Epilogue
The last page. This is Queen Story Moonsilver, and I will write the ending.
I t’s been five days since I gave birth and my body still feels like it’s fallen off a dragon, been dragged through a sea, and then I ran a hundred miles in a forest.
I’m told it’s normal, at least what my mother and the healers have said, but I’m still wincing as I barely manage to walk to the balcony where Ziven is.
I could find him anywhere.
Our bond has only deepened in the months after the war and I love it, as much as I love him.
He is there to wake me when the nightmares drag me from sleep, when I can’t tell if Emyr is still alive and hurting me, or if it is a dream.
Ziven is there when I’m happy to see me smile, when I’m sad or sick, despite the intense pressure of the throne.
When I went into labour early in the morning, Ziven never left my side and told me repeatedly that this pain is good, and I needed to hear it.
It will bring our child into the world, and he was right.
I never liked pain, never could stand my own blood, but none of it mattered when she burst into the world and changed everything for the better.
This blood loss was good, and it had nothing to do with the horrors of my past.
My daughter came into the world screaming, as the moon hung high in the sky and the night was still outside.
There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, even in the dead of winter.
The weeks before her arrival had been filled with storms, storms that threatened to bring down the new castle, but they never did.
Ziven thought the storms were a sign from the deities that our child was coming soon.
Florentine Kyrell Moonsilver of the Moon Dynasty. Second to the throne. Born on a silent night.
It’s the middle of the night, but time seems like nothing when you’ve just had a baby. Our beautiful little daughter sleeps sometimes—not often.
She likes to be feeding or held, and luckily for her, there’s a million people in this castle that would do anything to hold her, including my husband.
I watch him in a black oak chair that he made himself, touching her lovely onyx locks of hair that curl into her forehead. “Sleep, Wren. My night dragon.”
I smile at his nickname for her.
When she was born, he was the only one that wasn’t worried at all.
Wren was born with so much dark hair that reminds me of Ziv’s, but it’s her eyes—they’re purple, like glowing purple, nothing like I’ve seen before.
When I saw a vision of her, she had Ziven’s eyes, but something changed.
There’s a mark in the middle of her chest: a sun and moon with four stars pointed around them.
Ziven has a army of people searching every book for this marking because no one knows it.
Ziven even let Daegan come and see Wren, to see the mark, and he didn’t know either.
Mazzis has made it his mission in life to find an answer, and I’m grateful so many people are trying to find answers.
Being both her parents were heavily marked with dragons, the healer said it must be a gift, but Ziv claimed she is god-touched in private.
He and I know what that means, but we won’t tell anyone else.
I told him about everything, about the deal I made, but we both know the Deities can be cruel, and whatever fate she has, she will not fight it alone.
We will love Wren, cherish her, through every part of her future. “Come mate,”
Ziven whispers so quietly, not daring to wake Wren up. When I lift my eyes from our daughter, I find him smiling at me. “You should still be resting.”
“All I’ve done is rest, and it’s just—I need to start walking around a little.”
I speak back into his mind. I know he can feel how tired I am, how my body still hurts. He pats his knee. I roll my eyes and walk over. It hurts to sit down, but he pulls me against him and continues rocking the chair as I stretch my legs out and touch our little daughter’s tiny hands under the blanket of stars that watch over us. The moon is shining light down on us, as we don’t say a word for a long time.
“Hettie’s in love with her new sister.”
Ziven murmurs into my mind. “She wants another sibling.”
I struggle to not laugh and shake my head. Ever since I told him about the vision, he wants to meet both our children one day. “One day and I will miss Hettie. I’m sure Wren will too.”
Hettie’s traveling with Daegan back to the castle tomorrow. “It’s good that the people of the Sun Dynasty see their princess as often as they do on the moon. But a part of me will never fully trust him. Is that wrong?”
“No. Part of me thinks that it’s his redemption by bringing her up alongside us. I trust that Hettie is smart enough to know better. Plus, her new royal guard is going with her.”
Ziven’s voice is smug. The new guard is a massive fae male, with fire bending powers and a mean right hook. Ziven was sparing with him from the moment he showed up with his young nephew and asked to join the moon dynasty. Ziven asked him to be Hettie’s guard only a few weeks later, and he has fell into the job like it was born for him.
“Yes, he is actually quite terrifying until his little nephew is around.”
I say back.
Ziven hums. “It will be strange to have the house full of children, with Calix’s baby coming in only a few months. The healer said she thinks it’s twins.”
“Deities help them.”
