Chapter Text
They were tangled together in rumpled sheets, Laudna cradled loosely in the crook of Imogen’s arm and tucked against her side. They’d been giggling and talking and relishing in the feeling of holding each other, reaching out to brush hair from the other’s face or trail a finger across the other’s lips and falling back, intermittently, into periods of simply getting lost in one another. Now the sun was starting to sidle lower in the sky and still they were here, together, letting the hours spend themselves only in each other’s company.
It was unfathomable.
It was real.
Imogen was petting Laudna’s hair, now, still hazy with disbelief and happiness, the rest of the world around them immaterial. All she could think about was the fact that her hands had been there, and Laudna’s mouth had been there, and Laudna had made noises that sounded like that—and that she had shuddered and keened when Imogen touched her, breathless with desperation because she, too, had been wanting this. It wasn’t just Imogen. It wasn’t impossible. It wasn’t unrequited, it wasn’t shitty or broken or desperate, it was whole and—and wanted, and returned. It was—Laudna loved her. Laudna loved her.
“Hey,” she said, and Laudna looked up from where she’d been tracing dreamily up and down one of Imogen’s scars.
“Hi,” she said. “You’re very beautiful. Did you know?”
Imogen laughed, feeling radiant. “You might’ve said. Once or twice.”
“You are,” Laudna said. “I love—oh, the way that these sit under your skin, to start.” Her fingers were still dancing over the lightning streaking Imogen’s chest. “I think I started to say that, last night. When I saw you in that new dress, with your arms uncovered… You’ve been given such a great and terrible gift, and you shoulder so much, and it asks you to be so brave, and you do it every day.” Her hands reached up and stroked back Imogen’s hair, and Imogen leaned into the touch. “And the way this looks in the sunlight—you know, when I first saw you, I thought you were the most beautiful thing in the world. Like nothing I’d ever seen.”
“Not half as beautiful as you,” Imogen murmured, and she tilted her head to kiss Laudna’s wrist. She almost wanted to cry. “Nothin’ I’d ever seen. From the moment I met you.”
Laudna’s hand paused in its petting, and Imogen had barely a half-beat to worry before it resumed, her touch gentle. When Laudna spoke again her voice was soft. “Really?”
“The way the shadows gather around you,” Imogen said. “It makes me wanna shiver, in a good way. I’d never seen anythin’ quite so… and you’ve got the deepest eyes. I was always kinda afraid I’d look too long, and then you’d know… I just wanna fall into them, sometimes. And your mouth, I just…”
She leaned forward and kissed it, soft and lingering, and then gave into the urge to kiss Laudna more deeply. Laudna arched into her touch, fingers still in her hair, and Imogen had the passing thought that she could spend every day of her life kissing Laudna like this and still never have enough.
Every day of their lives.
A question came to her, like a pebble dropped into a pool, and as it continued to ripple outwards she was struck by the simple impulse to voice it.
She pulled back, stroking Laudna’s cheek as she did. “Can I ask you something?”
“You can kiss me again, if that’s what you were thinking,” Laudna said coquettishly, and Imogen laughed.
“It was somethin’ else. Earlier, you said that what we did today, it wasn’t what you’d imagined. For my wedding. What did you mean?”
Laudna’s expression went somewhere between pleased and embarrassed, and Imogen’s interest was piqued further. “Oh, nothing really.”
“You sure, baby?” Imogen lifted Laudna’s hand and kissed the palm of it, and Laudna giggled and ducked her head.
“Well all right,” she said. “It’s a little silly.”
“I like silly.” Imogen kissed Laudna’s palm again. “When it’s you.” Boldly, she added, “I think I’d like anything when it’s you.”
“You don’t mean that,” Laudna said, but she was smiling and squirming in a way that made Imogen smug with satisfaction. “All right. It’s just—it’s a nice thing to imagine, isn’t it?”
“Our wedding?”
“Your wedding,” Laudna clarified. “Sometimes, you know, when I was trying to sleep. Just a little creative exercise. There are so many details to take care of—the decorations, your dress, the venue—and then of course there’s the matter of the backstory, figuring out who you’re marrying and how and why and the way you met, and then that of course can take hours to brainstorm properly—”
Imogen shifted to look at her, propping herself up on one elbow. “You thought about all of this?”
“Not all of it,” Laudna started to say, and then she seemed to check herself and said, “But a good amount. Yes.”
“Is that—” A thought struck Imogen. “Hang on, is that where that whole thing with the hawks comes from?”
“The falcons,” Laudna corrected, but her face had lit up hopefully. “Did you like it? It’s one of my favorites, I just thought that since you look so dashing on a horse, and there’s this sort of fierce expression you get sometimes when you’re focusing that’s very—oh, mm, well—” Imogen had leaned in and kissed her neck. “Very—Imogen, darling, it’s a bit hard to—oh—”
“Anyway,” she continued a few minutes later after Imogen had pulled back, sounding a little breathless, “The—I, I figured the horseback riding at least does have some basis in how we met, so it felt like it might be a good choice for a story for, you know, us. Together.”
“Together,” Imogen said. The meaning sank in. “So I wasn’t marryin’ you, then? In those stories?”
“Oh, no,” Laudna said, and for a second stupid disappointment rose in Imogen’s throat. “I had quite the array of characters sketched out, actually. But it was curious. I could never get any of them to quite fit.”
“No?”
Laudna shook her head. “You know, I couldn’t sleep while we were in Issylra. Not really, not without you there. I was so worried. And I tried to feel a little closer to you, to imagine you the sort of future you deserve, the way I usually do—and do you know not one story would come? Which felt so silly and small to worry about, when there’s everything else—but I’d grown so used to it, imagining those nice things for you, and instead they all felt terrible and wrong and just… just bad. And then I thought…”
And even though Laudna was here, in her bed, beside her, Imogen’s heart still accelerated at whatever Laudna was about to say. “Thought?”
