The Faerie Curses

Chapter Fifty Three: I Haven't Lost You Yet

I was hardly aware that I was screaming with loss, with pain, until the two things that held my soul fell limply away from my shoulder blades. Gossamer wings gone still, dead and glittering as they lay on the stone steps. Warm blood flowed out of my back, soaking my torn gown and spilling down from the palace and into the streets.

The loss of my wings had created so much blood. So much blood that traveled in crimson rivulets towards The Objects of Power, coating their surfaces until they were covered completely. The sight was dizzying, and watching my wings lying there limp and disconnected crashed down upon me in a wave of grief.

Glen held me close as I found myself sobbing against him, clutching his shoulders with every last piece of strength that I had.

"I'll never...fly," I whispered into his coat. "I'm not...a faerie anymore."

I'll die as a human.

I hadn't realized I had spoken those last words aloud until Glen was holding my head between his hands and staring at me with such intensity that it seemed to make the world fall silent.

"You won't die as a human, Marissa," he said, his words so strong they made me flinch. "No human could have done the things that you've done. No human could have taken away a part of them like you just did. You'll never be a human. Not in anyone's eyes, but especially not in mine." My breaths seemed to go still, and I found myself dying in Glen's arms as he spoke to me for the last time.

"The girl wearing that indigo dress who I followed through a mirror couldn't possibly be human," he continued, his gaze not leaving mine. "The girl I never left, not even when she told me too, was never a human. Not even when she fell asleep in my arms did I think she was anything less than a faerie I wanted to stand beside for as long as time gave me."

I could feel my wet lips slowly forming into a smile as I remembered that night in the hotel room, an accident in which our bodies fit perfectly together in each other's arms.

"No ordinary person can see the greatness in others like you do. No ordinary person can outsmart an entire colony of mermaids to save a poor bastard like me who ended up kissing a girl that wasn't even you."

Our cheeks were pressed together, and I could feel him smiling against me.

"No ordinary person can fight a group of bandits, sacrifice herself to an army in the woods, and face a winter queen and tell her that's she's wrong about the world. No ordinary person can do the things that you've done, Marissa. I have to make you see that."

So many vivid and astonishing memories flooded back to me, all of our battles and moments of joy and sorrow and fear. Flashes of yells and kisses, swords and magic that glowed bright in the dark.

"But do you know what is the most breathtaking thing that I've ever done?" I whispered.

The Objects of Power began to hum beside us, coated in my blood as they took me away.

Glen leaned in close. "Tell me."

"I gave the crown prince of Summer Court a piece of my mind, and become the greatest pain in the ass he's ever had to endure." I replied gently. "I kissed him until we were arrested. I danced with him in front of the entire world. But the greatest thing I'd ever done, was tell him that I loved him."

Glen gathered me closer and pressed his lips against mine, and I could still see that ballroom behind my eyelids as we kissed. I could still see it before it had been reduced to ruin, filled with people who were now ghosts.

But most of all, I could see us dancing right in front of me. I could see the way Glen rested his hand on the small of my back and spun me around the room, sweeping me off my feet with one fluid movement.