As I pull myself from my slumber, my mind scrambles to grasp the present.

Who am I?

I'm Lucy from Earth, not Alvar from Axus, but I know what it feels like to be Alvar.

"Lucy!" Emily calling my name surprises me. She rushes into my tent, arms extended. "We made it out just in time, before the caverns collapsed."

"The caverns? What do you mean?" I blink. Did that mean all of Goblia was buried in the collapse? Had there been any survivors? "Is Alvar alright?"

"Of course he's alright! He rescued as many as he could before the caverns collapsed, it seems Remora committed a mass suicide with explosives."

"Holy crap." I gasp and cover my mouth. "Are Leeza, Grey, and Fletch okay?"

"Yes," Emily said, "We're lucky to be out of there with our lives."

"What of the Huldra?"

"The what?" Emily cocked her head, confused obviously.

"The deer people?" I ask.

"Oh, them. Strange," she shudders. "But everyone here is strange. Lucy, why can't you understand why everything is so wrong for us, Earth people? Why can't we just go back? It's dangerous here."

"I'm sorry, Em, I'm not going back, I don't want to," I say. Washing over me is guilt over my anger toward her. Yes, I know she's controlled me and manipulated me and dominated my life sometimes and yet, she's been there for me. Emily didn't leave when everyone else thought I was crazy, for that I deeply appreciate her. I remember the times we went to coffee while cramming for exams and talking about boys together, giggling over naughty romance novels, and her basically teaching me how to act "normal" when my entire childhood and teenage years had been abnormal because of my mother. I wish Emily the best even if I realize our close relationship is becoming strained. She's not happy here and I'm to blame for her being here in the first place.

"Did you get a chance to talk to his high-and-mightyness about me going back?" Emily nodded outside at of tent.

Alvar was out there? Outside my tent right now? A shiver goes through me and I have the urge to dash from the tent and embrace him. Maybe I'll just do it. I stand up. "I think I may have convinced him to let you go back," I murmur, before rushing from the tent to meet him. There are so many outside, dozens of gobli, some from Goblia, but most of them are from the encampment I'm staying in, the Huldra leader is talking to Alvar in the center of the group.

Alvar catches sight of me and we exchange a knowing look between us. His stance is rigid and cold as he speaks with the Hulda leader.

"Lucy, are we going back to Underland?" Emily asks from behind me, quietly so as not to disturb whatever conversation is taking place.

"I am sure we'll head back there soon," I whisper back at her.

"Lucy, I've been meaning to ask you this for awhile, but how did we get here even?"

"Huh?" I'm not quite following her.

"Well, how did we travel from Earth to Axus?"

"Arlite," I tell her, "A special kind of it."

"Really? What kind?" Emily prods me on for more information.

I see where she's going and it dawns on me that maybe I've already given here too much information.

"Emily, don't think of using it by yourself, it's much too dangerous," I warn. "I remember Alvar told me that once lost in the Bridge you're lost forever."

"Well, if a gobli can make it across the Bridge then why couldn't I?" Emily laughs. "They are much simpler creatures than we are. Especially the inbred ones."

"I'm serious, don't try to use Arlite to get across the Bridge by yourself, anyway, I think Alvar would want to have someone take you so he doesn't leave any of it behind on Earth," I begin, but when I turn to look at her I notice Emily is gone, back into the tent.

I sigh.

Why can't I just tell Emily what Alvar has told me? It would make her understand the situation so much better! But I can't betray his trust like that and if his people knew he was the Cursed whom had killed so many of them through Saul, it would send this entire world into chaos and fear again.

"I assume you know much more than when I left you," Alvar's deep voice makes me jump.

I find myself staring up at him, his body is close to mine, his voice secretive.

"Yes," I answer, and without thinking I touch his hand with my own. "I told you I'd make my decision after seeing everything, and now I believe I've made mine."

"What did you see?" Alvar asks, he takes my hand and leads me to a bench, far from the tents and the crowds.

"I saw how Saul persuaded you to wear the Fe collar, and also how you go the scar on your face."

"And?" Alvar prompted, a pained expression on his face.

"You buried your own mother."

"And?"

"Nothing more." I let go of his hand and look ahead of us at the mountains of Ferar. I think of Goblia and Remora, what a selfish act. "Why did she kill herself and all of her people?"

"Because, it is more honorable to her to die at her own hands and bring her people with her into the afterlife than it is to be vanquished by a foe," Alvar says softly. "It's unfortunate, but not surprising. She knew she was outnumbered and overpowered."

"Are you going to send Emily back?" I ask.

Alvar nods. "Will you stay and rule Underlund on your own or..?" He trails off. He doesn't even want to say, "or stay with me and rule by my side."

I bite my lip, I study my husband, a broken person with terrible secrets and the darkest of pasts. "You have a strong heart," I state and tentatively my hand reaches for his face, where his scar is. "Anyone else would have gone insane."

