EPILOGUE
I stood on the wall of our house, wrapped in a shawl against the night chill. I’d never appreciated shawls until I came to Rellas. They were soft, warm, and comfy. A hoodie would’ve been better, but shawls held their own.
All three moons were out, and the river surface glowed slightly, reflecting their light, like polished black glass.
The sound of celebration came floating up from our kitchen.
Matheo and the Sun Margrave had survived.
We had stopped a disaster from coming. Hreban was behind bars and Silveren was hopefully dead.
The future had to change this time. It had to.
I had told Shana that we should celebrate while we could.
Kair Toren was celebrating as well. Sauven had opened the royal cellars to commemorate the new victory.
Tonight would be a night of free ale and mead, courtesy of the Eagle Roost. The population was disturbed, and this would go a long way to calming things down.
The Savarics had sat on the throne for over three hundred years. They knew how to keep it.
I had tried to enjoy our little feast, but at some point, it became too much, so I excused myself, grabbed my lantern, and came out on the wall for a few minutes of quiet.
I missed Ramond.
It was the worst feeling. I knew better than to trust him, but I wanted him here with me.
I’d had to let go of him on that bridge because the fight was still raging.
He had gone back into the slaughter, and I had run to the tower and stayed there, until the last of the battle died down and the people of the Justice Chamber came to fetch us.
They took me, the Magnars, and Matheo to our house.
Later in the day, Avaria delivered a message from the Shears. Solentine and Rumian were fine. The dursans were dead, order was restored, and Silveren’s body had disappeared.
That last one sent a shiver down my spine every time I thought about it. I had stabbed him at least four times. Surely he was dead.
Someone ran up the steps. I turned and saw Matheo. He was tall for fifteen, but still slender rather than lean. His face had traces of Reynald’s hard features, but his expression was completely different. His light eyes were bright and hopeful.
He grinned at me. It was a beautiful contagious smile, and I grinned back.
“I found you,” he said.
“You did.”
He came to lean on the wall next to me.
“When did you first start keeping an eye on me?” I asked.
“About five weeks ago. Up until then, I mostly saw Ulmar Hreban. I didn’t know why. I can’t always control my visions. Sometimes they come unbidden.”
“Like sparks from a fire.” That’s how he had described it in the books.
“Yes, like that. The spark glows, and I catch a glimpse. Sometimes I see what I am seeking. Sometimes I see something different. I saw my father die.”
Oh.
“I saw Hreban cutting off someone’s hands. I think he was a thief. I saw Lord Everard riding. And then I started seeing you. At first only hints, then more and more.”
“I did my best,” I told him. “I am sorry I wasn’t in time to help your father.”
“It’s not your fault. You weren’t here. You saved me instead. He would be grateful.”
Matheo unsheathed his sword and showed it to me. He carried Reynald’s blade.
“When did you get this?”
“His Grace left it with the Sun Margrave. There was a note with it. It said that my father carried this sword with honor, and I had to strive to be worthy of it. I carried it with me into that battle. It tasted dursan blood.”
He smiled at me.
Fifteen-year-olds. They thought they were immortal.
“I think my father would be proud.”
“He would be. You didn’t run. You performed your duty with honor. What will you do now, Matheo?”
“I will become a knight of Selva.”
“Is that what you truly want?”
He nodded. His face turned somber. In that moment he was a mirror of Reynald, hard and slightly mournful. He looked like a boy with two dead parents who had been abducted by slavers, sold to a knight order, and then had to pretend to be content and dutiful to survive.
“My father trusted His Grace,” Matheo said quietly.
“When he was backed into a corner, he went to ask him for help because of a promise made over a decade ago, and Everard honored it. I want to know what kind of person he is for my father to have trusted him that much. I will learn from him and if his cause stops being just, I will find someone else to follow. But right now, he has my loyalty.”
He reached into his jerkin and handed me a small velvet pouch. “He left this with the sword for you.”
