Epilogue
KIRAN
Kiran refused to call it defeat. Defeat implied an ending, and he was nowhere near finished.
Frigid air sliced across his body as he flew over the mountains surrounding Kehomel, wings beating hard against the weight of his failing strength.
Blood fell from him in steady drops, dark against the snow and stone below, marking his path across the jagged ridges and narrow passes that carved through Niflheim’s terrain.
The land stretched vast and unforgiving beneath him, cliffs plunging into steep descents, ice clinging to rock in fractured sheets, everything stark and exposed at high elevation.
The bond still lived in him, but it was distant and hollow, a dull, constant tingling that did not fade with distance as he’d hoped. The numbness spread through his chest as he flew, leaving him aware of the loss without the will to anchor it.
With his wand held in his massive maw, he huffed, breath ghosting around his face in an enormous cloud.
Imani had turned on him, used every weakness he had given her, every opening he had left exposed, and she had done it without faltering.
His clever heartmate.
Respect rose despite the numbness, threaded with another fiercer emotion that refused to loosen its hold. One he did not want to examine too closely.
The Lundr Mountains fell away beneath him as he continued flying, the terrain opening into long stretches of broken stone and ice, valleys cutting through the land in deep, uneven lines.
His wings flapped harder, forcing speed despite the strain, blood falling in a steady path behind him as the distance from Kehomel grew.
His heartmate bond stirred again. But this time warmth returned to his chest in a low pulse, faint at first, then building, feeding something that had not been extinguished. She was still there, thinking about him. The absence he had felt began to fill with a new emotion—and direction.
He adjusted midair, banking left, the motion pulling his body through a tight arc as the landscape blurred beneath him. He turned back to Essenheim as his wings reoriented.
His earlier plan had failed, but his larger one was still in play. As was a new one.
The first plan had been simple enough: make Niflheim believe he was its true king, make the lie stable enough that Imani could believe in the power behind it, and give her every reason to choose his side.
Saevel had ruined that. The Throne had answered his brother too clearly for Kiran to keep pretending the claim was uncontested.
But Niflheim had never been the endgame. The Under was. He still intended to take its monarchy, and that ambition required more than brute force. He needed Imani beside him, and eventually he needed her father willing to stop standing in his way.
Which meant he needed another way to make himself impossible for Imani to dismiss.
The Drasil came first. Lochheim came after.
With both in hand, he could return to her with more power, more territory, and an alliance strong enough that siding with him would look less like surrender and more like the only intelligent choice left.
Tanyl had a Drasil and Kiran had always planned to take it. The owner had changed, but the wand was still his. He would not make the same mistake twice. If flesh magic could not hold what he had taken, the Drasil would give him another way to force the world into obedience.
Fire built in his chest as he drove forward again, beating his wings even faster now, despite the injury to his back, finding strength he hadn’t had before.
She had broken his first route to power.
Fine. He would build a better one, and one day she would understand that he had built it for them both.
This ridiculousness with Ellisar would fade eventually.
His bloodthirsty heartmate wouldn’t accept anything less than monstrous from her partner—and he would deliver.
He had wanted her to find Saevel. That part had gone according to plan.
What Kiran had misjudged was how completely the Throne would recognize his brother once he stood before it.
Flesh magic had let Kiran force the Throne to answer him for months, and he had believed that advantage would hold long enough to control the confrontation. He had been wrong.
Soon, the harsh stone and ice of Niflheim gave way to darker earth and denser tree growth as Essenheim rose to meet him.
Snow thinned, replaced by grass and clustered forest, the terrain smoothing out toward the capital.
Roads and buildings appeared in patterns below.
He rose even higher into the clouds, not wanting anyone to spot his descent into the capital city. They would get no warning.
Stralas emerged ahead, its walls and towers cutting the skyline, untouched by the damage he carried.
A fresh wave of pain radiated from his back, but it no longer held his focus.
Healing magic worked beneath the injury even as he flew, slowing the bleeding and holding damaged flesh together without truly repairing it.