"Be careful, I'm not sure I haven't," Alvar laughs bitterly.

My hand travels down to his neck, I feel his neck, something cold and metal is beneath my fingers although I cannot see it. As Alvar had said, the collar was made invisible. I move my hand over the instrument of his complete slavery to Saul. The gems embedded in it bump my fingers and then I come upon the keyhole.

Alvar grips my wrist suddenly and I gasp at the touch. "You don't have to stay here, Lucy. Goblia is destroyed by their own hands. No one wants Earth anymore. You can go home with Emily if you wish."

"What about children?" I argue, although I'm not sure why I'm trying to talk him into having children with me. "What about heirs to your throne?" I flush upon realizing what I'd just implied.

"You want to make children with me?" Alvar's eyes turn red and his breathing turns husky. "Lucy, I can name a successor that isn't my own, it won't be customary and my people may question why I never produced any offspring, but... I will somehow find a way. I want you to be free."

"How are you going to keep people from going to Earth if there is no treaty?" I don't know why but my throat is tightening and I'm starting to cry.

"Lucy, I--I just want your happiness, I don't want to ruin you like I've been ruined," Alvar closes his eyes. "I'm not good. And I'll never be good enough for someone like you. I thought this would be a business arrangement, not--not this."

"A business arrangement?" I'm incredulous. A business arraignment! How dare he say that? Marriage, having children together, and ruling side by side, was a business arrangement to him?

"You didn't see all of the things Saul did to me," Alvar growls. "I'm nothing but a Cursed shell of a human being."

"Well, what else did he do?" I can't imagine anything worse and I'm a little annoyed at him for his "business arrangement" comment still.

"He made me do things that I'd never do of my own free will," Alvar says, he casts his eyes downward, shame in them, "sexual things."

My heart drops. Holy shit. I don't even want to know. Had Saul made Alvar rape others? Or had he--

"I was used by Saul," Alvar reveals, his brow pinched in pain at the thought, "you wouldn't see those memories because I erased them from the Mystar. I never wanted to see them again. I can't learn anything from them. I kept the aftermath of many of the memories in which I'd done evil by Saul's will to punish myself for being so naive and to never let anyone in again... but those memories," he closed his eyes. "I couldn't keep the memories of him degrading me like that."

"What I am is too distorted to ever be loved. Saul's... advances... the nail in the coffin. I know what you're thinking. Did I tell Triss about it? No. How could I tell her that when I wanted to give her the luxurious life of a queen after all she'd been through? Saul was obsessed with me, in a strange twisted way, he fetishized my suffering and my Curse. He wanted to make me unable to be psychologically intimate with others. He was such a jealous person, especially of me."

I can't say anything. My stomach is turning in circles and twisting in a horrid ball. I stave off the urge to vomit. What an abomination Saul was in every possible way!

"Lucy, I'll not make anyone a proper spouse, like the kind you read of in great love stories. I put up a great front. I can even play the shallow love if I want, but with you, I can't play that, I did with Triss, but I can't for you," Alvar says. "I should never have done what I did, arranging you to marry me, even if it saved our worlds, it still destroyed your world and your world, Lucy, matters to me. Just say the word and you and Emily can go home. I'll take you myself so as not to risk Saul coming back."

"Alvar," I start, and I can't get anything else out. I wrap my arms around him in a tight embrace. He's shocked by it, I can tell by how his body stiffens and I sob for him. I don't think anyone ever has done this because the look on his face as I release him is one of bewilderment.

"What are you doing?" he asks helplessly, and my heart breaks for him.

"I don't ever want you playing any part with me. Ever. And I'm not ready to go back to Earth. I want to see the place that you've made Axus to be through your own desire for peace and restoration here. Damn that Curse, damn Saul. They don't get to make you what you are," I state with conviction.

"Lucy," Alvar's face is as stone, I can't read it. "Didn't you hear me? I'm not capable of--"

"Of what? Of having compassion? Of showing mercy? Of doing good? Everyone here--everyone is crazy about you and your heroics! You're a legend! You've changed Axus. Changed it from even the sad state it was in before Saul took over and made it worse," I persist, "I saw what it looked like, I saw in your memories what you've done. The people and races here work in unity and are no longer warring."

"You weren't Saul. Saul made you do things for him like you were his object. A sword to swing around and slice things to bits with, but a sword is not responsible for it's master's wrongdoings. A sword in the right hands can be productive and instill peace and responsible leadership. You took that sword from Saul's hands when you cast him over the Bridge to Earth. With that same sword you've done more good than anyone I've heard of in the history of my world and in the history of yours."

Alvar's solemn face crackled off and his eyes dimmed back to blue, a glassy blue as if he were about to cry. "Lucy of Earth, damn it, are you even real?"

I smile, sniffling back a sob, and nod. That's when he kisses me. Really kisses me. Nothing playing about it. It's the most genuine kiss I've received in my life, and what's more, we're too busy enjoying it to even think of the past.

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