. I mean, I don't get women. Women!" He thumped the ground despondently.

Will gave him a knowing smile. "Ahh," he laughed. "Is there one woman in particular?" Will knew Laina pretty well if that's what this was about.

"No!" Joel said exasperated. "All women!" His hands flew up in the air as he expressed his frustration.

Will chuckled. "Yeah, I think that's probably your problem right there. Pick the right one and love her well. What else is there to know?"

Now Joel laughed. "We're too young for that!"

Will just shrugged. "I guess I'm just an old soul."

A really old soul.

Joel sighed. "Your sister hates me."

"Does she?" He assumed Joel meant Laina since Rowan and him were best buddies. Will had been preoccupied lately. He hadn't really noticed. But Laina usually got along with everyone.

"She ... uhh... yeah she isn't pleased with me."

"So what'd you do?" Will asked, glaring at Joel now.

"I didn't do anything!"

Will glared a little longer. "Okay, but you better be nice to my sister." He paused. "Uhh... sisters. Both of them!" Then he backtracked. "But like, not too nice."

Joel groaned. "I'm trying."

"Ok, but while you try, can you also maybe magic us some breakfast? I'm going to start scarfing a fairy feast very soon if you don't. And maybe sacrificing sprites or something."

"Shh." Joel looked around paranoid for any sign of a winged vengeful creature.

Will really was getting hangry.

Joel fluttered his hands. A checkered blue and white picnic blanket appeared with a charcuterie board buffet, some fruit, and champagne style flutes with what Will assumed was the Htrae version of mimosas. Will dug in and definitely didn't bother to tell Joel that back in Ontario he was still too young to drink. Then again, he might not live to see the legal drinking age, so screw it.

Will ate and drank like a king. It was delicious.

For a moment he let himself forget everything but the taste of prosciutto and Htrean champagne. For a short while, he was nothing but a teenager with a savage case of the munchies.

***

The two champions circled one another. Rowan, Will's sister, and Nythander, the Captain of the Guard, orbited each other like the sun and moon set on a new collision course.

There is no way for this to end well. Either outcome will be disastrous, Will thought.

Rowan was clad in leather, lightly studded, vambraces protecting her forearms and molded greaves gracing her shins, but the spaulders on her shoulders looked more like ornery epaulettes and her leather bodice appeared more for show than purpose. Her two Khukri blades, both drawn, glinted in the sunshine, picking up the golden tones of the sand under her feet. Those were not play swords like the wooden toys Will had once dueled with. They were sharp and deadly, weapons meant to draw blood and end lives.

Will hadn't thought the negotiations with the Fae were ever going to end, but now he wished they'd gone on just a little bit longer.

Rowan raised her two swords, a salute to the crowd of doubting Fae around her. Then she twirled, a tornado of sand and metal, a spinning dervish, her legs dancing and her swords slashing so fast that all there was were glints of pure light. It was an impressive demonstration that reeled in the crowds, building tension.

But why? That seemed more Joel's style. Rowan seemed to be expending unnecessary energy wooing a crowd she could never win over.

"Done yet?" Crowed Rowan's opponent, the Captain of the Fae Guard. Nythander stood at least a head taller than Rowan. They seemed bulkier and more muscular, and they were outfitted in impenetrable-looking chain mail with plate accents. They even wore a bascinet helmet, the opening, the shape of an inverted Celtic knot, showing their glowering expression underneath. A small shield, more like a bracer, with elaborate Celtic etchings in copper was strapped to their left arm. In their belt were three small blades, carved of white stone and tipped with poison-doused arrowheads, deadly even to the Fae. Their longsword was thick and heavy, a monster, with reach and heft that could cleave Rowan in half with one sure swing.

Rowan stopped spinning, grinned, and curtsied while crossing both swords in front of her before bringing them out to her sides. "Haven't even started," she quipped.

"This isn't all for show," the Captain of the Guard said. Nythander took a test swing, their whole body winding up like they were hitting a home run out of the park. The sheer power seemed to split the air in two, splintering particles into oblivion.

Beside Will, Joel sucked in a breath of air.

"But at the very least, we should put on a good show, don't you think?"

They paced around each other, fifty feet dwindling to forty, then to thirty, both of them at the ready.

"No, I think you don't think at all. Or you would have come up with a better plan that didn't end with me, your greatest ally here, dead, or you a concubine." Nythander charged, lancing their sword overhead, coming down two-handed with force that left a deep rift in the ground. Nythander's swiftness caught Rowan unawares and a clang rang out as Rowan braced and shielded herself from the blow, her Khukri an X of protection above her head. Rowan buckled slightly, pushed back, darting underneath the guard's arm and pirouetting away, while slicing with a blade at Nythander's exposed inner thigh. "I don't want to die today," Nythander bellowed, pivoting from the slicing blade. Rowan missed by a large margin, not coming in close enough, for fear of how fast Nythander might be able to whip their large sword around.

