Epilogue
We have to stop meeting like this,” Cyrus said, his voice gently calling me back from the abyss.
I blinked my eyes open to see him sitting beside me on our bed at home, and I would have thought it had all been a crazy dream except for how he looked.
“Oh,” I said, sitting up and reaching for him, only to fall back against the bed, wincing. “Oh.”
“Yes, the healer is very upset with you,” he informed me, as if he didn’t look worse.
“What...” I gestured at the absolute mess that was his usually handsome face, which was lacerated all to hell, what parts weren’t a giant, swollen bruise.
“It’s something to do with the potion those bastards gave me,” he said, “to keep me from Changing. It also shuts down most of our healing processes. It should wear off by the end of the day, and I’ll go furry and deal with this.”
I felt myself relax slightly.
And then I remembered—the arena. My students. My boys—
“No, no, no,” Cyrus said, as I jerked upright. “It’s all right. They’re all right.”
“How? What—”
“You passed out,” he told me, his hands on my shoulders. “Your third did not. And we mopped the hell up afterward. Noah brought the entire crew from Wolf’s Head, where they seem to have been influenced by Sienna’s new militaristic mindset—”
“You think?” I said hoarsely, remembering an acid-spewing fire truck.
“—and Lee jacked a weapon she’d talked the Circle out of recently, for the place’s defenses, which the Corps was very unhappy about before seeing the use he’d put to it. That seems to have mollified them somewhat.”
Yeah.
I’d hope so.
I felt dizzy, and he put a couple of pillows behind me to make sitting up more comfortable.
“We also have the problem of the car Jen and Sophie stole, took to the house to pick up the rest of your students, and followed you into the desert, not choosing to wait for Sebastian.”
I blinked. “They can drive?”
“No.” He eyed me. “Our children are hooligans.”
“I blame you,” I said, before I realized what else he’d said. “Sebastian came?”
“Everyone came. It turns out that setting off a God-Killer resonates through the magical atmosphere like a nuke going off. The Circle arrived with everything they had, only to find that Sebastian had beaten them there, having been alerted by Sophie.”
“She had her leopard follow me,” I said, remembering.
“Yes, it seems it can daywalk now, albeit with difficulty, something we’re not mentioning to the Circle.”
“Got it.”
“And by the time you were taken, she’d already alerted Sebastian, who had rallied the troops and was on the way, as well as the clan out at Wolf’s Head.
But the clan was closer, and everything happened so fast that he and the Corps arrived to find the battle already over, with the Black Circle dead or fled, or trussed up in a few cases for the Corps to question. ”
“And the leader? The council member who kidnapped Sebastian?”
Cyrus shook his head. “No, we didn’t find him—and we looked. There is a large underground complex, and he and some others may have escaped that way, if there are other exits.”
“If?”
“The Corps is still trying to get down there. It’s a labyrinth and a well-warded one, with booby traps everywhere. They say it could take weeks, if not longer, to fully explore. But they’re hopeful that the attack has crippled the organization, at least for a while.”
Yeah, I hoped so, too. And I wasn’t surprised about the leader. A quick fade was his specialty, although I couldn’t feel too bad about it this time.
We wouldn’t have won without him.
Or without the rebel clans.
“Rand, and the others—”
He nodded. “Things have changed a bit since you’ve been out. They aren’t perfect—they are very far from perfect—but the rift in the clans has been healed.”
“They view you as Alpha,” I said, remembering. “And you’re loyal to Sebastian. So they have to be, too.”
“Their thirds may view it like that,” Cyrus said dryly, “but their human sides most definitely do not. I think they’re back on board mainly because of you.”
“Me? They were baying for my blood!”
“Not by the end. Under your guidance, they fought like no one ever has, not in memory. They came together as one, and united, we were powerful. Enough to take out an entire dark mage stronghold alone, without the Corps’ help, without anyone’s.
Magic didn’t stand against us; nothing did.
Those who never thought that Weres could have parity with the mages think that no longer, and Sebastian is suddenly fielding demands for more involvement in supernatural politics, not less.
