Epilogue #2
Luther cast orbs of light above a long wooden table he’d built himself, and we dragged chairs around it, piling it high with Fire-roasted vegetables, fluffy breads, and bowls of glistening, freshly picked fruits.
Wine flowed freely, and so did the laughter.
We toasted to Alixe and Teller, taking turns predicting their adventures in the After.
Though our grief would never fully leave us, the pain of our past felt blissfully distant.
Despite the occasional brays of a roaming donkey, the smile didn’t fade from Luther’s face all night.
The sky grew dark, and the hour grew late. The others hugged us tight and said goodbye as we promised to do it all again in a fortnight. I curled into Luther’s side on the steps of our porch, listening to chirping crickets and marshland frogs.
“This is nice,” I said, leaning my head on his shoulder. “A family. A home.”
“I would have been happy if all I had was you.” He took my hand and clasped it in his, our wedding rings clinking together. “But this is everything I could have dreamed of.”
I thought back on that day in the alleys of Paradise Row where I first saw Luther and my mother under the light of the blood sun, unaware how drastically my life was about to change.
That girl had resented her life as a healer and dreamed of great adventures that would take her across the realms. She’d been terrified of love, running from Henri because he’d spoken to her of families and homes.
She was trapped by secrets, blinding herself with flameroot and denial.
She saw the world in stark, unswerving conflict: mortal against Descended, violence against peace, good against evil.
And more than anything in the world, she wanted to fight.
If that Diem could see me now, she would not recognize the woman she became.
And yet, in so many ways, this was everything she’d ever dreamed of, too.
The honk of a donkey carried through the trees, and Luther let out an irritated grunt. “Get up,” he said, taking my hand and dragging me to my feet. “I’m ready to punish you.”
Tha-thump.
I looked over my shoulder. “Do you hear that?”
He tugged me toward the door. “Don’t even think of asking for mercy. In fact, every time I have to hear that gods-awful noise, I’m adding an hour to your torture.”
I stopped, pulling him back. “Luther, wait. Listen.”
“Diem, I’ve been listening to that miserable beast all n—”
Tha-thump, tha-thump, tha-thump.
Luther’s head snapped around. He stilled, his stare locking with mine. Without another word, we ran to the yard, both craning our necks at the sky.
“I don’t see anything,” he said, squinting at the darkness. “Maybe it’s not—”
“It’s her,” I said.
“It could be one of the others. We’ve seen them pass over before.”
“It’s her.”
I thrust my hand above my head and sent pale blue light swirling upward. Somewhere not far away, a gryvern let out a jubilant roar.
A smile burst across Luther’s face. “It’s her.”
Against the inky backdrop of the night, stars began to flicker as two silhouettes flew overhead, soaring in slow circles toward the ground. Luther and I backed to the edge of the clearing to make space for them to land, but they dove for the trees instead, vanishing into the forest’s leafy dark.
“Sorae,” I called out, waving an arm. “We’re over here!”
A hesitant, inquisitive trill emerged from the woods. The pocket of Faunos magic I’d been saving since the Faunosians left stirred to life.
Is it true? It’s really you?
I grinned. “It’s really me, and if you don’t get out here right now, I’m feeding all our apples to the goat.”
The ground began to rumble. Across the clearing, trees snapped in half, thrown to the side by a stampeding gryvern thundering through their midst. Sorae burst from the darkness and hurtled toward me, and I leapt into the air just in time to lock my arms around her neck as she reared back and erupted with a roar.
I covered her snout in kisses and scratched her muzzle in all the places I knew she loved as she curled her wings around me.
I couldn’t help but notice how her body had changed. The wing she’d damaged in the war was slightly crooked, and the talon Xipherus had ripped apart had healed over, though the missing toes had not regrown.
She didn’t seem to mind. Her feathers puffed as she bounced from foot to foot, sniffing me feverishly and whipping her tail against the ground in happy thwacks.
Her snout pressed against my cheek, my hands, my leg, and I laughed, thinking of how Luther had done the same when I returned, touching me over and over to make sure that I was real and not a dream.
“I missed you,” I said, smoothing a hand along her iridescent scales. A happy purr vibrated in her throat.
“I’d like a hug, too, you know,” Luther called out. “And I’m not above bribery to get it.” He tossed a glossy scarlet apple from hand to hand, freshly picked from the orchard we’d planted in our garden, hoping someday it would lure her back.
Sorae’s wing stretched out and hooked around him, dragging him into our embrace. We stood together for many minutes, laughing and sharing looks of grateful disbelief that somehow, we’d all survived.
“Tybold,” I shouted at the forest, “I missed you, too. Come out and join your mate.”
Tybold growled in answer: No.
“Come on,” I pleaded. “You saved my people. At least let me thank you face to face.”
He growled again, a rumble of irritation and gruff disdain. I laughed, but Sorae was not amused. She stomped her talon into the soil, and a flurry of snorts and grumbles flew back and forth between the trees.
And then I heard it—a quiet, high-pitched mewl.
Sorae plucked the apple from Luther’s hands, but she didn’t gulp it down. She swung her neck, flinging the apple to the far side of the clearing. Her wings folded against her, and her chest puffed out an encouraging trill.
A small figure emerged from the forest, no taller than I was, sniffing at the air. Its chocolate brown wings trembled nervously at its sides.
“By the Flames,” I whispered.
Sorae looked at me, her golden eyes bright, and I needed no magic to see the explanation shining in them.
“You have a daughter,” Luther said, beaming with a proud smile to rival mine. “Congratulations, Sorae. We couldn’t be happier.”
“I thought gryverns couldn’t procreate,” I said. “I assumed that’s why there were never more than the ten the Kindred brought over.”
“Maybe that’s why the Crowns kept them apart,” Luther mused.
“Or else whatever stood in their way ended when you broke the spell that bound them.” He gingerly ran a hand along Sorae’s injured wing.
“Perhaps that’s why these injuries didn’t fully heal, too.
Without the Kindred’s magic, their bodies might work like any other creature now. ”
Sorae chirped her agreement, and the reality hit me of what the gryverns had risked in joining the war. Tybold knew he could be flying to his death and leading the last of his kind to possible extinction. And still they’d come, they’d all come, to fight as one.