"And I don't want to kill you, but I didn't make the terms of this arrangement!" Rowan yelled back, sweeping in, a flurry of feints and slashes, a firefly flashing, darting, moving. Clang, she brought one sword down, and was blocked as Nythander parried. Clang, the second sword, Nythander reacting quickly again. They both broke away, paced back and forth, twin shadows.

"I can go all night," Nythander said.

"Good to know," Rowan countered, smirking.

But just then, she lunged, thrashing, biting into Nythander's exposed neck, as if she'd only been taunting, patience waiting at the eye of her frenzied cyclone as she licked out with a quick cut. A shallow flesh wound trickled first blood onto the burnished bronze and symbolic latticework of the Captain of the guards' breast plate, a crimson splatter dappling the leaves on an intricate Tree of Life. Even so, Nythander didn't lose their concentration, swinging their blade up and under, making Rowan jump into a defensive retreat.

One hit from that sword was enough to be fatal. Nythander could afford to be patient.

They whipped around, coming at Rowan's legs, moving forward, feinting a hack at her shoulder before duping her and slicing at the midsection with a narrow miss. Sensing the nimble onslaught that awaited them, Nythander braced for the blitz, repelling each attack from Rowan with shield or sword, and taking only slight dents in the armor on misses. Nythander was a being of grit and determination. Already their neck wound would be healing. Their energy never flagging.

Rowan was a kinetic. She was one of the most gifted kinetics in existence and her speed and athletic ability were unparalleled by Wizard and Humankind. But she was still only a kinetic, still only human. She would tire. She could not do this forever.

If Rowan didn't find a way to win, and to win soon, she would lose.

Will could see it in her eyes, this knowledge. She had come to the same conclusion. Already her energy seemed to have faded.

Beside Will Joel let out a string of expletives. He was whispering under his breath, his hands twitching, when Sky rounded on him with a slap to the head.

"Ow!"

"You dolt," Sky hissed. "Fae have big ears and big eyes. They will kill her and you if you intervene with magic. Don't be so stupid."

"She can't lose," Joel groaned, rubbing his forehead. "I refuse to let her become a harem hussy to some flibbertigibbet!

"She can loose. In many of the outcomes, she does loose. But if you do that there's only one possible end and it isn't going to be a good one for any of us!" Sky's scolding was whispered, tones laced with fury.

"Hells!" Joel swore. "Fine. I was just trying to help."

"Well don't," Sky recommended.

Will asked, fearful now: "Just tell me there's some hope. That there is at least one outcome in which Rowan wins?"

He looked at Sky. She bit her lip.

Both Will and Joel looked back at the fight, fully engaged now, and horrified at the prospect of Rowan Aary losing.

Rowan brought her elbow around and into Nythander's heavy armor, hitting a nerve and forcing them to blunder and drop their longsword.

The entire crowd of Fae gasped, making angry protests, but Nythander's riposte was quick. Quick enough to appease the hoards. Nythander stepped on the butt of the sword and flipped the handle back up to their hand, coming around Rowan's back and bringing her into a tight headlock, the pointed tip of the sword hovering above her foot.

Then they dropped it, pinioning Rowan's foot to the ground. Rowan cried out. Then, as she was strangled, spluttering, blood seeped into the sand, dying it scarlet in a growing glistening pool.

Nythander was very strong, and Rowan's neck was reedy, a few seconds in the hold and she was panting, gasping for breath, the pain from the wound secondary to the agony of Nythander crushing her windpipe. Rowan dropped both her swords and clawed at the muscular forearm pressing against her throat.

Will and Joel both looked at Sky. "Can she win?!" Will asked, urgently.

Sky shook her head. Furrowed her brow.

"Not exactly," she answered, looking towards Finvarra who seemed to be relishing this turn of events.

"Are you ready, future Queen of Aary," Finvarra's voice boomed over the arena, "to admit defeat? To surrender?"

Not a soul moved, not a fairy rustled so much as a wing, as Nythander loosened the crook of their elbow ever so slightly to allow Rowan to answer.

Rowan did not utter a word.

"So?" Roared Finvarra.

All eyes were on Rowan as she opened her mouth to speak.

***

It's been so long since I've posted and did I ever choose one hell of an unprecedented time to come back. It's a difficult time. It's a time of struggle and grief and revolution. All of this is what made me remember why I began Wyrd in the first place. It was an escape. It was a place to dream without tethers. It was something that brought me comfort, and hopefully it's a story that might bring comfort to others right now. Stay strong, stay healthy, and keep going. Black Lives Matter. Spread love. You can get through this. 

Emmy <3