As well as calls for us to take our place as a leading voice in the war and whatever comes afterward. ”
I took a moment, trying to comprehend that.
I failed.
“But doesn’t that violate tradition?”
He smiled slightly. “It seems the tradition is suddenly less important when there’s the possibility of power, glory, and reward on the line.”
Imagine that.
“Oh, and Dave asked me to give you a message,” he added, “about Neuri.”
“They found more of the potion?” I said, sitting up some more. “The leader didn’t have any—”
“And neither do we, so it appears to be gone for good. There may be a few vials left somewhere, but no one is too hopeful. Potions have a shelf life, and the kind used to get people high doesn’t last long on the street.
However, the Guardians are going to examine the differences in the blood taken from Relics against that of regular Weres, and see if it lends any clues. Dave already has theories—”
“Like what?”
“Like the rumor making the rounds, from info the vamps acquired, that Weres, vamps, and assorted other species were engineered by the gods to serve as their armies, back when they were constantly fighting each other. But those who proved powerful enough to worry even a deity had weaknesses deliberately added into the mix to make them less of a threat: wood and sunlight for vamps—”
“And Neuri for us?”
“That’s the theory. It might also explain why our captains died out.”
“What?”
He nodded. “Sophie told me what Bleddyn said, about the gods wanting to weaken us by denying us magic. If the captain gene was carried on our magical bloodlines, then it would have died out over time, too, as Neuri made it impossible for those who carried it to Change.”
“And caused us to attack and kill the very people making us strongest,” I said blankly.
“Never say the gods didn’t have a sense of humor,” he agreed. “In any case, Relics don’t suffer from Neuri, as they predate its introduction, so perhaps in time, we can figure out how to make sure that no one else does, either.”
“I can donate,” I began, but stopped at the look I was getting.
“You can’t spare any more blood. Not for quite a while. You managed to get stabbed in the guts again—”
I frowned, not remembering—oh, yeah. In the fight at the Pythia’s court. That damned redhead in the kitchen.
I hoped he felt as hungover as I did.
“—and then decided to make an epic run across the desert to take on the entire Black Circle by yourself!”
“Well. Not by myself.”
“Lia,” he said, but it wasn’t the ‘let’s fight’ voice I’d expected.
It also wasn’t the casual, deliberately calm tones of a moment ago.
It was raw and broken, and the arms that enveloped me were suddenly trembling, almost as much as mine were.
I held him close, hugged him hard, and couldn’t believe it was over.
In fact, I didn’t believe it, because I still didn’t understand so much.
But this wasn’t the time to worry about it.
This was the time to raise the covers, so that Cyrus could crawl into bed with me.
And could spoon me close against his body, as if he couldn’t get enough contact to reassure himself that I was really there.
It felt almost desperate for a moment, and then it felt good, warm and familiar and right.
I thought about my counterpart, and her loss, about the man who would never come home to her.
I wondered who she had been really, because my wolf was still me, if a more savage version.
And I did not think the Relic I had been partnering with had been me, any more than the spirit Bleddyn had carried had been him.
I remembered Dave saying, “Many native beliefs incorporate the idea of certain spirits of the dead returning to the human world either as beneficial, protective forces or as the opposite. Some, it is believed, are reborn into new bodies as rewards for a life well lived, while others return to defend it from malignant spirits who wish to harm it.”
Yeah, I thought. That was probably as close as we were going to get. I just hoped she’d found her peace, now, too, whoever she was, and hugged Cyrus tighter.
I hoped that a lot.
◆◆◆
“I hate this monkey suit,” Lee said, pulling at his neck.
“You undo that tie once more, and you can tie it back yourself,” Andy told him.
“I can’t breathe, man, and anyway, I can’t tie it back.” Lee held up his arm, which he had in a fashionable black silk sling.
“Oh, milk it some more,” Noah said, limping past.
“You’re just pissy you didn’t get to fight,” Lee said smugly.
“I got to fight! Who do you think was driving the garbage truck?”
