There’s a spell that Kavetnia knows by heart, one she prayed she’d never have to use. One she never wanted to use, never wanted to touch, wanted to forget, wanted to unmake and erase. It’s not even a spell, really. Spell implies that it takes some kind of skill. The spell is in the effect. What she does to activate it is really just a command. One that she never, ever, ever wanted to use.

(She knew she would have to. In her heart, she knew.)

She can’t breathe. If she couldn’t tell her heart was still present in her chest by scrying, she might suspect it had fled in horror. Her limbs feel like granite, or possibly lead; some cold hard heavy rock that could explain the way she feels nothing but frigid numbness. She thought she would shake or possibly cry, possibly cry out to the heavens in anguish, if this day ever came to pass. Instead there’s just – nothing.

Nothing but the command. The command she needs to activate. The one that will kill the man she loves. She hesitates, for a split second. Maybe he’s not too far gone, maybe he’ll listen to her. He still loves her. It’s obvious. Heartbreakingly obvious. If she asked him, if she managed him, he might be – well, not safe, but beneficial to the world. (And she’d get to see him smile at her, again…)

Before she can continue that dangerous, dangerous line of thought, before she can second guess herself, she activates it.

There’s silence. She wonders if it worked, and she scries for him, unsure if she wants it to have worked or wants it to have failed, and –

Nothing.

He’s gone.

Of course he is. He wouldn’t be anything but. He was very thorough with his self-destruct spell. She bets he’s scattered into no less than six black holes, in at least three different planes. Probably more. Just to be sure.

He’s gone.

He’s -

She’s on the ground in a heap and she doesn’t know how she got there. Her eyes blur and tears drip to the floor, and she doesn’t know when she started crying. Her hands are shaking and stilling them is impossible. A sound catches in her throat, and she belatedly realizes it’s an attempt at his name, but it’s not coming out right. She settles for a strangled whimper, instead, as a compromise between saying his name and saying she’s sorry and bawling her eyes out. She gets on that last one. That last one has become rather important.

To say that she regretted it is incorrect. She doesn’t. To say she regretted meeting him is just as false – she’s glad she met him, glad he existed, glad she – fell in love. Married him. (Because what was the point of not, then? She was already in love.)

But she wanted another world. Another plane, another life, another chance, some place where he wasn’t dead, some place where they could just have forever. She didn’t even need them to have forever together, she just – she needed him to exist. Somewhere. For him to smile. For him to say something completely incomprehensible that probably involved his absolutely terrifying powers. For him to ignore anything and everything not directly in front of his face when he’s reading. For –

She didn’t even know anymore. She wanted him back.

It takes her longer than it really should, for her to notice the message. It’s illusionary. From – from him. Right there, waiting for her command to start it. Because of course he prepared a message. Of course he planned this out. Of course he knew she would actually do it. How could she do anything but?

She has to fumble, to regain the mental coherency to start it. But she does.

It creates an illusionary version of him. When did he give her the command to use on him? They were young, she recalls, right before they’d married. This – the illusion looks to be from a little before then. He trusted her for that long?

“Heeey,” says the illusion that is not him, in an almost sing-song manner. And then he smiles sadly. “If you’re watching this… then I died a while ago, really.”

She sniffles and wipes at her eyes, but stifles an actual sob. She’d rather not interrupt. She’d – rather not watch her husband’s goodbye message a second time. It might break her.

“If you want to see me again, you can always replay this,” offers not-Aisilian, “but I’ll keep it short.

“You didn’t kill me, okay? I died. And then you killed the monster born from my corpse.”

Another sniffle, and a little whimper that’s almost in an affirmative sound.

“I promise. It doesn’t matter what it looked like.”

She’d tell him that she didn’t actually see him, when she – killed the monster, didn’t actually see his body disappear. But it doesn’t matter. He can’t hear her. He’s gone.

“I love you.”

Oh why did he have to say that, now she’s going to start crying again, she had herself down to sniffling pathetically. She manages to choke out an only mildly strangled “I love you too,” before she surrenders herself to sobs.

“Goodbye.”

The illusion disappears. A line of text, reading, ‘Replay?’ floats where his illusion was. She dismisses it with a shaky wave. She won’t be replaying it. It disappears, leaving the room dark.

She goes back to sobbing.