Chapter 54
Everly
The battle was over before the sun crested the horizon. It bathed the palace in a crimson glow, a reflection of the blood that ran red on the ground.
I had expected it to go out with a bang, a moment of silence that transcended the land, or a cry of celebration, something. But it was just, finally, quietly over.
A decade’s worth of torment and uncertainty and slaughter and chaos, ended with the high-pitched scream of the final Wretch that had refused to flee, dying at the hands of an ordinary footsoldier.
Even then, over was a stretch. We would have to send out patrols to hunt the rest of the monsters down. Even if they were behaving more like the typical predators that always had and always would haunt the land, there were still far too many of them right now.
And we would have to burn our dead.
Draven pressed his lips against my forehead. The swell of our thoughts and feelings mingled until I could hardly pick them apart, a convoluted concoction of relief and loss and shock and devastation.
I stayed there for as long as I could, trying to soak in the warmth he always seemed to possess, steadying myself in his strength before I finally stepped away to survey the… damages.
The scene was even more gruesome in the sunlight.
Half-eaten bodies lay scattered across the courtyard, limbs torn clean from joints, some frozen mid-reach as if clawing toward safety they never reached.
Snow was churned into muddy banks streaked with blood and black monster tar, the thick, clinging substance still bubbling faintly where it had spilled from ruptured Korythid carcasses.
The creatures themselves sprawled like waking nightmares.
Hulking bodies split open, hooked legs curled inward, mandibles cracked from battle.
Frost clung to entrails and shattered armor pieces, and the metallic scent of blood hung heavy in the frigid air.
Healers stepped around grisly remains with hushed murmurs, their boots leaving dark red prints behind them.
Except my sister, of course, who had never used a hushed murmur in her entire life.
“So help me Shard Mother, I will finish the hideous spider monster’s job if you don’t sit still and let me clean that wound.” Her voice rang out halfway across the field as she wrapped a bandage around the stump where Eryx’s hand used to be.
Draven’s hand clenched around mine when he caught sight of his Lord General, and I squeezed it in return.
I knew, technically speaking, that we had won today, against the monsters, against the neverending war itself. But looking at the bodies strewn across the field of the dying and the dead, it didn’t feel quite like victory.
This is the only kind of victory to be had in war, Morta Mea. His tone was one of quiet understanding, of shared grief. He, too, had lost his parents to a war.
And today, hundreds of soldiers under his command.
I know. I just…
I know.
He pulled me in closer just as the soft beat of wings sounded overhead. I looked up in time to see Zerina’s shadow descend, the Skaldwing herself landing several feet in front of us.
She didn’t speak right away, only flexed her jaw as she looked from me to the male who had slaughtered her husband. Then she held out her hand wordlessly, fist closed.
I reached out uncertainly, and she dropped a ring into my waiting palm.
My mother’s ring.
Tears pricked at the backs of my eyes. I knew. I knew that she was dead, had seen her body hurtling toward the ground, covered by fire, but somehow… I had still wanted to hope.
“Thank you,” I rasped out.
She gave a terse dip of her chin. “You’re welcome… Thane Everly.”
I blinked rapidly, her words coming through a fog. My uncle was dead. And my mother…
My mother was dead. I was the last heir to the Dragon, and the Thane of the Shadow Clan.
“No.” I spoke the word aloud before I could even think it, but I had no desire to take the denial back.
There are still portals, Draven reminded me. You don’t have to choose just one.
I know that, I assured him. But I also know what I want.
I might have been of both worlds, but my family in the Wilds was dead. My life was here, and I wouldn’t be an absentee ruler to people who needed a real leader, just to hold onto a title and tradition I had never wanted to begin with.
“I think…” I met Zerina’s gaze, watching the shadows that crossed her fierce features.
Though our relationship had been rocky at best, she had come alone to find me in enemy territory when she believed that I was in danger.
Then she had hated me, but she had stayed to fight today, long after my mother had fallen. And now she was here, bringing me the last piece of the family I had lost.
She knew loss, understood it on a deeper, more intrinsic level than most people would ever come to know in their lives. But she also knew loyalty, and for better or worse, she knew the price of war.