“Well,” Laudna said. “I actually just—this part is a bit embarrassing, maybe, but—”
“You can tell me anything,” Imogen said, and Laudna smiled.
“I thought about us,” Laudna said. “Holding you like this. Well,” she corrected, suddenly flustered, “Not exactly like this—of course, I kept things decent, just—”
“I wish you wouldn’t,” Imogen said impulsively, and Laudna flushed deep purple.
“Oh—Imogen, that’s—”
“I’m kiddin’, baby, it’s all right,” Imogen said, and she pressed a kiss to the top of Laudna’s head. “Sorry. You were sayin’?”
“I thought about you,” Laudna said, “and the way you make me feel. And I had a thought, then, about why none of those other futures ever felt quite right.”
She reached for Imogen’s hand and pulled it towards her, toying with Imogen’s fingers. Their rings glimmered against their skin, metal and gemstones and held-breath promises, and when Imogen glanced at Laudna she was gazing down at them too with such a depth of fondness that Imogen felt a lump in her throat.
“Laudna,” she said. She wasn’t sure exactly what she was going to say next, but she suddenly needed to say something, because—because—she wanted this. All of this. Everything, so badly. She wanted to marry Laudna, and she wanted to do it for real, on purpose, with promises spoken right and honest. She wanted to give Laudna her ring again, but to do it right this time. She wanted Laudna to plan their wedding. She wanted to wake up next to Laudna every day for the rest of her life and make her feel as loved as she deserved, to take every fiber of the emotion that her own body had struggled so fruitlessly and anguishedly to contain and let it spill over into something Laudna could see and know was hers. Something belonging to both of them, together. Something beautiful.
“Imogen?”
Imogen sat up and took her hand. “Laudna, I—”
“Oh!”
The door had flown open, and Fearne stood in the door frame with wide eyes.
In a scramble, Imogen grabbed for the bedsheet, clutching it over her chest. “Fearne!”
“Oh my gosh! Oops! I’m sorry!” Fearne said, expression triumphant. “Oh, I knew it, I’m so happy for you, I’ve wanted it to be real so so much and I just—oh my gosh. How long have you—”
“Fearne!” Imogen said again.
“Right! Sorry!” Fearne quickly pulled the door shut and there was the sound of shuffling a badly-whispered I told you so! before she called through the wood, “FCG says we should leave you alone now but we’re in my room with the papers and we found some stuff so come when you can. Oh, man, this is just the best.”
Imogen fell back against the pillow with a thump. “Thanks, Fearne,” she called back, and then rolled over to look at Laudna, who was still wide-eyed and stock-still from the door flying open. Imogen felt a split-second of nerves, an apology beginning to form on her tongue, but then Laudna giggled and pulled the sheet up over her face and suddenly they were both rocked with laughter.
When the last of it subsided, Imogen lifted her face from where she’d pressed it into Laudna’s shoulder to muffle her laughter into Laudna’s cool skin, wiping the tears from her eyes. Laudna swiped at her own ichor-stained cheeks with the base of her palm, beaming when Imogen leaned in to scatter kisses across them.
“Gods,” Laudna said. Her hand was settled on Imogen’s back. “Well, that’s certainly a way to tell them about us.”
“I think they kinda already knew,” Imogen admitted, and the words came out so easily, so free of anxiety or fear or shame, that for a moment she felt almost borne aloft. “I mean, sort of before everything. Deanna told me we seemed like we were basically married.”
“Did she now?”
“Mm.”
“Well.” Laudna nudged Imogen with her shoulder. “‘Basically’ married. I suppose that’s what we are, now, isn’t it?”
“Somethin’ like that,” Imogen said. Again, the thought stirred in her mind—the impulse to clarify, to make sure Laudna knew she wanted it for real—and with it was a feeling: the desire to make a promise. To propose, again, for the first time. She could ask for the ring back, but there was also… she reached up and touched the vial of blood and ashes around her neck with half a thought of presenting it back to Laudna, down on one knee, and then her thumb brushed the locket beside it. The locket.
She closed her hand around it.
An idea had landed, and stuck, and it burned in a way that both warmed and hurt. Better halves. She could give Laudna—Laudna, who loved her, who made her feel whole—she wanted to give Laudna—
She took a deep breath and set the thought aside to revisit later. Later. “Hey,” she said. “Didn’t Fearne say they’d found somethin’ or other we should see?”
“Oh,” Laudna said, and she looked so disappointed that Imogen couldn’t help but laugh, the weight of her thoughts lifting. “I don’t suppose we could take ten more minutes? I wasn’t sure I was quite done with you.”
Imogen felt her cheeks go pink. She was flustered and obvious, dead-on obvious, and she liked it. She loved it. “I think we can spare ten minutes,” she said. “And then…” Gods, she loved it. “I think you’ve got a corset I was gonna help you put on.”
-
They rejoined the rest of the Hells twenty or so minutes later, Imogen carefully adjusting the fit of her jacket and Laudna beaming in her new outfit, hair only slightly disheveled.
The room they entered looked at first glance like Wittifred’s office had appeared and engulfed the space with its stacks on stacks of papers and books. Orym seemed to be deeply engrossed in the pages in front of him. Nearby, Chetney was scribbling furiously on a piece of paper and Ashton was sitting against the wall bouncing their leg with a book in their hand. Fearne, squinting at a page with unusual intensity, looked up and her face immediately sprang into such a waggishly knowing look that Imogen almost fell into the hole, which, apparently, was open at her feet.
