EPILOGUE
Two weeks later
Fire crackled in the hearth, and every time, I found myself flinching at the noise. Each pop reminded me of the initial clash of battle, each sparking ember showed me the power of the Ocean Mother, and the crimson color drew visions of pooling blood along the muddied ground.
I despised the needling anxiety that cursed my veins, yet every time I encountered the smallest things, it always took me back to the destruction over sixteen days ago.
I tried to force it below—hide it so no one would notice what I struggled with internally—but my mental instability became debilitating.
Noctis refused to light the hearth, realizing my flashbacks immediately and snuffing it out with his powers. When he wasn’t at our mountainside cottage, I set it aflame anyway and stared at it, hoping the exposure would purge the fear away.
It never worked.
I’d been staring into the brick-and-mortar hearth for over an hour, and my heart still raced, hands still trembled, mind still worked. Like always, I splashed the nearby bucket of water across the burning cinders and extinguished the flame.
I shifted to the bathing chambers, attempting to wash off the smoky smell from my body before Noctis returned from the market.
The mirror reflected someone I didn’t know—eyes that were too pale and skin that was too flushed.
I wasn’t the same person as I was before the Ocean Mother attacked.
The dead bodies I saw scattered across the open field plagued my sleep, along with whispers I couldn’t make out.
I felt immense guilt for keeping hold of Noctis. He deserved better. He deserved someone who could leave the comfort of their cottage. He deserved anyone other than me.
After the war, he stowed us away in the mountains, as far away from the surrounding ocean as he could find. It was a quaint home, much more than I’d ever lived in, halfway up the mountainside and far away from everyone.
Evelyn, Jun, and Calvin lived beyond my own trauma of life beyond war.
Evelyn found her place in the arts, trading battlefields for canvases and music halls, where she creates instead of endures and turns memory into something beautiful.
Jun lives in near silence, devoted to relentless sword practice, training alone for hours, as if repetition can keep the past from ever catching up to him.
Calvin, somehow, ended up in a traveling circus—half by accident, half by fate—where his chaos finally has somewhere to go, and his energy is exactly what keeps the crowd laughing.
I’m so proud of them. Even if I couldn’t do it.
Light tapping rapped across the living area window from the side not against the mountain. I froze. No one had been able to reach our new home, and Noctis had a key to enter as he pleased.
I fumbled for my stowed away daggers in the bathroom vanity and peeled around the corner. My hands shook against the blades, and I nearly released them, even in the midst of potential danger.
The knocking rapped again, more rhythmic than the last time. Scuffling started, like tiny rodents running across baseboards, except it sounded as if they were along the wooden door.
Then, the barrier exploded, splintering into pieces. I shielded my face, my heart pounding against my soft pale-yellow dress.
Giant spindled legs entered first. Eight. When I saw the multiple void-like black eyes, I gasped.
The leader Threnai oracle arachnid.
“You have been difficult to locate, child,” her gentle voice chided through fangs.
“Why am I needed?” I breathed. I didn’t want to be needed. I wanted to be left to heal—well at least I hoped I was healing.
“Don’t pretend that you aren’t hearing the whispers, the speaking in your mind. You will not heal here.”
My breath hitched. I didn’t speak a word of the whispers that irritated my mind, awakening me through the night, taunting me through the day. They spoke in hushed voices. Some were women, some men, and some I couldn’t tell.
“I am an oracle, child. I know even the things that never leave the mouth,” the Threnai explained. Her massive legs stomped across the room, kicking door debris from her way. “Are you going to ignore the ones who’ve helped you in victory below?”
Calvin, Jun, and Evelyn.
It had been sixteen days since I’d locked myself in the cottage away from everyone. They sent Raven to spy and leave messages that only piled on the dining table.
“I—I can’t leave.”
“Oh, you can, child. You’ll need Noctis to get you out of the mountain and on solid ground, but you choose not to.”
“You don’t understand—”
The Threnai leader knocked the daggers from each of my trembling hands with her spindly feet before I could finish the excuse. They clanked across the baseboards and halted at the splintered opening that once held a door.
“Listen closely.” The Threnai stomped closer into my face. The hairy chelicerae around her mouth opened to speak, sharp teeth exposed. “You think you’ve won, but there is no victory yet. If you stay here, the realms will burn. What you think you’ve won will be all in vain.”
The Threnai spider turned and clawed her way through the shattered door, crawling down the mountainside and disappearing into the forest below.
Noctis landed along the banister moments later, frantically searching for me when he noticed the broken door. I was frozen in place. I hadn’t moved a single step in the five minutes since the Threnai had left. My body had gone cold and rigid, dead by its own doing.
“What happened here?” he asked, looking me over, assessing for damages.
“Will you take me somewhere?”
“Anywhere, love. You know this.”
I reached within my dress pocket where I kept a folded parchment. One I cherished every day and held close to remind me of them. I rolled the parchment out, showing Noctis the map he made me littered with hand drawn locations.
“Here,” I said, pointing to an island. “The place you promised to show me after… everything.”
“Are you sure?”
I swallowed, bile rising at the mere thought of leaving.
“Yes.”
I couldn’t open my eyes. I tried, but when they cracked, I only saw war and battle spread across the land below. Noctis held me closely like always, his chin cradled within the crevice of my neck.
“I’ll never let anything hurt you, darling,” he breathed into my ear. “Breathe.”
I tried. My eyes inched open slowly, and I sipped on small spurts of air.
“I’m pitiful,” I whined, knowing my reaction to ordinary life was dramatic.
“You’re mine, and you’re perfect.” His lips met my neck. He knew the action set my body on fire. My lower stomach twisted in knots, fingers digging into his shoulder. He chuckled under his breath then kissed higher up, trailing his lips down to my collarbone. My toes curled until it became painful.
“We are here, love. Devotion’s Pull Island Chains.”
He carefully lowered us to the ground and took my hand in his. I swallowed as I looked beyond. The ocean encased us on a landmass, but out beyond, minute islands peppered the ocean surface. Each one in the shape of hearts. There were hundreds of tiny heart-shaped islands.
I huffed, tears welling to the rims of my eyes. Then, I laughed. I was so afraid of the world, yet it held such beauty.
Noctis looked at me, sheer joy in his eyes, although his eyebrows were drawn downward. He looked relieved to see me smile and not shutter at the prospect of the outside world.
Waves crashed into the island bluffs, spraying us both.
Then, they stilled. And that’s when the whispers began.
Ones I’d worked so hard to forget. They were overwhelming, screaming into my mind.
I clasped my hands over my ears. Noctis tried to ask what was wrong, gripping my wrists and facing me toward him, but I couldn’t hear anything except the voices in my raging head.
I paced, and the waves moved with me. I stopped, and they froze. The screaming became cries… begs.
The cloudless sky darkened to black. And the voices in my mind halted. Fractures split the sky, cracks like breaking ceramic dishes.
“No…no—” Noctis began.
I stood still. I knew what was happening and wished I would have stayed in the cottage. The whispers weren’t just in my mind because I was going mad. They were prayers.
“Say it…” I murmured, wanting him to speak the words himself to solidify it.
Noctis swallowed. Peril streaming his features.
“When mortals defy the gods, the gods descend—to make sure it never happens again,” he replied, wide eyes assessing the damaged sky.
“But what if the mortal turned goddess? And said goddess killed one of their own… and maimed another?”
“Then they’ll descend for revenge instead.”