“That’s driving, not fighting.”
“I ran down, like, ten Black Circle mages!”
“So that’s bad driving, then.”
“Here,” I said, coming up with a bag from the shop downstairs. And putting a clip-on tie in place of the one Lee couldn’t abide. Unfortunately, he was feeling excited, so it abruptly changed from a nice, glossy black to a bright, canary-yellow.
I sighed.
“I like it,” he told me. “Now I just need something red.”
“Here,” Sophie said, pulling a rose off one of the gorgeous arrangements Dante’s had provided, and probably put on Sebastian’s tab, for the occasion. She went up on tiptoe to fix it to Lee’s lapel and smiled. “Now you look fancy.”
“I’d rather look tough.”
She pulled his head down and kissed him on the forehead. “You’re plenty tough.”
And I swear, I saw him blush.
“Okay,” Cyrus said, coming in the same little antechamber we’d waited in before. “We’re gonna try this again.”
“Second verse same as the first?” Andy asked.
“God, I hope not. Now line up—you’re all going in together.”
“No more auxs,” Sophie said with satisfaction, and got her sequined butt in line.
Everybody jostled together in no particular order, because it didn’t matter anymore. And then Ulmer rushed in, his arms full of something that shimmered scarlet under the lights and was banded by heavy gold braid. “Here. Everybody else has already got theirs.”
“What is it?” I asked after being handed something that looked like it should adorn a Miss Nevada. A very tacky one.
“It’s a sash, smart ass. You wear it over one shoulder.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean, why?” Ulmer glared at me, and not his patented, ‘I’m over this shit’ look he wore all the time. He was putting some oomph behind it.
“I mean, is anyone else going to be wearing this?”
“I should damned well hope not! Unless you know some other clan being presented tonight that defeated the whole damned Black Circle—”
“The local branch.”
“—and did it with a bunch of tatted together crap that I’m surprised could even move—”
“Hey!” Noah said.
“—and with a bunch of goddamned ex-vargulfs, half of which are toothless, sightless, and hard of hearing—”
“And badass,” I said with the wolf in my voice.
And surprisingly, the old bastard’s face softened.
“And badass,” he agreed. “The greatest bunch of unlikely warriors we’ve seen in.
.. my recollection. This clan you two have somehow hobbled together from spit and baling wire will go down in Were legend.
Hell, after the last month, it’s already there! ”
I stared at him, speechless for a moment. Ulmer didn’t give compliments. I hadn’t thought he knew what they were.
“Not legend,” Cyrus said. “Legends are for the past. This is about the future.”
“To the future!” Several voices echoed, and Ulmer glanced around approvingly. He always liked it when a clan listened to their chieftain.
“Yes, but that doesn’t explain what this is,” I pointed out, holding up the sash.
Ulmer’s face went back to its habitual annoyance. “It’s a mark of honor! How many of these meetings have you been to?”
“One, and it was a little... fraught.”
He rolled his eyes. “Just put the damned thing on.”
And then he bustled out, fighting to get through the crowd in the hallway outside. I put the damned thing on. And then put a hand on Jace’s shoulder.
“You okay?” I asked, bending closer.
“Yeah.”
“Sure?”
He shot me a look. “You know, after the last couple weeks, the council doesn’t look so scary anymore.”
“Heard that,” Chayton said.
“They’re lucky we even bothered to show up to their little party after last time,” Luis added.
I peered out of the hall to where hundreds upon hundreds of people, many of them still bearing the signs of battle, but done up in their new finery, were patiently waiting.
They had their sashes on, and I saw one woman fingering it with an expression of awe on her face.
Others stood a little taller and smiled a little easier than I’d ever seen them do.
Nobody looked even slightly nervous, and why the hell should they?
They were the biggest badasses in this place.
“The Fireborn,” the herald’s magically enhanced voice rang out.
“Shall we?” Cyrus said, extending his arm.
I took it. And together, we swept into Dante’s biggest ballroom, along with all eight hundred clan members. And into our future.