“Imogen—!”
Laudna grabbed her hand, and Imogen quickly caught herself with a telekinetic shove to keep them from pinwheeling over the edge. She looked down into the space where FCG was cheerfully shifting boxes, adrenaline thundering.
“Fuckin’ shit, why the hell’d you put that there?”
Ashton looked up. “What, on the floor?”
“Someone could fall in!”
“You’re right, we’ll hang it in midair next time,” Ashton said, so insouciant that he almost seemed authentically at ease.
Imogen scowled, but beside her, Laudna was laughing. “I’m sorry, darling. You’re just very cute,” she said, and Imogen forgot she was meant to be irritated.
“Yeah, okay,” she said, stepping back from the edge. “Anyway. What’d y’all find that you just had to come’n share?”
“We’re sorry again for interruptin’!” FCG said. “We didn’t know what you two were up to, so we listened outside the door and it was pretty quiet, and Fearne said that meant it was okay to go in, because you were done even if you had been havin’—”
“Thank you, FCG,” Imogen said while Laudna giggled some more. Orym looked up and caught Imogen’s eye, and she found herself biting back a grin.
“Congrats, you two,” he said.
“Fuck yeah! You said it,” Chetney said. “Got a lot to celebrate later. Not that you two didn’t already get plenty of celebrating in, but—”
“Chet.”
“Hey, Laudna doesn’t mind!” He pointed at Laudna, who shrugged with self-conscious pleasure.
“You have to admit, darling, it was quite celebratory. And they’re all so happy for us.”
Imogen saw a thought pass across Laudna’s face, though, and her eyes became vaguely apprehensive. They flicked towards Ashton, who was the only one who hadn’t chimed in. He was surveying the two of them with an expression halfway between recalcitrant and proud. When he caught them watching, he nodded.
“Nice,” they said. Laudna absolutely beamed, and Imogen sighed internally and renewed her resolve to talk to Ashton later. She was gonna have to—to—not hear them out, exactly, because she didn’t need to hear any more shit about her mama, but… after everything they’d learned, someone should check on him. All the shit the group had uncovered about his family, about Ludinus. The way it felt.
“So I gotta ask,” Fearne said, leaning forward with her chin in her hands and a playful glimmer of a smile. “How was it? Because I’ve had lots of thoughts about what you two—”
“Anyway,” Orym cut in, mercifully pulling attention away from the question of what Imogen and Laudna had been doing in their private room. “We’ve been going through the papers we took from the crypt, and there’s a ton here. Way more than we’ve got time to look at today, but what we’ve got already… It’s big. Really big. Chet, you’re the one who found it. Do you wanna say?”
“Without a doubt,” Chetney said. He whipped back a page in the pad of paper he was holding and held it out dramatically as though to read from it. “Drum roll, if you please.”
Fresh Cut Grass rattled their hand obediently against one of the crates in the hole, a dull drumming thud of metal against wood.
“You’re ready?” Chetney said.
“Oh my god, Chet—”
“Old Ludy,” Chetney said, “has been gathering some notes on how you ascend to godhood.”
Laudna dropped Imogen’s hand and leaned forward. “On how you what?”
“Like the Matron did, you know. Big-time shit. Anyway, what’s important here is the—hold your horses, I’ll give it to you,” he said to Laudna, who had reached for the notebook. “—Is the how. Now, there aren’t a ton of details, so no one go getting any big ideas. You know the planes?”
“Yes, we know the planes,” Imogen said impatiently. The importance of this information hung on the verge, a breakthrough teetering. If they knew what Ludinus was planning, what he was doing next, then maybe they could get ahead of it, and then fuck everything her mama’d ever done, because they could make it better, they could save it. She could save it, for Laudna, and for that idea of a future together. “Threshold crests. Hishari collapsin’ them. What about it?”
“Well,” Chetney said. “It looks like, if we trust the research, there’s one big thing that separates gods from the rest of us. Or the rest of you non-planeriders, in any event. And it’s—drum roll again, thank you, FCG—they’re able to exist on more than one plane than once. And not just more than one.” He cleared his throat. “They’re able to exist on all of them.”
“All of them,” Laudna said in a hushed voice. She was paging through the notes, her eyes growing wide. “All of them—so if you were to collapse the planes, gather them all to the material plane here and join it all back into one—”
“Then we’d exist on all of them at once, too,” Imogen said slowly. “Hang on. Wouldn’t that make us all gods, though?”
“Well, there’d be other elements to the ritual, of course, so it’s unlikely, if any of us survived it at all,” Laudna said, continuing to raptly survey the paper. “But it wouldn’t make any sense for Ludinus to be planning simply to ascend to godhood, not when he’s trying to release a creature that intends to eat them. He’d just be consumed alongside the rest.”
“True,” Chetney said. “But here’s the other thing. It might not be him he’s trying to elevate. That fucker was trying to tether Ruidus, right? Big old keys in the Fey and the Shadow Realm? Put the moon on multiple planes, zap it with some Probability God Juice, and then bam, you’ve got a hungry god-eater—”
Oh. “That’s just been fed with divinity itself,” Imogen said, realization thumping into place. “That’s strong enough to hatch.”
“Mmmhmm.”
Imogen sat down on the bed. “Well, fuck.”
“Yeah fuck,” Ashton agreed. “Yeah, huge fucking fuck. Really special to be a part of it, isn’t it?” Their fists, Imogen noticed, were clenched, and she felt a pang.
“You mean your parents or the god juice in your head….?” FCG said, trailing off when Ashton gave them a look.