Adrenaline did the rest, dulling the pain enough to keep his wings moving and his body responsive.
He knew the strength was temporary. The moment he stopped pushing, everything his magic and fury were holding at bay would catch up to him.
Another urge took its place. Bloodlust built in his chest, heat gathering low in his gut and spreading up, feeding a more violent desire with every beat of his wings. The closer he moved toward the city, the stronger it grew, coiling tighter, harder, until it filled him completely behind his ribs.
The palace turrets rose high into the dark clouds he soared through, and with a wide arc, he flew around one before dropping clean from the air and shifting seamlessly.
Teeth clenched around his wand, he let himself fall until he smashed into the roof.
Shingles broke away and fell to the ground from the dizzying height.
He grunted, finding purchase against the shingles, his fingernails bleeding from the effort.
Crawling down the top, he found a dark window and positioned himself over the ledge.
With a deep breath, Kiran pushed his body back from the building and swung his feet into the glass.
It shattered, and he fell inside, in a tangle of limbs with a loud thump.
A puff of dust surrounded him, and he restrained a sneeze, wondering if anyone occupied this part of the tower.
Based on the darkness and the dust, it seemed unlikely, but he was infiltrating the enemy and couldn’t be too careful.
Grabbing his wand from his mouth, he stood and dusted off his pants before twisting back to check his wound.
The bleeding had slowed, but a large black stain covered half his shirt.
Kiran rolled his shoulders, ignored the pain, and glanced around.
The room was abandoned, with piles of old furniture stacked up against the wall and a thick layer of dust covering everything. Dim light slanted through the door and fell across the floor, and he waved his hand over the wood, checking for wards.
A few rippled back at him in warning.
Smart. Ellisar was smart. Smarter than Tanyl ever had been.
But Kiran knew more tricks. With a decisive swipe, he used the blood from his wound to imbue the ward-breaking spell with flesh magic, and after a few attempts, the spell cracked, then fell away.
A loud screech filled the stairwell when he opened the door.
Warning bells. Kiran swore under his breath and started running down the stairs, taking them two at a time. Ellisar and Imani had rigged their security to detect any tampering. He’d known it was a risk, but the sound put a clock on his plan.
The descent was endless, a dizzying spiral of stone that left his legs burning by the time he reached the bottom.
In the sumptuous hallway, his boots sank into the deep carpet, and he ran his free hand through his hair.
One servant bustled about at the end and eyed him suspiciously.
With a snap of his wand, she fell to the ground.
He never promised himself there’d be no casualties.
Kiran kept moving south, toward where he knew the royal wing was, despite the screeching still blaring through the corridors. A trickle of blood fell onto the white carpet from his back, but he ignored it and slipped deeper into the palace.
Two more guards came running, and he slashed their necks open, causing them to topple over.
Finally, the hallway opened wider, and sconces lit the space with dancing light. Guards swarmed at the end, their presence enough to confirm Kiran’s suspicion. Ellisar was inside.
A fresh wave of adrenaline hit him full force, and he nearly trembled as his magic thrummed in his blood. He lived for this rush, and it had been too long since he killed someone he hated this much.
Kiran raised his arms wide, gripping his wand as a manic smile spread across his face.
Several guards turned and pointed.
“It’s him! It’s the intruder! Get him!” one commanded. Wands snapped out in front of faces.
Kiran laughed, then arced his wand overhead. Magic answered and tore through the first line of guards in a single surge, hurling bodies back as the spell hit them full on, armor cracking and limbs breaking under the impact before they even reached him.
More flanked in from the sides, weapons raised, voices rising into shouts that cut off as they approached.
Steel struck, magic flared in response, but it never reached him.
He ducked through the besieging spells, turning their attacks aside and redirecting the guards back into them in wide bursts that dropped them in clusters, several at a time, each strike ripping through the formation before it could grab onto him.
Metal clashed, grunts sounded, and breath broke into sharp bursts that turned into something worse as bodies hit the ground. Short cries. Choked gasps. Impact after impact as they fell and did not rise again.
His gleeful smile never fell.