Epilogue #2
“Hmph.” She huffs softly. “I thought you had more sense than that, girl. Of course I am not fond of you. You do not undo centuries of history for one freckle-faced human, no matter how valiant…” My chin lifts. “…or how stupid,” it drops just as quickly, “…she might be.”
Atilia exhales, and then her finger comes beneath my chin, lifting it until I am forced to meet her gaze. For once, there is no annoyance there.
“If things were different, you and I might have gotten along just fine, Neve. I could have watched you and Luceran flourish and bloom.” Her gaze drifts to the window, to where the snow retreats and bright green shoots push through the dark soil. “Just as Brunemar is doing now.”
She looks back at me, something firm settling into her expression.
“But this world is not so kind. So go. Run. Find happiness where you can, while you can.”
I swallow hard, my shoulders shivering though no trace of cold lingers around me. “Do you think they will come looking for us?” I ask.
Something like a smile touches the corner of her mouth.
“Perhaps. But that is not what I mean.” Her gaze sharpens. “Luceran is Fae. Immortal. His years stretch long.” She pauses, letting the truth settle before speaking again. “You are not, Neve, and if you find the happiness you both crave, you will discover just how quickly those years pass.”
Her voice softens, almost unbearably so.
“So go. Now, and cherish all the time you have.”
I want that to be the end of it. I know it should be. My head understands her warning, knows I should take it and leave well enough alone.
But my mouth betrays me.
“The Aurevault,” I say softly, barely more than a breath. “The miners. Even with the demon gone, that place is still…” I falter, searching for words that feel inadequate even as they leave me. “It is cruel, and some of them do not deserve…”
Atilia’s fingers tighten around my chin, the touch no longer gentle, silencing me at once.
“The world turns so slowly that we do not feel it shift,” she says. “The humans will have their day. I feel that deep in my bones, and when that day comes, the Fae will not know it is upon us until the ground gives way beneath our feet.”
Her gaze settles on me, distant now, as though she is already looking beyond this moment.
“Now, for the last time, go.”
She releases my chin, and I do not linger. I step backward, never breaking her gaze, until my spine meets the solid warmth of Luceran’s chest.
“Are you ready?” he asks.
“Yes.” I reach for his forearm, my fingers digging into his skin as Atilia’s words echo through my thoughts. “I’m ready.”
I go to the library first.
I pull my favorite books free one by one and toss them into the air. Mink and Fitz shriek, darting and tumbling as they catch each book mid-flight, their arms filling until they can carry no more.
Luceran watches from the doorway. His lips move as he counts.
I stop at a dozen, just as his patience thins.
We go upstairs next. I fold a small selection of clothes into a case, while Mink and Fitz drop the books carefully on top. I latch it shut with a decisive click, then drag it into the hall where Luceran waits.
He takes the weight from my hands without comment.
Around us, ice continues to melt along the walls, water dripping onto stone in a slow, echoing rhythm that fills the castle.
Together we descend the stairs, crossing the foyer one last time.
When he pulls open the great doors, we are not met with biting cold, but with dappled sunlight spilling across the steps.
The carriage waits at the base of the stairs, horses stamping and snorting, eager to run.
We make it halfway down before I realize a presence I have come to cherish is missing.
I turn back just as Luceran opens the carriage door and puts my case inside.
The castle doors remain slightly ajar, and in their shadow stand Mink and Fitz. They cling to the darkness, though each time I catch a glimpse of their faces, they are staring toward the sun with a mixture of wonder and dread.
“Can they not leave the castle?” I ask softly.
Luceran’s gaze sharpens on them. “They are afraid they will melt,” he says. “Like everything else.”
My eyes widen. “Will they?”
He grins, clearly amused by my concern, and I frown at him in response.
“I still carry winter with me,” he says. He opens his palm, and frost blooms there, a whirl of wind and ice spinning to life, cold and luminous. He purses his lips and exhales gently.
The magic surges forward.
Mink and Fitz squeal, scrambling to escape, but the spell closes around them, drawing them inward. In a blink, they are sealed inside a transparent orb, their tiny forms spinning as it arcs back into Luceran’s grasp.
He lets it hover between us.
