Chapter Text
Cabeswater saw it all: the prophecy, written all those years ago- which, in the eyes of the ancient forest, was less than a breath ago, while simultaneously having yet to be written- the lives of the King and the psychic’s daughter slowly intertwining, everything having led up to this moment.
Blue Sargent saw only pieces: the prophecy, since her birth, a constant reminder of the tragedy to come, Gansey, who so easily accepted his fate, despite having fought valiantly for her love, knowing what would come of it, nothing having been preventable, her promise to herself broken.
Richard Gansey saw slightly more: the prophecy, proven true by his presence on Corpse Road, Blue, her impossible love, the way he was so unbelievably himself with her, and an end that saved everyone.
They would be okay without him. Ronan had Adam, Adam had Ronan. His family would grieve the news, but be not the least bit surprised: he was a wild adventurer, and these kinds of lives had no real future aside from a tragic headline on the local paper. Their loss would do numbers for his mother’s odds in the election. The women at 300 Fox Way had each other, and they would be there for Blue, carrying some of the weight of the grief that would threaten to crush her, they would be there when she got over him and found some other life with someone that wasn’t him.
Blue, getting over him. What a novel concept. If you had asked Gansey what he thought his life would be like, if this would be the end he had imagined for himself, someone like Blue being present in it would be unheard of, especially in the way she was here, carrying this love, in this lifetime, this road, this rain.
“Blue, I’m ready,” he said. “Kiss me.”
The tears falling from her face mixed in with the rain coming down in sheets around them. She shook her head, surely in disbelief at it finally ending. He grabbed her face gently and nodded at her once. She kissed him. The world stopped for a moment, then, all the fireworks and magic he could have imagined when he finally managed to beg just a single kiss off of her, experienced tenfold.
In retrospect, the curse was a very likely cause of the fireworks, Gansey was quite certain. The magic, though, was all his. His magicians, his ley line, his all-encompassing love. Not just for Blue, but for all of them; his royal court. Their awfulness, their adventure, their magic. It was all his.
The air froze.
Gansey was a king. He collapsed to the ground.
-
They begged, pleaded, demanded that Cabeswater do something. But what was even left to give? The corruption destroyed the forest, and the minuscule amounts of energy it had left were used to continue being tangible. Although, with the sacrifice, the unmaker was gone, only time could recover the mutilated forest.
Cabeswater showed images of the rot and decay to its magician, speaking apologies in a language he would understand. Cabeswater’s greywaren was there too, a screaming voice in his own head, hating the King for everything, for the quest, for his life, for his death. His mother and father were already gone, after all, and what family was left other than the King. Hating Cabeswater for not giving enough, never giving enough. Cabeswater gave all that it could, and heaved with the effort it took to show the King’s fate being true to his magicians.
The psychic’s daughter sent one last plea to the ancient forest, not angry or spiteful, just in disbelief. There was nothing that they could do. Their King had fallen, and his court was left stranded. There is nothing that we can do .
-
Richard Campbell Gansey III’s funeral service fell on a beautifully sunny morning, a spiteful knife in the chest of the lives he touched. The sky should have been shuttered by clouds, rain pouring onto the shoulders of everyone who was fortunate to be alive, but damned in that they no longer had a sun to orbit.
That night, after the burial- Blue in the driver’s seat of the Pig, Noah beside her, a quiet but solid presence, Adam and Ronan staring silently into the dark night from the back seat- they dug up their King.
Gently, as to not disrupt the cold body of what once was Gansey, they lifted him from his mahogany casket, and loaded him into the trunk, wrapped in quilts and blankets. Blue drove them to Cabeswater, and Adam carried his limp body. Right next to Noah’s bones, they dug, and returned Gansey to the soil’s welcoming embrace. No one cried, save for Ronan, whose gentle tears were angrily wiped away.
Since the sacrifice, and the slow healing of Cabeswater, Noah’s presence had become more sure and solid, after months of his vibrancy slipping away. The magicians could only hope that the same would happen with Gansey, but it was no more than a shot in the dark.
They sat on the grass, Blue slightly shivering, between Noah gently petting her hair into place and the cool air of the night. They waited. Time passed, or maybe it didn’t, and there he was . Albeit, much duller than he was in life, stretched out on the dirt, casual as a cat napping in the sun, Gansey gazed upon the stars, wire-frame glasses rested along the bridge of his nose.
Adam was the first to see him, though he assumed Blue felt his energy far before he appeared. They locked eyes, and relief flooded through him at the sight of a characteristic glint in Gansey’s gaze.
“All of this waiting around, just for me?” he asked, a smile in his voice as Blue spun around. “Whatever happened to upwards and onwards?”
Blue jumped into his arms, and when Cabeswater glanced into her mind, all it could see was love, love, love. Gansey bumped fists with Adam, and threw a meaningful look at Ronan.
Noah beamed, if that was something he could do, at the prospect of another dead boy a part of their group.
They were back, and things would be normal again. But, would they? What even was normal anymore? A dreamer, a magician, a mirror, and two dead boys.
Two is truly an awful number.