Chapter 67: Every Place We Loved (His POV)
I woke to silence. Not the hush of morning, not the stillness before a storm. This was the wrong kind of silence, the kind that comes from absence. No glitter raining from the rafters. No ferret reciting sonnets in my voice. No enchanted record player attempting five genres in four seconds. Not even the scent of coffee brewing in some absurdly inconvenient corner of my Realm. Just the echo of breath. Mine. Her scent. Warm. Familiar. Anchored in the sheets. I sat up slowly, blinking dream-gold from my lashes. The other side of the bed was untouched. No Asha tangled in the sheets. No Asha tangled in me. Instead? A slip of parchment. Enchanted. Rune-marked. The curve of the symbol was hers, neat, intentional. But threaded through it was mischief, spiraling, reckless. Mine. It pulsed once under my fingers when I touched it. Warm. Alive. I unfolded it slowly, already breathless. "You give me wonder. Let me give you something back. Follow the thread. Every stop is a piece of us. -A." I swallowed. Turned it over. Scrawled in her smallest, messiest script: "Go to the first place we met." I stared at it. Then smiled. A slow, reverent, terrified smile. Because I already knew, She was about to destroy me. The Temple hadn't changed. Polished white stone. Gleaming pillars. Murals of gods rewriting their own history. And priests. Gods, the priests. Flocking like flies to power. "Lord Malvor!" one gasped. Another bowed. "An honor, truly." "Have you come to bless the harvest?" I smiled. Politely. Murderously. "No. I'm on a scavenger hunt." They laughed. Of course they did. I was the god of chaos, every word I said might've been a riddle. A joke. A threat. But I wasn't laughing. They kept talking. Too much. Too long. And then it clicked. "She planned this," I muttered. "She knew you'd delay me. Buy her more time." Of course she did. I flicked my fingers and the temple doors blew open. Scrolls scattered. Robes flared. Wind screamed. I moved like a shadow with purpose. Down. Beneath the stone. To the room where they used to keep offerings. The door groaned open. Nothing. Just cold air. Empty chains. Dust where life used to kneel. I stood there too long. Long enough for memory to catch up. To feel the echo of her there, chained, silent, unbroken. I stepped forward. Lifted the chains. Cold. Familiar. Her voice. Not real. A recording. Magic. "You didn't touch me that day. You could have. Everyone expected it. You didn't even look at me the way they did. You asked for my name." Silence. Then: "The next place I ever saw… was your tree." I ran my fingers along the bark. Jagged, swirling upward like a scream frozen in wood. There it was. Etched not in ink, but memory. Her voice again. "You took me from chains to roots. I didn't know which was scarier. But under this tree… I stopped waiting to die. Dig." I crouched, chaos pulsing at my fingertips. The dirt shifted, reluctant to be disturbed by anyone but her. A small, dark box rose from the earth, chaotic sigils wrapped tight, but sealed with her rune. Delicate. Iron-strong. I opened it. Inside: a folded slip of paper. "Go to the one who always opens the door." I appeared in a shimmer of chaos and mild exasperation, landing in the center of Arbor's entryway. The walls shifted, like a held breath. Lights dimmed. Then pulsed. Then flared bright, dramatic, and unmistakably judgy. "Oh, don't start…" I muttered. "She recruited you for this, didn't she?" No reply. Of course not. Arbor didn't talk. Didn't need to. Warmth pulsed under my feet. A breeze curled through the air like a smug shrug. A rune etched itself across the mirror. Glowing. Graceful. Intentional. "You let me choose a room. A door. A space of my own. Now go back to where I first felt safe." I closed my eyes. I knew exactly where she meant. I turned without a word as Arbor shifted behind me, walls softening. A light near the ceiling flickered briefly into a heart. I ignored it. Mostly. It was quiet. Untouched. Still carrying the scent of lavender, ink, stardust. I stepped inside like it was sacred. On the bed, perfectly laid out, was a note. Written in her slanted script. A callback to that first domestic morning: "I asked if you wanted to watch me sleep." I stared. A second line shimmered into being as I held it: "Now go to the only altar you ever truly worshipped at." The coffee station. I wandered the house the way she used to. Slowly. Intentionally. The library, where she read like she was starving, words, stories, life. Where she laughed, finally, like she didn't owe anyone silence. The pool, where our first kiss had tasted like chaos and sugar. The beach room, where she kissed me again, and cried. Where Anastasia cracked, and Annie was born. A sandcastle stood in the corner. A note buried in sea glass at its center: "You saw the storm and stayed." Before I left, the door shimmered. Not a portal. An invitation. I followed. Straight into the Carnival of Chaos. The rides were still, but not dead. The carousel turned lazily, mirrors cracked, horses half-forgotten. A single teacup spun slow, creaking like it missed her laughter. The whack-a-mole blinked with broken lights, a mallet still bent from the day she smashed it in frustration and laughed until she cried. The Ferris wheel creaked once against the starless sky. It smelled like sugar and memory. Near the carousel, tied to a cracked pole, I found it: a ribbon. Hers. Twisted with a lock of golden thread, mine. A note attached: "This was the first place I chose to be happy. The first place I chose you." Beneath it, another line, smaller. Shy. "Go to the realm that turned gold when we walked in." Luxor's realm. Gold sky. Gold sand. Gold statues of Luxor doing nothing modest. I almost smiled. We had solved a puzzle here together. My prize: a kiss that had been meant to tease, until it wasn't. "That was hot," she'd