Epilogue
T he Queen of the Jinn chases a fire rabbit through the cosmos. She laughs—closer, closer, closer. Her warriors trail behind, giving her the space to hunt. Blood is on the way. She can smell it. Rich and warm.
Delhi shifts into a solid being as she runs—her favourite form. Soft lilac hair. Milky eyes with no pupil and no iris. Iridescent skin. Thirteen delicate, almost transparent, turquoise wings with golden veins running through them sprout from her back.
Several chunks have been ripped out from years past. Battle scars. The mark of a warrior. She wears them proudly. Her mouth opens wide, baring sixty sharp, pointy, layered teeth. Her serrated lavender claws tear through skin as she pounces on the fire rabbit, ready to rip it to shreds.
But then a wild, guttural scream leaves her lips. Delhi falls to the ground leaving trails of blood across her naked breasts as she tears her own claws down her chest.
Strong bodies encircle her as her warriors pull out their weapons, searching for whichever culprit would dare hurt their queen. The fire rabbit runs faster, getting away. For once, Delhi lets it.
She tips her head up to the cluster of stars above her and howls.
Her favourite lover, her most trusted fighter, breaks away from the circle and falls to his knees before her, his head tipped down—he knows better than to touch her unprovoked.
“My Queen,” he whispers, “tell me what hurts you so I can annihilate it.”
Wild milky eyes pierce into his purple ones, fashioned after her best-loved pigment, as she snarls. He edges back, just a little.
“Dae is dead,” she says, clutching her womb.
Her lover stands and says to the others, “Ready the beasts for Faerieland.”
“No,” Delhi grabs his calf with a strength that makes him wince. “We go to Vendelin, to Dabria. There’s an old debt to be paid. Then, Dae will show his killer what true darkness is, and they will pray for the oblivion they denied him.”