Inside, Minx and Fritz drift weightless, suspended in a miniature winter. Snow falls endlessly around them, slow and delicate, flakes spinning and settling only to lift again as though shaken by unseen hands.
“They can travel like this until I make them a proper home. It will keep them cold.”
I tilt my head and reach out, brushing the surface with one tentative finger. It is thin and hard, like sugared glass, and I hiss as the cold bites my skin.
Luceran exhales. “I could have told you that would happen if you’d only asked before touching it.”
“You could have warned me when you saw my finger,” I mutter, sucking at the sting.
“But where would be the fun in that?” he says, smiling.
The ache fades quickly.
“It is beautiful,” I say. “What do you call it?”
He considers, tongue pressing briefly into his cheek. “I have never made one before.” A pause. “Perhaps it is a kind of snow…globe.”
Inside, Mink and Fitz pound their fists against the glass before a sudden swirl of sleet sends them tumbling. Luceran scowls.
“If you would prefer to melt on the steps, be my guest.”
They go very still.
Luceran nods, satisfied.
The snow globe drifts through the carriage door and settles beside my case on the cushion.
“I will drive,” Luceran says.
“I will join you,” I reply, closing the carriage door.
He smiles and lifts me by the waist, settling me onto the driver’s bench before climbing up beside me. The carriage rocks beneath his weight. His tattooed knuckles close around the reins, and then he turns to me.
“Are you sure this is what you want, Neve Devlin?”
Above us, the sun breaks fully through the clouds, warmth spilling over my skin until my fur cloak becomes unbearable. I unfasten the clasp and let it slide from my shoulders, watching as it falls to the ground, settling in a puddle of melted ice.
Then I smile at him.
“I have never wanted anything more.”
The horses surge forward, and we leave Castle Frostwyn behind as the world opens before us.
Despite Atilia’s insistence, we do not go to her estate for gold.
Instead, we turn the carriage east and then north, leaving the roads well traveled and the cities that watch too closely. We disappear into the forest and the rising shadow of the Thraelis Mountains, far from the High Fae and the brittle society that would weigh our love and find it wanting.
There, among ancient trees and stone heavy with memory, Luceran builds us a home.
It is a simple cabin, tucked into the mountain’s slope where the forest thins and the air smells of pine and cold water, with space enough to hold a small, carefully kept pocket of winter for Mink and Fitz.
We make a life there.
We wake with the sun spilling through the windows.
We cook together, laugh often, and kiss without ever looking over our shoulders.
At night, I ride upon the dire wolf’s back as he races through the towering trees, and in the moonlight we love each other without fear of being seen or judged or torn apart.
There are no walls between us but those we choose, no shadows we are forced to hide within.
Seasons pass. Winters soften. Summers linger.
Years slip by so gently I barely notice them.
I write.
At first, it is only for myself. Stories scribbled into the margins of old books, ideas taking shape beside the fire while Luceran sings in a low, steady thrum, his smoke pipe warm in his hand.
Soon the stories grow bolder. Adventures instead of dreams. Tales of love and danger, of wild magic and blood-curdling horrors, of worlds that feel vast and alive beneath my hands.
In the evenings, I curl into Luceran’s arms before the hearth and read them aloud. He listens as though every word matters. He says he loves every story, though he admits freely that he is a hopelessly biased critic.
Six years pass like this. Six years of chosen quiet. Of happiness that asks nothing of the world.
Then, one morning, I wake with a thought that will not leave me.
I want to see if my stories can live beyond our walls.
Luceran agrees without hesitation, but Minx and Fritz do not follow. They have grown fond of the mountains, of the quiet and the vast, of the old magic that lingers in the unclaimed spaces between the trees. Of peace.
When Luceran and I leave the cabin, I watch them retreat into the forest until they are nothing more than flickers of movement and memory. The loss settles in my chest, soft but sharp, and I carry it with me as we go.
I take my pages to Lorthys, to the city, to the publisher whose mark graces the spines of my most beloved books. We decide to stay nearby for a time, just outside of town and away from prying eyes, in a small villa overlooking the sea.
I have never seen the ocean before.