said. I still wasn't sure which part wrecked me more. Near the obelisk, I found a scroll in a wine goblet, sealed with her rune. "Some puzzles weren't meant to be solved. Just shared. Go where I wore nothing but the sun." I groaned. Of course. The villa greeted me with warm air, vines heavy with grapes. On the poolside table sat the swimsuit. Folded. Untouched. Tucked beneath a bottle of enchanted sunscreen. Because she knew I'd come looking. I took the long way to the winery. Through the vines. Past the shaded paths where our hands had brushed, pretending it meant nothing. The wind smelled like grapes and memory. This had been the place. Our first "couple" photo. Posed. Awkward. Ridiculous. I'd hated it. Called it stiff. Until I saw her eyes. She wasn't performing. She was present. I passed the table where we'd shared wine under starlight and tension. And there it was: The photo. Framed. Living. Her eyes still on me. I touched it. Her voice, soft, threaded with laughter: "We never posed. But we showed up." Then the line that undid me: "Go back to the place where you fell." I didn't need to ask. The rink was still alive with cursed disco and neon regret. Lights pulsed like a divine migraine, the music was… questionable at best. The floor gleamed, polished and chaotic. I had fallen six times. Possibly seven. She hadn't fallen once. "God of balance, my ass," she'd muttered, skating backward, effortless, smug, ethereal. She didn't fall. I did. I hated it. And loved it. And her. By the lockers, I found a pair of skates, mine. Glittered, dented, as if the universe had tried to warn me. Inside: a note. "You kept falling. But you always got back up. Keep going." The streets of my realm bent as I walked, twisting, reforming, parting like even chaos knew: this mattered. The restaurant was next. Tables shifted when I entered. The fruit shrieked when I glanced at them. Menus blinked their usual: you'll know when you see it. She had. She always did. We'd eaten something here that turned our tongues blue. Something else that sang opera in our stomachs. She had tried to make sense of it, failed spectacularly, laughing so hard she clutched my arm just to breathe. On our table sat a napkin. Still stained blue. A message written in sauce: "You let me laugh. You didn't ask me to stop. Go to the place where we dreamed out loud." The park was quiet. The carousel stood still. The swings barely swayed. But the air still carried her voice. "Did you ever want kids?" I hadn't. Not for centuries. But that day, with her fingers brushing the rune on my wrist, her eyes unflinching, I had wanted it. I wanted them. With her. Tied to the bench where we'd sat was a ribbon from her hair. Tangled. Familiar. As I touched it, a whisper moved through the air: "You said they'd be trouble. You smiled like you wanted them anyway. Now go to the place where the stars waited." The Observatory welcomed me with velvet-dark and endless galaxies. Stars spun above and below. Nebulae swayed like silk unraveling. This place had always been mine. My quiet. My stillness. She had walked into it like she belonged, like she understood what it meant to stare at infinity and not be afraid. We hadn't spoken here. We had just… been. At the platform's center, a glowing constellation bloomed. It took me a moment to see the shape, her hand, reaching for mine. In the center: "You made me want forever. But first, one more moment. Go to Ahyona." I was unraveling. One memory at a time. One thread. One heartbeat. One whispered echo of her. I didn't want another clue. wanted her. Or just something to hold. By the time I reached Ahyona's realm, I was spent. Quiet in a way I rarely allowed myself. Her bench was empty. The tea on the table, still warm. Beside it, a final note. "Go as far north and east as you can in your realm." I didn't walk. I couldn't. I tore through space in a crack of chaos, frantic, pulsing, desperate. North. East. Past the edges of my madness. Into the unknown. I wasn't ready. Because she was there. Barefoot in the grass. Hair tousled by wind. Smile soft. She didn't speak. She just held out her hand. She pulled me toward a door. Not mine. Chaos-carved, but laced with symmetry. Balance. A blend of two hearts stitched in wood and magic. Hers. Mine. Ours. When she opened it, I felt it. Magic. Memory. Time. The room wasn't massive. But it felt endless. A wall lined with living tapestries, silent loops of us flickering like memories too sacred to speak aloud. Our first dance in the hallway. The day she laughed so hard mocha snorted from her nose. Her, asleep on my shoulder, book open in her lap. Photographs. Enchanted. Alive. Her laughing. Me watching. Us, blurred and beautiful. Statues, not of gods, but of moments: Her hands on my chest, fingers splayed over my heartbeat. Our foreheads touching, breath mingled after a fight. A tiny version of us curled on the couch, runes glowing comfort around us. Objects, small but devastatingly intimate: A ribbon from her first dress. One of my cufflinks, bent from the day she yanked me into a kiss. A broken feather from one of my illusions, framed in gold as if it mattered. Above it all, carved into the ceiling in delicate runes, Her eyes. Dozens of them. Every glance. Every look. Every time she had seen me. Not as a god. As Malvor. I didn't speak. Couldn't. Just breathed. Reverent. Then she stepped behind me. Her arms wrapped around my waist. Her cheek pressed between my shoulder blades. "Happy Birthday, my chaos." I exhaled like the wind had been ripped from me. "This… this is your gift?" My voice broke. "This?" She smiled. I could feel it in her cheek against me. "No. This is ours. You gave me a place to be. I gave you a place to remember. Now you never have to forget us." For once, I wept. Quietly. Gratefully. Like a god who had been worshipped for centuries…but had finally, finally, been loved.