Laudna was now flipping pages on Chetney’s notepad. “You have to admit it does make sense that Ludinus is involving the Luxon if he’s looking for a simultaneous infusion of dunamancy and the divine,” she said. “The only thing that doesn’t really make sense is what all of this leaves him with. If the world explodes as the planes collide, what exactly is he left with besides a ravaged, broken planet?”
Orym shook his head. “It doesn’t make a lot of sense,” he said, sounding serious, almost grim. “But then again, you have to be pretty fucked up for any of the Vanguard’s shit to make any sense at all.”
It stung automatically. But the barb she was hearing, she reminded herself, wasn’t there. She wasn’t her mother, and Orym understood that. Her friends, almost all of them, understood that. “Yeah,” she said. “I guess you do.”
She felt Ashton’s eyes skate towards her, and on impulse she let their gaze directly lock for the first time all day. She was prepared to see something barbed, something angry, but was surprised to find instead only the burned-out dullness of fatigue.
I know, she said into his head, and she didn’t know if it was defense or empathy or both at once.
Ashton didn’t start to hear her voice in their head, didn’t seem surprised. Yeah. Yeah, I get that now.
Good. About time.
I know, Ashton said. I’m sorry. Look. Can we talk? Later?
Imogen let out a breath and then, incrementally, nodded. I think that’d be a good idea.
“Anyway,” Orym was saying, “we should still regroup in Zephrah. Keyleth might know something about all of this, and she should definitely be aware of it. She might be able to get us to the Shadow Realm, help us start to try to break that tether. Imogen, are you able to Send?”
She gathered herself back into the moment. Reaching into her bag, she found the power sphere and pulled it out. It hummed gently in the palm of her hand. “What did you want me to say?”
“I guess to come pick us up,” Orym said. “Tonight?” He looked around to make sure that no one objected before continuing. “That we’ve made some progress. Found out some big things.” A half of a smile shouldered its way onto his face, focused and determined and reinforced with the hint of hope. “That we’re gonna need her help to plane shift.”
Imogen closed her eyes and let the power core’s magic thrum through her, weaving its edges into a pointed weft. She chose her words carefully as she released them outwards. “Hishari intel led to Ludinus’s plan. Would value your insight, and transport to Zephrah and onwards. Tallest tree in Rexxentrum. When can you come?”
After a moment, Keyleth’s voice came through, sounding clearer and stronger than it had a few days before.
“I’m pleased to hear that. All news is good, and this is most welcome. I know the tree, and can come tonight.” A pause, as though counting, and then brightly: “See you soon!”
“Tonight,” Imogen reported to her friends. There were nods, and the focus of the room shifted, somehow starting to push forwards. Orym straightened up and set his shoulders.
“That should give us a few hours,” he said. “Let’s finish up here. We can get some food and head over to the tree to wait. Anything else we had to do on the way out?”
“Nah.” Chetney got to his feet and stretched. “This old wolf’s seen enough of the old stomping grounds. I’m ready for some fresh pastures, baby. Tall cliffs. Plants and shit. Whatever else the Ashari vibe with. Grow some sweet, sweet flowers.”
“I, uh, wanted to have a conversation, actually.” Ashton had gotten to their feet. He inclined his head at Imogen, eyebrows lifting into a question, and she studied him for a moment before tilting her own head at the door, an unspoken suggestion in return.
“Yeah,” he said. “If that’s okay.”
There was the feeling of an uneasy ripple around the room, like no one was sure how this would play out, and Imogen found that it didn’t bother her.
“Imogen,” Laudna said quietly. “You’re comfortable with this?”
She looked back at Laudna and felt secure. Felt strong. The intensity of her desire to propose washed over her again, and she smiled. “Yeah,” she said. “It’s okay.”
-
The door to Ashton’s room swung shut behind them. It was halfway packed, the bed unmade, a cluster of Ashton’s belongings scattered around their bag on the floor. On one of the walls was a scuffed mirror, narrower and taller than the one next door. The curtains were still drawn. When they got to the far side of the room, Ashton stopped and exhaled loudly, looking up at the ceiling and bouncing their fist against their leg a few times. Then they looked back at Imogen, who had crossed her arms to wait.
“Hey,” Ashton said. “Uh. I’m really bad at this.”
“No shit,” Imogen said. Okay, so she wanted to have this conversation, but it didn’t mean she wasn’t fine with him squirming a little first.
“Yeah, that’s fair. I’d be mad at me too,” Ashton said, and they sighed dejectedly. “I’m sorry. I was a dick. I wasn’t trying to be, I just didn’t really think about it. Or anything, really.”
They paused. Imogen was starting to think that was it—the whole apology, done—and was beginning to try to find a non-pissed-off response when he spoke again.
“It’s… You know, I didn’t think about my parents a whole fucking lot before this. I never had their voices in my dreams or whatever. Just that one shitty memory of them right before they blew themselves up. Other kids at the orphanage liked to talk a big game about who their parents were. Fucking pretend games and shit. Why it wasn’t their parents’ fault that they’d ended up there. How they’d go find them someday.” They made a noise halfway between a scoff and a laugh. “Then when we got older, they hated them as much as the rest of the stupid fucking world that landed us in that shitty place.”
It might’ve been the most she’d ever heard Ashton say about themself, almost more than she’d ever gotten from the unintentional bleed of their thoughts before her circlet. It felt weird. Vulnerable.
“I thought they were all stupid,” Ashton said. “My parents were dead. Why’s it fucking matter what they did or didn’t do? Why they did or didn’t do it? It was what it was. And I kept on telling myself that. And then we found that crypt, and it was all world-ending shit, and suddenly it got a whole hell of a lot harder.”
It felt vulnerable, she felt herself realize, because it felt familiar.