It stretches endlessly beyond the window, blue and silver. I stand for long moments simply watching it breathe.
At first, Luceran wears his cloak always. His hood stays low, hiding his ears. He keeps his gaze down when we walk through the markets, speaks little, and meets no one’s eyes. The world has not changed enough to accept a couple like us.
Until one afternoon, when we sit at an inn near the docks, sharing fresh fish and warm bread. The barkeep lingers a moment too long as he sets our ales on the table.
“Are you Fae?” he asks.
Luceran’s head snaps up, and for the first time in years I see the warrior he once was, coiled and ready, power stirring beneath his skin.
The barkeep squints, shrugs.
“Well. Enjoy your meal, you two.”
And then he is gone.
The world does not end. The ground does not open beneath our feet.
So we stay.
Luceran stops wearing his hood. People greet us in the street. They smile. No one stares when I take his hand or when he kisses me in the middle of the square. When my book is published, stamped with the mark I once traced with reverent fingers, we celebrate.
We invite the friends we have made. We drink and laugh and stand together beneath the open sky, in the light, and as the evening wears on and the ocean murmurs beyond the walls, I realize this is the happiness Atilia spoke of.
Not stolen. Not hidden.
Chosen.
And finally, truly ours.
I write more books.
Dozens of them. Every idle thought, every half-remembered dream becomes an adventure. I write by the sea, by the fire, at crowded tables in inns and in the quiet hours before dawn. I write because I cannot not write, because stories have always been how I make sense of the world.
But I do not publish them as Neve Devlin.
Instead, each cover bears the name N. Pattenwald, for the friend who lost his dreams far too soon, whose stories never found their way into the world. This is how I carry him forward. This is how I ensure he is not forgotten.
I earn more coin than we could ever spend, though that was never the point.
Still, it is enough that when word reaches me years later that my father has died in Rethmar, full and content in his own bed, I can give him what he was never afforded in life.
I bury him on a hill overlooking a sprawling meadow, a marble stone set there with his name carved deep, so that he, too, will endure.
The world turns so slowly we hardly notice it moving, and yet time passes with cruel speed.
One day I look into the mirror and see silver threading through my red hair. My freckles have softened, my skin etched with deep creases born of laughter and wide smiles. My hands ache sometimes. My body reminds me, gently but firmly, that I am human.
Luceran has not changed at all.
He is still tall and broad and impossibly beautiful in the way only the Fae can be. One golden eye. One liquid blue. Summer and winter held forever in his gaze. When he looks at me, I do not see my years reflected back. I see myself as I was, as I am, as I will always be to him.
In his eyes, I am not fading.
I am Neve Devlin. The human who made a bargain with a Fae lord. The girl who became a prisoner in a frozen castle and emerged having slain the demon that claimed his soul. The woman who thawed Brunemar.
That story is legend now, told and retold until it no longer belongs to me alone.
I hear Brunemar is beautiful. That the land is green and alive, the winters gentler than they once were. Sometimes I wonder if I will ever see it again. Castle Frostwyn. The Aurevault. The old farmhouse where my life once fit inside a single room.
But not tonight.
Tonight, I am happy. I am free. I am loved.
I fall asleep at my desk, fingers stained black with ink, a half-finished sentence trailing off into nothing. Luceran lifts me easily into his arms. I laugh softly against his chest, my fingers threading through his long ivory hair as he carries me to our bedroom.
He lays me down on the bed, candlelight flickering across the walls while the ocean roars beyond the window. Starlight dances across the black water, restless and eternal.
He pulls the covers over me, then lies beside me, turning to look at me as though I am some rare and wondrous thing.
And once again, in his gaze, I see myself as I was all those years ago.
Not younger.
Just… unchanged.
He studies me in the quiet, as if counting all the years between our first winter and this gentle night. “If you could choose again,” he asks softly, “would you still come to the castle?”
I lace my fingers with his, feeling the steady truth of him beside me, and smile. “I would walk into the cold a thousand times,” I whisper, “if it meant always finding you waiting on the other side.”
He bends his forehead to mine, his breath warm against my skin. “And I will always be there,” he murmurs, voice sure as stone and soft as snow, “waiting for you, my love.”