I took the pouch. “Thank you.”
“I’m going downstairs to get some pastries.”
And that was the perfect teenager for you. I will devote my life to the Sleepless Duke, but first I will get some pastries.
“I’ll be right behind you.”
He nodded and ran down the stairs.
I opened the pouch. There was a note inside and something else. Something metal. I held the note to the lantern and unfolded it. On it, in Everard’s strong hand, was a single sentence:
I’ll see you tonight.
Right. With Sauven’s guards watching his house like they thought it would catch on fire any second. I seriously doubted it.
I put the paper down, reached into the pouch, and pulled the metal thing out.
A beautiful hair ornament with three simple white flowers.
They looked like little forget-me-nots, with five petals and a tiny spark of a golden gem in the center.
Around the flowers, slender silver branches held small triangular leaves.
Each leaf was a bright breathtaking green crossed by bands and swirls of darker and lighter shades . . .
I almost dropped it. This was the hair clip Ramond’s father gave his mother on the day of their engagement.
The flowers were cut from the white opal that was a sister to the one in Selva’s crown and the leaves were malachite from the throne in Wilkair.
It looked simple, but it was anything but.
I was holding a priceless treasure passed down through the Everard Family.
A crown meant to go into the hair of Selva’s duchess.
That fool. That epic fool.
He couldn’t possibly mean it. It would be ridiculous. And he was coming here tonight. What the hell was I going to do?
I would have to give it back to him. That was the only . . .
A soft melody made me pause. It floated around me, suffused with magic, enchanting, seducing, captivating, like a soft mirage that faded in and out of existence. The male voice that sang it curled around me, caressing my skin.
Ice drenched me.
I turned. Clover stood at the edge of the wall. She held very still, and her eyes were oddly blank.
Silveren stepped out from behind her. He was walking on his own. He didn’t seem pale or injured. His eyes were cold and vicious.
How?
“Hello, Mother,” he said.
Fuck me.
I took a step back.
He hummed, and Clover stepped onto the stone rail bordering the wall.
I froze.
“Good call,” he said. “What’s in your hand?”
I made my mouth move. “A hair ornament.”
“Show me.”
I raised my hand.
“I like it,” he said. “Put it in your hair.”
I slipped the flowers into my hair, locking them in place.
“Lovely.”
“How are you alive?”
“No thanks to you, clearly.”
He flicked his fingers. A big dursan plunged down and landed on the wall, straddling it.
“Get on the dursan, or I will sing her off the wall,” he said.
All the advice I’d ever heard about being assaulted started with “Do not let yourself be transported to another location.”
“I can just jump off the wall instead and save you the trouble,” I offered. “It’s a long fall, and I’ll break my neck.” I would survive it.
“Where would be the fun in that?” He hummed a note.
Clover tilted forward, one foot over the edge.
“If you jump, she will join you. If you break my hold on her, like you’ve done with your guard, she will lose her balance and plummet.”
I jerked my hands up. “I’ll come with you. I won’t fight or try to escape. Please make her step back to safety.”
If I told him to let her go, he could drop her over the wall for laughs.
Silveren hummed again. Clover stepped back off the wall like a living doll. His Exultant Call was way more powerful than his father’s ever was.
He nodded at the dursan.
I took a step toward it. The huge beast held still. I took two more steps and hesitated. “I don’t know how . . .”
Somehow, he was behind me. His arms gripped me. The dursan ducked. Silveren stepped onto its forepaw and lifted me onto its back, into a long saddle. He pulled himself up and slid into the saddle behind me.
“Hold here.” He reached around me and gripped a wooden handle thrusting from the front of the saddle. “We wouldn’t want you to fall. It’s a long way down, and we still have things to discuss.”
I took the handle. He locked his arm around my waist and sang a soft note. The dursan shot into the night. The cold air rushed at me. I caught a glimpse of Clover staring at us open-mouthed, and then we were flying up and over the river toward the ocean.
The future always had the last laugh.