Epilogue
TOMORROW
THE DRUIDS DO NOT mourn in black, that is left for honor and national pride. Instead, they grieve in red, a stark reminder of the preciousness of life. There are not many of us to send my father into the after, or Felix, and I’m the only member of my family in attendance.
The seraphs hunted down my mother’s quarters, stealing her away while the rest of us were distracted, killing the more than twenty guards Draven assigned to her.
He’s apologized profusely for not putting more with her, for letting Kasper get the better of him, for the Forge and the palace being attacked to start with.
There are whispers of more traitors in our midst, and of Nevaeh’s gathering army.
War is nearly inevitable now. The druids have accused the seraphs of attacking on sovereign soil, while the seraphs accused us of harboring a criminal of war.
Though I’m unsure when the fighting will break out, there’s one thing for certain.
If my mother creates a cure to the Curse, Altair will use it as leverage until the elves and druids join his cause to destroy all mortals.
And it’s my fault for leading him to her.
My fault my father’s dead.
Draven’s hand brushes mine as some stranger reads from the mortal Book of Sorrows, a chapter about what comes after life in The Given, a religious tome of gods, monsters, and how the world was formed.
It’s barely been a day since the fight, and a public mourning already happened for the other fallen, Felix included, on the lawns of the palace.
But for my father, Draven allowed only our friends to mourn with me under the arches of the palace walls.
The immortals have a different book of prayers for their beliefs, The Taken, read from at the larger funeral service today, and there’s a pointedness to Draven’s insistence on this one.
Tears pour down my cheeks, sticking to the streams of agony they’ve been tracking all day, gathering under my chin to drip onto my mourning gown.
Carefully, my hand links in his as the words wash over me, like I’m a stone in a riverbed, worn away by the current of grief. There are no sharp edges to me now. Draven grasps my hand right back, squeezing tight.
The pyre is attended to, and though the flames engulf my father’s forever sleeping body, the warmth never reaches me. I shiver instead. Draven’s hand grips stronger.
AFTER THE FUNERAL, we return to a Hearth still bearing the scars of all that happened.
The Solstice tree droops, wrapping paper litters the floor, and drink cups sit stale.
I head to my room, burned-up books and broken shelves littering the floor.
Draven’s blood and Felix’s are still smeared across the ground, Kasper’s footprints visible in the viscous fluid, like a brand.
I knew there was something off with him, didn’t trust him, and yet I shoved it aside, ignored it, writing him off as just someone else angry about the immortals. Someone like me.
The difference between us is that he never fell in love with one.
“Let’s grab what we need. Then we’ll move to the palace.” Draven lingers in the doorway.
“What about next semester?” I ask.
“We’ll come back. With a lot more wards and guards in place.” He clenches his jaw, taking in the space, judging every shadow, every dark corner.
“Can you tell me … what did my father say to you that day, before we left for Alfheim?”
Draven straightens, those ever-changing irises bleeding to gray.
“He said, ‘Take care of her.’ He seemed to know you’d resent anyone thinking you needed that.
He mentioned you’d be strong until you broke, and that he hoped there’d be a time in your life you didn’t need to be so brave anymore.
I vowed to do everything in my power.” He thumbs the bright red scar slashing across his throat.
Draven blames himself for the attack, but I couldn’t keep him safe either.
The wound hasn’t faded—he hasn’t had it healed by someone who knows what they’re doing.
Unlike me. I feel so fractured … broken.
Failure.
“You’re not a failure,” he tells me sternly.
I can’t bring myself to care about dropping the shields guarding my mind. What’s left to take anyway? I sweep to the bed, sitting on the side away from his old blood, facing the endless books across the shelves, their spines glinting at me in foil letters. All that knowledge I never learned.
Draven sits beside me, hand grasping mine, squeezing when there’s no response. “We’ll kill Altair, and Kasper, too. There’s no death too cruel for what they’ve done to you.”
“How?” I ask, desperate to hold anything to keep my head above the endless tide.
“The way we planned.” He searches my face. “We will train. Grow stronger. Become unstoppable. Find the other Arcadian Artifacts. We will never let them see weakness in us again.”
“What if I’m not strong enough?” Since I lost my father, my mind has sunk to a darker, tired place.
“You are. And we will burn Nevaeh to the ground if that’s what it takes. It won’t bring your father back, or undo what’s been done. But if bloodshed is the only path to peace … to stopping the madness … then that’s what we do. Gain power to deliver peace.”
His hand moves behind me, and he pulls that chalice from the pile of sheets.
“If you want it,” he amends. He offers it to me.
“You can break your bonds to me, to my father, to being an immortal. With this … you can free anyone. Build an army, or save yourself and your loved ones. We can run together … if you don’t want to fight.
If you don’t want me after all this … you can go. I’ll make sure you’re safe.”
I hold it in my hands, thumbs rubbing the filigree, then look behind myself, to the forgotten box, the engagement bracelet.
I pick it up, too, vulnerability appearing along Draven’s features, pressed in the upturned arc of his brows, the tightness of his lips, a frown tugging down like anchors.
“You’re not breaking our vow … are you?”
Slowly his lips lift at the corners.
“Not unless you do,” he says, some of the playfulness sparking in his dark blue eyes, like sunlight spreading across the waters.
I’ve lost everything time and time again.
But I’ve never let it stop me, never fallen down so hard I’ve not been able to get back up.
You are what I’m proudest of. I would be worthy of that.
I’d rescue my mom, find my brother, and take the immortal thrones with Draven at my side and stop this war, save the mortals.
For him I would do it. For them. For me.
“We take everything from Altair, like he did to me. We take it all.” I slip the bracelet on, where it tightens against my wrist by some magic I don’t understand.
It’s an unbreakable bond … like ours. I lift my eyes to Draven’s, resolve hardening.
“We take our thrones and we destroy anyone who stands in our way.”
The dangerous grin across his lips spreads, eyes brightening, like a spark lighting a keg.
“Partners,” he agrees.
“Till death,” I add.
“Deal.” Draven grins wickedly. He pours a bottle of sparkling wine into the chalice, his eyes soft as he tilts it back, downing every drop.
He fills it again and offers it to me, a tension filling the room, as if destiny herself leans in to listen.
I drink.
THE END