“I didn’t think I cared,” Ashton said. “Fuck, I didn’t want to care. And then you were there caring so goddamn fucking about your mom who didn’t give two shits about you, either, and I just thought—Jesus. Doesn’t she fucking know that hoping’s just going to hurt?”
Their voice broke on the last words, and any inclination left in Imogen to be short with him drained away. Instead, she sighed and sat down on the bed. “I did know that, Ashton.”
“I know you know,” Ashton said, staring up at the ceiling again. “Jesus, I’m bad at this. I’m trying to say that I know that you get it. If anyone gets it, it’s you. And I’m fucking sorry. And I guess I wanted to know if… how you do it, I guess.”
“Do what?”
He looked back at her with exhaustion. “Care.”
The word landed with less of a punch than a thud, and although Imogen braced herself all the same, it echoed—differently, somehow, than she thought it would. Just as heavy, but without the momentum, without the pain. Like Featherfall. She reached up to touch the locket, her thoughts skating to her mother, but then with a steadying burst of reassurance she realized that she thought of Laudna, too. Laudna, listening to her. Laudna, trusting her. Laudna, saying, none of your feelings could ever be stupid. Saying, What could possibly be so childish about wanting your mother to behave like a mother?
“I think,” Imogen said. “I think I don’t care as much as I did. Before. Of course I still wish it were different. It hurts like hell, Ashton, I’m not gonna lie. But I think it’s gettin’ easier to separate out what I wanted her to be from what I’m still hopin’ she could.” The words came to her as she spoke them, and she knew they were true. “I still want her to love me the way I wanted her to love me. And I know she’s probably never gonna. But I’ve got other people who do.”
Ashton looked sideways at her. “Laudna.”
“Yeah,” Imogen said. She fingered the locket, and she felt… safe. She felt safe. “Laudna. She’s seen me at my worst, you know? And she loves me anyway. If my mama can’t do that, that’s her problem. That doesn’t have anything to do with me.” She looked up at Ashton. “Yours doesn’t have anything to do with you, either. And—” They had opened their mouth. “—I don’t wanna hear any shit about you not havin’ people who love you, all right?”
They rolled their eyes. “Sure. Yeah, okay.”
Imogen shook her head. “I mean it. Take a look around you. I don’t give a shit who your parents were. Do you think FCG does? Or Orym? Fearne? We’re all out here doin’ our best to save the world, Ashton, and you’re here with us. Nothin’ your parents did means anything about you. And if you wanna yell, or cry, or break some shit about them, try tellin’ someone, instead of yellin’ at me about it, all right? People wanna be there for you, if you let ‘em.”
Ashton was quiet for a minute. Then they exhaled loudly, looking at her sideways as they did. “Y’know, you could take your own advice,” they said. “For a change.”
“Yeah,” Imogen said. “Yeah, I know. But I’m goin’ to.”
Ashton stood for another beat, seeming to think. Then they walked over to the side of the room where their bag sat and pulled out a leather helmet: the Hishari mask.
“I was kind of thinking about breaking this,” he said. “I kinda think it would feel really good to break it, actually.” They hefted it up and down in their hand, looking at it, then back up at Imogen. “Want to help?”
-
“You’re sure this is a good idea?” Fresh Cut Grass said. He sounded nervous, asking the group as all they stood in a circle in an alley beside the inn. When Imogen and Ashton had trooped down the stairs with helmet in hand, the Hells had looked up, startled, and when Chetney had asked where the two of them were going, Ashton had jauntily said therapy.
Everyone had looked at each other with bewilderment bordering on concern. Imogen had felt them surveying her face, her unglowing scars, the hammer Ashton had hefted over his shoulder. Please don’t do anything— Orym had started at the same time as Laudna said, Are you—Ashton, if you hit Imogen with that hammer, they will not find your body.
But they’d joined Imogen and Ashton outside, and though Imogen wasn’t sure she’d done much of a job explaining, once it had become clear what Ashton’s aim was, there was a general buoying of support.
“Leather doesn’t shatter, not like wood,” Orym said, glancing at Chetney with a suppressed grin. Chetney scowled and waved the comment off. “We gotta weaken it somehow first. Imogen, your idea seems like as good a way as any.”
“Are you certain?” Laudna said, sounding a bit worried. “Perhaps Fearne could cast a Scorching Ray? Not that you’re not capable, darling, of course, but if Ashton changes their mind, I don’t want you to—”
Imogen shook her head. “Nah,” she said. “I got this.” She lined up her gaze and centered the energy in her hand. Then she yanked it out of the air and launched a lightning bolt directly at the helmet where it lay in the dirt. It hit with a noise like a thunderclap and what stayed was fire: an inferno flaming around the helmet, charring it quickly into something that would burst into ash under a hammer. Corralling the flames with a cantrip, she looked up at her friends, who were watching with grimly gleeful apprehension; at Laudna, who caught her gaze and looked proudly and hungrily at her as Imogen shook the power from her fingers; and then at Ashton, who was gripping their hammer tight.
“You ready?” she said.
Ashton let out a breath and nodded. They shifted the hammer’s weight, jogging it once, twice, before drawing it back over their shoulder, and he looked down at the distorted, burning leather. Twisted by the fire, it was a horrible echo of the face it would’ve protected.
Under his breath, he said, “They can go to fucking hell.”
And then the hammer slammed into the ground—BAM—and again—BAM—and again, rage and stone and glass pulverizing leather into dirt into dust until the fire was out and all that remained was a cloud of drifting ash.
Ashton set down their hammer, breathing heavily.
“How’s it feel?” Imogen said.