“My place is here now,” I explained. “So… take care of them, Thane Zerina. Let’s both try to be the people Alaric believed that we could be.”
Her lips parted, and she gave me a deep nod. Then she took off into the sky, calling for the Skaldwings to follow.
She didn’t look at Draven, but then, I didn’t expect her to. All of the old wounds we had gouged into each other’s kingdoms would take more than a single battle to heal.
It was enough that they didn’t try to kill each other for a change. I clutched my mother’s ring in my hand, continuing toward the palace.
The Unseelie were politely removed, though not outright hostile, but the soldiers and villagers who had emerged to help with the wounded all bowed deeply as we passed. Which felt strange when we were both still covered in blood and monster tar.
I felt nothing at all like a queen.
I just felt like an exhausted fae who needed a shower and a very long nap and perhaps a bottle of whiskey to chase away the images of a falling, charred body that chased me every time I closed my eyes.
My limbs shook as I mounted the steps to the palace, Draven half-dragging me up the stairs.
Since I had poured my mana into the earth, I could feel the way we were all connected now.
Me, Draven, the land, all drawing from the same river of power for the Winter mana.
Though Draven hadn’t precisely returned what he took, neither had the land stolen mana from me as much as it had used the temporary influx to restore the balance of Winter.
But since the land needed that power the most right now, neither Draven nor I had replenished our stores. My husband couldn’t even icewalk us back to the palace. At this rate, he might even have to open the door by hand, if he knew how to work a doorknob.
I heard that.
A ghost of a smile tilted my lips. That wasn’t an answer.
Before he could respond, I heard the telltale tapping of a staff against the frozen ground.
Nevara.
I hadn’t seen her since the battle, but I should have guessed that she would find us before we could find her.
Maybe I would have considered that if there wasn’t some faraway piece of me that wasn’t quite ready to face her yet…
which was ridiculous after the weeks I had spent begging her to wake up.
Still, I forced myself to spin toward her.
Like the rest of us, she was coated in blood and blackened bits of monster, covered in scrapes and blossoming bruises that were evident under the ripped fabric of her gown. The braids Mirelda had artfully arranged were half undone, falling haphazardly into her face.
Her starlit eyes were still, her ethereal features calm, but there was a tightness in her shoulders, evident even beneath the weariness tugging at her, like she knew exactly how hard it had been for me to turn around.
“Soren?” I asked, for lack of something better to say.
“Lady Noerwyn has put him to work, cauterizing wounds.”
Faint amusement emanated from Draven at my side, but I couldn’t find it in me to react to that at all, so fixed on the still faintly-shimmering form before me.
What was I supposed to say?
Thank you for saving the day, saving me and my husband, even though I know you probably saw that I would be an orphan by the time this was done?
I squeezed my eyes shut, taking in a breath.
“Was this it?” I asked quietly. “The only way you could See?”
She nodded sadly, and I shook my head.
What would I have done in her place?
None of it was fair, the impossible choices she had been given, a role and a vow that had been forced on her before she understood how they would weigh on her soul.
I reached out to take her blood-covered hand in mine.
“Thank you. For waking up to save us.”
Her mouth pressed into a thin line, like she heard everything I hadn’t said. “I couldn’t save everyone.”
I let out a huff of air. “It’s not your job to save everyone, Nevara. We all do the best we can with the choices we’re given.”
Her lips parted, and I wondered if anyone had ever said that to her before, had ever absolved her of the responsibility that had been carelessly thrust on the shoulders of a child.
She looked down at our joined hands, trembling faintly, as if the truth was something she’d been waiting her whole life to be granted permission to believe.
And as the silence stretched, I felt the words circle back like a blade turned inward.
Because it was true of me, and all the lies I had told. True of Draven, and the carnage he had wrought. True of the wreckage we’d carved through this frozen kingdom with our mistakes, our desperation, our love, our fear, our hatred, and somewhere buried deeper, our hope.
So many pieces of ourselves had been bargained away or shattered entirely just to survive long enough to stand here.
And still, I knew… we had done the best we could with the choices we were given, the best anyone could have expected of us.
I only hoped that someday it would feel like enough.