I smile, imaging the twins. They will be stunning with Avaluna and Calix’s genes. Ziven gives me a smile, and it’s so relaxed. Not a smile that I think I’ll ever get used to. But I love it. I love every inch of this life we fought for and won. At some point I must have fallen asleep because when I wake up, I’m in the bed, and Ziv and Wren are missing. There’s a note on the pillow:
Gone to the sea for a walk. Come join us if you’re well enough. If not, we’ll be back soon. Z.
I smile at the note and decide this is the morning I’m getting up and leaving this room. There’s a knock at the door the second I push the blanket back. “Come in!”
My mum looks in. “Morning. I saw Ziven down the beach with the baby, so I assumed you might want some breakfast before you go after them. I was never good at resting after birth and I suspected you’d be the same, Story.”
“You know we do have people for that,”
I tell her.
We’ve hired people to work in the castle and I’m never going to get used to letting them do things for us.
Ziven pays them a lot, and it’s become a very desired job to work for us.
Ziven’s family hid gold everywhere and protected it too, so it was all there when Ziven went hunting.
The Sun Dynasty didn’t have the same, but after the war, we don’t have slaves anymore and that is the law everywhere.
Fae are hired, they are paid, and they can leave whenever they wish.
Including the people that Ziv hand-picked himself with me to work in this castle. The Moon Dynasty, the people that are left, all live here as well.
“Yes, but...”
She holds the breakfast tray out.
“I took the breakfast from them this morning and ran away before they could catch me. They were actually pretty mad about it. I think they were desperate to see the royal baby, unaware that the baby’s not in here.”
“She’s a princess of the Moon Dynasty, and she’s a little different.”
I shrug a shoulder. “And no one in this castle isn’t trusted. Ziven made sure of it.”
“Different but perfect. I’ll have no one say any different.”
She comes over and sits in a dark orange dress that brings out the red of her hair, even with the grey strands sneaking it. She looks happy, happier than I ever saw her. The dawn dynasty, Mazzis, is good for my mother. Sometimes I look at her and don’t know how I managed to get so lucky. “I wanted to ask you something. For Wren.”
She sighs. “Mazzis and I do not have heirs, and one day, we will leave this world. We would like to name Wren our heir. Hettie will rule the sun and moon, and the Dawn will be left somewhere in the middle.”
She touches my hand. “You do not have to answer now, only know it is our wish. Whatever our future is, Wren will shall have us supporting her, too.”
It’s not something I had considered until now. I’ll have to speak to Ziven about it before anyone else. “Thank you for the breakfast and I’ll think about it.”
“Love you,”
she kisses my cheek before leaving the room.
I quickly eat the delicious fruit and pancakes that have been made for me before going to have a shower.
My body still hurts, but I know that I can walk to the beach.
It’s only a short walk through the castle and down fifty odd steps that are going to hurt.
The castle is still being built.
Half of it is still a mess, but the half that we live in is completely done.
We have several lounge rooms, an enormous kitchen and many bedrooms.
We have training rooms that are still being built, and formal rooms, but the living quarters are done.
I head down the dark blue stairs, decorated with silver stars, saying hello to everybody on the way before getting out straight onto the path to the beach.
It’s only a three-minute walk before I find them.
Ziven is sitting in the sea, which surprises me a little, but he’s holding our daughter in his arms.
She isn’t in the water and I’m thankful for that because it’s too cold this time of year. When I get closer, I pause because the water is rising out of the sea in small little bubbles and they’re hovering around Ziven in the air.
“Are you doing that?”
I whisper, not wanting to wake Wren up. When I get there, I see her eyes are open and she’s smiling. I didn’t even know babies could smile this early. I can’t help but grin back at her, but as I look at the bubbles of water that start floating around me and touch one—"This is her, isn’t it?"
“Yes. Apparently, she has control over water.”
Ziven proudly murmurs. “She will be able to drown anyone who looks at her wrong. I couldn’t be happier.”
“She’s a baby!”
I hiss and Ziven winks at me. “But it is interesting, because I don’t believe anybody has had control over water. Shadows, yes, light from the sun that could manifest as fire, yes, but I didn’t read about water.”
I kneel in the sea at his side, and he hands her to me. I breathe in her scent and hold her close to me as waves lap around my body. Ziven kisses the side of my head. “God touched.”
A dragon roar makes both our heads snap up when we look to the distance, to the edge of the sea where the sun is setting in shades of dark orange.
I can just make out a red dragon flying high in the clouds, with small little dragons behind her, all their scales red and glittering.
My smile widens and I feel Maeve inside my heart, my chest.
She doesn’t speak to me, not now, but she doesn’t need to.
I just know. Wherever we are in this world, we’ll never be far apart.
Because she is my dragon, and I am forever her rider.