They tilted their face up at the sky and let out a long, long breath. Their shoulders seemed, for once, at ease. Then they looked back down at their friends. “Feels better,” he said. “Feels good.”
“You’re sure?” Fearne asked. “You don’t think you’ll regret it, letting it go?”
“Nah.” The pain in Ashton’s expression had been replaced by a sense of almost peace. Of groundedness. “I don’t need it. And I really don’t need them. Fuck them, and fuck Ludinus, and fuck anything that isn’t who I want to be. I’m the only one who gets to fucking decide that.”
The sky was flush with the first light of evening. Above the horizon, a thin crescent of Catha shone. Somewhere on the other side of the planet was Ruidus, dark and red and threatening, and there was her mother, and whatever choices she was making. Awful, terrible choices, and someday soon, Imogen would have to help fix the consequences. But as much as they were Imogen’s responsibility, as much as they were all of their responsibility, they weren’t her fault. Her choices were only ever her own. It was what, she realized, Laudna had been telling her all along.
Imogen reached up and took off her locket.
“Woah, hey,” Ashton said, a note of alarm inflecting their voice as they noticed. “What are you doing? Don’t break it just because I did mine, you don’t need to do that—”
“I wasn’t goin’ to,” Imogen said, and then she turned to Laudna. And because she didn’t want to wait anymore, because she knew exactly what she felt, because Laudna made her better, because Laudna made everything better, because it would mean now and forever and every single part of her wanted it, all of them, all of it—
She got down on one knee.
“Imogen?” Laudna looked confused. “What are you—”
“I thought about askin’ for my ring back for this,” Imogen said, and Laudna’s mouth fell open. She took a deep breath over her thundering heartbeat and continued. “But I thought this might be better, if that’s okay with you.
“Um, I didn’t plan this, or I’d have some better speech, but I’m goin’ to do it anyway, because I’ve been wantin’ it since—gods, longer than I should admit, probably. I was scared to admit it for a long time, ‘cause I didn’t think you could ever… I didn’t want to ruin us. But then we started this whole fake datin’ thing, and I thought for the first time that maybe you might love me back the same way I love you. And then when you said you did, I—I know it’s only been a couple days, which I guess is real fast, but it doesn’t feel fast, not when it’s you.
“Because Laudna, every future I’ve ever been able to imagine is you. That first time you held my hand, that might’ve been the start of it, but it was always this, for me. When I met you I—it made my whole world worth living. You make my whole world worth living. And you keep on makin’ it better every single day, even when I think nothin’ ever can, and I just—I want that, forever, and I’m gonna keep on wantin’ it forever no matter what.”
She dared to look up at Laudna and was heartened the second she met her eyes.
“You’ve imagined all those weddings,” she said, confidence growing. “And I guess we’re already married—” There was a squawk of confusion behind her, which she ignored, continuing on. “—But it kinda feels like we’ve done this whole thing out of order to begin with, so I’m gonna ask you anyway. I want to marry you so bad, Laudna. I want to have a wedding that’s you and me and whatever kind of fuckin’—I don’t know, hawks or rabbits or somethin’—you want. Here or in Jrusar or in Whitestone or in the fey realm or on the fuckin’ moon. Anywhere.”
She held out the locket. “You’re my better half, Laudna. You’ve always been my better half, and you make me a better whole, and I really, really hope you’ll marry me, Laudna, so, um. Please. Will you?”
Laudna looked utterly overcome. She opened her mouth and seemed unable to find words. Instead she nodded, once, again, and then again and again, and she extended her hands to Imogen who fell into her arms and then she was in them and Laudna had found her mouth and, clumsy and wild and overflowing with emotion, kissed her.
Their kiss lit Imogen from the inside out, adrenaline thundering through her veins with infinite, irrepressible joy. Yes, Laudna was repeating into her head, yes, always, always, yes, and they were going to be married, really married, they were going to be together and Laudna was going to be her wife, Laudna was her wife, Laudna would be and would become and always, always, forever, her Laudna, and her, Laudna’s, and it was all Laudna, for Laudna, everything, everything, everything—
When at last they pulled away with one more disbelieving press of lips to lips, Imogen became aware of the sound of her friends whooping and cheering.
“You sneaky fucking assholes,” Ashton crowed, sounding overjoyed. “You’ve been married this whole fucking time?”
“Not the whole time,” Imogen said, wiping the corner of her eye with her sleeve. She felt like she was glowing. “Just, um, some of it. Sort of.”
“Oh my gosh.” Fearne’s whole body was wiggling with happiness. “Oh my gosh. This is amazing. This is so amazing. Were you? Before Rexxentrum? Imogen didn’t say anything and I was so sure it was just that you were in love with her. But if she was your wife—oh my gosh, you guys are going to be wives—”
“My goodness,” Laudna said, seeming to have finally recovered her voice. “We are, aren’t we? We really are.” She pulled Imogen in close to her, and Imogen breathed in the smell of her and buried her face into Laudna’s shoulder and held her tight, tight, tight.
And then an unfamiliar voice cut through the celebration.
“Bad time?”
A stuttering beat of confusion and then—
Fearne swore. There was the metallic sound of Orym unsheathing Seedling, and a yell from Ashton, and as Imogen twisted around fast, Laudna’s form began to crack and grow tall around her. Through the shield of her dread-stretched arms, Imogen saw Artana Voe standing in the back doorway of the inn.
“Easy, easy, okay. I’m not here to hurt you,” Voe said, raising a hand as though to settle a wild animal. Her crossbow looked to still be stowed, and her movements were slow and careful. Laudna hissed and Voe wrinkled her nose. “Jesus.”
