I opened my mouth to speak to my grandfather. There was so much I could say to him. Though our time together was short, my grandfather had been the family I’d never had. He’d shown me kindness in my darkest days, and made me believe I could be a leader when everyone else told me I’d amount to nothing. He was the role model I’d never had. I wished I’d had more time with him.
But none of these words came out. Instead, what broke out of my throat was a small, tragic sob.
That was my undoing. The stone-cold man I’d been moments ago vanished as my grief wrecked me from the inside out. Tears streamed down my cheeks and splashed against the marble. Anguished sobs echoed throughout the silent temple, and they were mine.
I completely lost control of my body as the crushing weight of my loss overcame me. I desperately reached out to the altar to finish the ritual— all I had to do was place the satchel atop its surface— but the altar seemed to have moved far away from me. Or perhaps I’d sunk down the steps too far to reach it. I couldn’t be sure.
Time had to be passing. Everyone must’ve been watching.
I was trapped in the moment, every passing second another incessant reminder that my grandfather wasn’t here with me… and never would be again. I waited for his voice to boom through the chapel, for him to appear out of nowhere and tell us it was all a ploy to throw off the Warden— to tell me to get off my ass and man up, because there was work to do.
He didn’t show.
But someone else did. Ava wheeled her chair to my side, and the crushing weight on my shoulders lifted slightly when she placed an encouraging hand on my back. I reached out for her to find she was solid, not just some figment of my imagination. She was here with me. She was real.
Instinctually, I lifted her out of her chair and lowered her to the ground beside me. It didn’t occur to me that all eyes in the temple were on us. It just felt natural to have her here by my side.
Ava’s hand continued to rub up and down my arms in a comforting gesture. “Take all the time you need.”
I shook my head. “There isn’t enough time for this. There never could be.”
“I understand,” she said gently. “When you experience the greatest loss of your life, you feel like everything in the world is dead. You think that the world should stop. You want your life to stop, too. But it doesn’t, Charlie, no matter how much you want it to. You can’t get back what was taken from you, but with time, other things will come to heal the wounds left behind. The universe doesn’t take without giving something back. What grows in its place won’t be what was there before, but it will still be something you’ll come to cherish.”
Ava spoke these words like she believed them. She’d probably learned these things after Monica died. Maybe that’s why she’d tried to end the world… because she truly believed that despite all circumstances, endings led to new beginnings, and even in the worst of endings something new would bloom to replace what was lost.
Even though Ava and I were separating, she wasn’t letting me go through this alone. I appreciated that more than she could ever know.
“I know he can’t come back,” I said in a shaky whisper. “But maybe you’re right, and there are things he left behind that I can grow into something new. My grandfather might not be with me anymore, but I will take his memory wherever I go.”
“He’s still with us, because he lives within you.” Ava reached for my hand that held the wedding satchel, and her fingers curled around my own. “Whenever you’re ready.”
I wasn’t ready to say goodbye. I never would be. But with Ava’s words, I found the courage to speak a parting, if only to a piece of him. “Farewell, Seanari.”
I reached upward, and Ava helped me place the satchel on the altar. As we did, the most incredible thing happened.
Spirit magic touched me, so strong and powerful that an image of magic formed in my mind. Wisps morphed into powerful tendrils that appeared to be pulsing out of the elder tree— the one that stood at the center of the temple and was carved with depictions of the Elvish Goddesses. I saw the beauty of its craftsmanship for the first time as Spirit magic swirled throughout the tree, bringing it to life. The magic extended upward through the trunk and out through each individual leaf. Its power filled me up, making that weight on my shoulders feel light as a feather. It was a feeling that could only be described as deep, unconditional love.
Gasps traveled around the temple. Wherever magic the elder tree was displaying, it was certainly not normal.
“What’s going on?” I asked Ava.
“I’m… I’m still a spiritual mystic,” Ava realized. “Even though I don’t have power of my own, the temple recognizes my authority, and the tree’s responding. I think Cassiel’s reaching out to us from the afterlife.”
My broken heart somehow lifted. That’s when I knew that even though I couldn’t get the words out, my grandfather had heard everything I wanted to say to him.
The magic intensified. To everyone else, it must’ve been glowing a magnificent bright light, but to me, I saw no color— only shapes that the Spirit magic interpreted for me. The magic infused into the objects on the altar, bringing to life my grandfather’s crown, weapon, and other belongings.
The tree consumed them, washing them away in a brilliant display of power. The magic retreated until the tree itself was all I witnessed. Above us, the leaves began to shift, blooming into what I could only interpret as flowers. I didn’t know what flowers should look like, but the Spirit magic filled in the gaps I was missing from my physical experience.
The scent, though? That was something I’d smelled a hundred times before, back in the palace gardens where my grandfather and I used to train.
Blossoms. It smelled so sweet and fresh. This tree was born of Elvish magic, and as the flowers transformed, they turned into large, bulbous fruit that even Spirit didn’t have a name for.
“This is… unprecedented,” the Great Mystic marveled. She was so old, and so wise— I’d never heard her sound so bewildered.
A smile crept across my face as I took in the wonder of it all. “It’s like you said, Ava. The world doesn’t take without giving something back. My grandfather’s belongings couldn’t be buried with him, so the tree took them and gave us this fruit.”
A fruit fell from one of the branches, and it sounded like it landed in Ava’s lap. She extended it to me. “It’s a gift from your grandfather. To you.”