“What the hell are you after?” Chetney said. He had halfway dropped into a crouch in front of Fearne. Instinctively, Imogen began to let electricity gather in her palms, and in her peripheral vision she saw Orym shift his own weight to close rank. There was a whirring as FCG motored in.
“Yeah, you’re all real protective, I got it,” Voe said. “Look, if I’d wanted to attack you, I would’ve done it by now. I was sent with news. Do you want it or not?”
Imogen felt Laudna shift uncertainly, and she spoke into her mind. Do you wanna trust her? Want me to check?
Laudna’s chin dipped above Imogen’s head in a tight nod. Check.
Without wasting time, Imogen sliced into Voe’s thoughts, glancing through them like flashes of light through a fractured window, and when she found nothing she brusquely shoved in deeper. There it was quieter, and after a few seconds more she relaxed and withdrew. “It’s okay, baby,” she said in an undertone, placing a calming hand on Laudna’s arm, and then adding louder for the rest of the group, “She’s tellin’ the truth.”
Laudna’s breathing settled, and she nodded before dropping back into herself. Imogen took her hand and squeezed it.
There was still tension in the air as the rest of the Hells surveyed Voe.
“Go on, then,” Orym said after a moment.
“Thanks.” Voe, apparently still cavalier, leaned against the doorframe. “The Verity was real determined to find you guys. Got some information about the disappeared gods they seem to think’s useful. Thought you’d find it the same.”
Chetney said, sounding immensely skeptical, “You’re with the Grim Verity?”
Voe raised an eyebrow. “I’m a goddamn bounty hunter. I go where the money says to go.”
“Fair enough.”
“Anyway,” she said, picking at her fingernail, “Word is you already know that Vasselheim’s papers show Ruidus didn’t exist back before Predathos.” Voe looked up. “Turns out two of the planes didn’t either.”
“Oh,” Laudna said, sounding like she had understood something that Imogen didn’t yet realize. “Oh.”
“Which two planes?” Orym said. He still had Seedling drawn, but had cautiously relaxed by just an increment.
“Fey. Shadow. I’m told you already know Predathos ate two gods. So the news is this: It seems like if you kill a god, you got yourself a brand-new plane. Which, apparently, is why they also sent this for you.” Voe slung her bag forward and reached into it. She pulled out a leather-wrapped bundle, which she tossed onto the dirt so that it rolled open. Inside were close to a dozen forked rods of different shades and textures of metal, each secured to the whole by a narrow leather strap. With them was a larger stick, smooth and engraved with runes and pulsing with magic.
“Grim Verity seemed to think you’d want to plane shift,” Voe said. “That’s a staff and tuning rods for all of them. You’re supposed to start with the Shadow key. Take that one out, you’ve got both of the god planes taken care of. Maybe it ends the problem. So there. Now you can.”
The new information was sinking in. Imogen looked around at the group, whose expressions had all fallen into stages of stunned disbelief.
“Hoooo-ly shit,” Chetney said quietly.
“Anyway, that’s it,” Voe said. She heaved her bag back up onto her shoulder and turned. “If you’ll excuse me, I got a couple continents to get back across.”
“Wait.” Imogen flung out her hand, her mind churning as she processed what they’d just learned. “That’s it? Can you take a message back?”
Voe looked over her shoulder. “You got coin?”
Laudna was already rummaging in her bag, pulling out a handful of platinum. When she saw it, Voe raised her eyebrows.
“Okay then.”
“Good,” Orym said. He sounded stunned, but also full of clarity, decisive. “Tell them it’s more than just the keys, and it’s more than just those two planes.” He looked over at Imogen, as if asking permission to divulge, and she nodded. “The Vanguard’s goal is to let the godeater out by combining the planes again. All of them. It’s how you ascend to godhood. They’ve got Luxon beacons, and they’re going to blast Predathos with godhood and dunamancy, and that’s how they’re going to let it out.”
And—hearing it all put together like that—it made sense.
“He’s going to create a world anew,” Laudna said in an undertone. “The deaths of the gods giving birth to new planes. A whole universe for Ludinus to rule.”
Imogen squeezed her hand tighter, her thoughts rushing one after another, and looked back over at Voe, who seemed for a moment to be taking mental notes.
“Planes, gods, got it,” she said. And then she nodded decisively. “Right, anyway. So. Be seeing you.”
And before anyone could respond, she stepped back into the tavern and was gone.
There was a moment of stunned silence, and then everyone was speaking at once, a riot of energy and discovery and sound.
“Holy fucking—”
“—can’t believe we fuckin’ figured it—”
“—new planes—”
“Oh, I’m going to kill him so hard—”
“We’ve got it. We’ve got it.”
They were looking at each other bright-eyed, the air between them nearly vibrating with the intensity of their discovery, the knowledge that they finally had everything. Imogen grabbed for Ashton’s arm and clutched at Laudna’s hand and felt delirious with the way it had all snapped into place. They’d figured it out. They’d figured it out.
“We can stop him,” she said. “We’re gonna fuckin’ stop him.”
“We’re gonna fucking stop him,” Ashton said, and he grinned at her, manic and ready, and on her other side Laudna made a noise of amazed agreement. Orym looked almost bewildered with purpose. Around them, the discovery swirled into an electric stream of emotion.
And the thought came to Imogen, sudden and certain: her mother—
Liliana might be lost to her forever, or she might not be. That was out of Imogen’s control. But now, now, any damage her mother had done to the world, whether she’d done it for herself or for Imogen, for evil or for some desperately delusional hope of a world that would be better, it didn’t matter, because they were going to fix it.
The Hells, and Laudna, and her.
They were going to save the world for each other. She was gonna do it for these people who wanted her, these friends that would smash a helmet, would protect a locket, would applaud a kiss. Who would listen. Who understood, and when they didn’t, who cared enough to try. And she would do it for Laudna, for Laudna, for Laudna: Laudna, on the road outside Gelvaan; Laudna, faithfully recording Imogen’s dreams; Laudna, making ridiculous crafts and Laudna, sharp-clawed and scary and thrilling, and Laudna smiling and Laudna laughing and Laudna, seeing every part of her and saying yes.
-
And then, in what felt like forever and no time at all, their final hour in Rexxentrum had arrived.
The sun had at last set, the horizon streaking with pink and orange and gold before fading towards purple and dusky blue, painting the landscape outside their window like a postcard, or a memory. Imogen tucked the last of her things into her bag and then stopped to look out of it. At the cobbled streets, and the wood-beamed buildings, and the playing of children being called in to supper. Their last moment of unexpected peace in a city that threatened them, but also was the first to see her and Laudna together. That would be the last to know them as anything other than what they now were.
Together, together, together.
“I can’t believe we’re leavin’,” she said, stepping away from the window. She moved to sit on the edge of bed, where Laudna’s tidily folded garments were laid out and disappearing one by one into her knapsack. “Even though it’s only been a few days, really. I know it’s just a fluke we ended up here at all, an’ it isn’t the best of places for you, and I’m glad to be gettin’ you away from here again. But. Is it terrible that I’m gonna miss it?”
“Not at all,” Laudna said, looking up from her careful arrangement of belongings. “Personally, I don’t think I could be more grateful.”
She reached out for Imogen’s hand and pulled it towards her, brushing a kiss across it while she looked up at Imogen with eyes that were deep and fond.
Gods, Imogen loved her.
“Me too,” she said, almost fumbling over the words in her gladness to say them. “I’m grateful too.”
Laudna smiled against her hand and kissed it again. “I know,” she said. “Terrible things can lead to something wonderful, sometimes. Torn to other sides of the world, and brought back together.”
“It’s a good version of together,” Imogen said. “You’re the best version of everythin’ there is.”
It was absurd how much had changed since Laudna had stumbled back through that tree and into her arms. How differently Imogen understood it, now. How their relationship had shifted entirely on its axis and yet stayed entirely the same: the way they were just now clarified, now understood.
Because they’d moved fast, and they’d moved slow; a handful of days, a multitude of years. None of it was in any kind of order that made any sense at all, and all of it felt perfect, felt honest, felt right. Like kissing Laudna felt right.
“You know,” Laudna said after she pulled away, thumb stroking across Imogen’s lip as she did in a way that made Imogen want to chase it, “it occurs to me that we never did tell everyone how long we’d been together. There were some assumptions being made, I think. Something to do with us having been married this entire time.”
Imogen laughed. “Yeah, they did seem to think that, didn’t they.”
“Do you want to tell them?” Laudna said, and Imogen shrugged.
“They’ll figure it out.”
The two of them joined the other Hells downstairs, and together, they all set off one last time through Rexxentrum. Over the cobbled streets and past the wood-beamed buildings, by evening-emptied carts and shops closing their awnings and people going home for the night. Past schools and dance halls and temples, past cemeteries and offices and backdoor rooms where people were, if they were very lucky, getting married.
As the forest came into view ahead of them, Imogen took Laudna’s hand again.
Like newlyweds, Laudna said into her head, smiling. Isn’t that what Ashton said we looked like, back when we began this?
Imogen laughed in surprise. I didn’t know you noticed that. Yeah, I think they did. Newlyweds. She lifted Laudna’s hand and kissed it. And then I’m gonna marry you again.
“Ready?” Orym said as they arrived at the tree, looking back at the group of them. “Should be happening soon.”
There was one more thing.
“Almost,” Imogen said. “Can I borrow Laudna for a second?”
She fondly ignored the catcalls and whoops and led Laudna a handful of yards away, tucked back behind another tree.
“Is everything all right, darling?” Laudna looked gently perplexed, and then Imogen held out the locket and it melted away into tender realization.
“There was so much goin’ on, you didn’t have a chance to put this on,” Imogen said. “I thought you might want to.”
Laudna took it and turned it over in her hand. She ran a finger across its silver surface with a halting deliberation that was—not hesitant. It was something much closer to worship.“You’re sure you want to give this to me?”
“I’ve never been surer of anything,” Imogen said.
She hadn’t opened the locket in weeks, not since before the solstice. Now, when Laudna did, Imogen’s eyes fell not on the words inside but on the way Laudna looked as she read them. The way her brow lifted, the way her whole face went sincere and open. The way she studied Imogen’s tiny fingerprint inside and touched the tip of her own pinky to those long-ago, now-beloved lines. When she looked up at Imogen again, there was so much adoration in her eyes that Imogen, her breath taken away, wondered how she could have failed to understand it before.
“Would you put it on for me?” Laudna asked, and when Imogen nodded, she knelt so that Imogen could carefully pull her hair out of the way and thread the latch through the silvery, delicate clasp. When she drew back, she had to stop for a moment just to take in the way it made her feel.
“Imogen?” Laudna reached out a hand. “Are you all right?”
“I just kinda can’t believe I get to love you,” Imogen said, and Laudna pulled her in close, her face pressed into Imogen’s hair.
“I love you so much,” she whispered. “I love you more than anything.”
They held each other like that for another long, private moment. Just the two of them. Just this.
And then Orym was calling to them, and there was the shine of light and the cracking sound of a tree opening just back around the corner.
“Well?” Laudna said, drawing back. “Shall we?”
Imogen took her hand. “Together,” she said.
And together, they ran back to the rest of their friends, and together, they stepped through the arch of the wide-open tree, and together, they walked into the future.