Epilogue Imogen
EPILOGUE
Imogen
ONE YEAR LATER
It was unclear when, but sometime in the half year after Eusia was vanquished, Rohana—Varya’s Mage Seer—had gone missing.
No body had been found. There had been no evidence of violence, no hints to suggest she’d absconded; only her dilapidated hut had been found empty one early winter morning, when a young fisherman’s wife came to request a prophecy for her new babe.
When I learned the news, I imagined her slipping into the sea. I’d hoped she’d simply grown tired and spirited herself away for a final rest, done with being ravaged by magic. But something heavy and sharp sat in my gut, despite my wishes.
With time away from spell work, my visions had ebbed, only coming now and then, but I dreamed vividly.
Strange, colorful dreams… In some I saw Rohana, huddled in a field of snow.
I saw Halla haunting the edges of Eusia’s empty pool.
I’d wake with an ache behind my eyes, and a vise around my heart, hoping, praying that was all they were… dreams.
I pulled open the door of Rohana’s abandoned hut and let the sea air roll in. Each time I entered I thought of the prophecy she’d given me—how she’d been right about so very much.
A great many things had died in my wake. A great many things had been ruined.
I’d been back on Varya for four months now, and in that time, I’d cleared the place of its dead vines.
I’d swept the floor of its bones, piling them into the sea off the edge of the little island.
At first, I’d thought to call a wave over the holm and let it pull the hut into the deep.
I’d thought to perform a spell to find Rohana, wherever she might be.
But Varians kept coming to the Sacred Holms for help, for guidance and care, and when news spread that the daughter of the Great Goddess Ligea had settled in a small cottage just up the road from the Mage Seer’s home, they’d started coming to me.
Word had spread of what I’d done. How I’d stopped the threat of the nekgya and healed their waters.
How I’d stepped foot on Anthemoessa and cleared it of its blight.
How I’d abdicated my claim to Seraf’s and Anthemoessa’s thrones and—with much contention and strife—assisted the Serafi people in forming their own government.
I threw a bucket of water over the filthy stone floor in the back corner of Rohana’s hut, settled to my knees, and scrubbed.
I didn’t expect the stones would ever be truly clean, but there was some catharsis in the scrubbing, in the way the filth pulled away, in the mindlessness of it.
Amid the bones, I’d found pounds of gem-studded gold and silver jewelry.
Old and empty vials. I’d pulled away the boards that had covered the one window and had urged the wind through the broken glass.
A Mage Seer must tie herself to her home as part of her service under Leucosian law. I didn’t know how that was done, and I was content not to. For now, I was happy cleaning the place out, letting in light, and offering what help I could to those who needed it.
I scrubbed and scrubbed until the pressure in the little hut grew suddenly heavy, as if the walls were vying for my attention.
I looked up, out of the open door, and onto the black sand shore beyond the narrow strip of sea.
A young woman stood there, toes to the waves.
Just as Rohana had, I commanded the water to recede.
I kept scrubbing until she appeared in the doorway.
She cleared her throat. “Goddess?”
Her brown hair was strewn with gold, and her light green eyes were stretched with nervous wonder.
“Call me Imogen, if you please.”
She bobbed a quick curtsy. “I was told you might be able to help me. You see, I have been feeling poorly for weeks now, and my wife works the farm alone because I’m abed. The Mage Seer used to make a draught and now that she’s gone… well…”
“I see.” I set the scrub brush back into the bucket and waved an arm to invite her inside.
She came to the black stone bowl carved into the very middle of the hut, then stopped.
I watched terror fill her round face. “I need no blood, no flesh,” I said.
“I’m not adept with draughts and I limit my spell work where I can. ”
“Oh!” Her gaze flicked between me and the bowl. “The Mage just gave me some nepenthe, Goddess. She added some herbs, I think. Tasted like feverfew and rosemary.”
“And she charged you flesh for it?” I turned to the little collection of vials I’d stacked neatly against the wall and pulled a vial of nepenthe oil and some rosemary and feverfew.
“Aye.” The terror in her eyes had banked. “Only the crown—er, or the government—can grow nepenthe, you see. Otherwise, I’d make the brew myself.”
“Ahh. Perhaps we should do something about that.”
She nodded, nervously. Then her attention fell to the bowl between us. In awe she watched as it filled with seawater at my command. I dropped in the nepenthe oil, the herbs.
“Forgive me,” she said timidly. “But why do you not need the payment? The flesh. Like Rohana did.”
“Rohana was a Siren, but not a powerful one. She used her magic to amplify her control over the sea. In order to call the water to this bowl, she used a spell. Magic. And magic must be fed.”
She gave me a small smile. “It’s like you were made for this, then, weren’t you? Able to command the sea without sacrifice. So nice to be able to offer help without destroying oneself.”
A gentle smile curved my own mouth at that.
I filled a clean vial with the draught I’d brewed.
“It is.” I stoppered it and put it into her hand.
“Very soon, the best healer in Leucosia will be living up the road. The little cottage set in the middle of the vineyard. It’s blue.
Come by and perhaps he’ll be able to do more for you than I can. ”
She gave another stunned curtsy. “Thank you, Goddess. What do I owe?”
I shook my head. “Not a thing.”
By the time I returned to my cottage, the sky was strewn pink and purple.
By the gate was a new, neatly stacked pile of firewood.
Hector had taken to replenishing it for me weekly, saying that neighbors ought to do kindnesses when they could.
I’d spent the last four months sharing meals with him and Antonia and helping Agatha settle into a new cottage just up the road.
Lachlan made the trek between the capital and their new home as often as necessary but had recently taken up command of the northern brigade, which let him stay home with her for longer stretches of time.
I closed the gate behind me and squinted up the long narrow road that led toward my tattered little house. I stopped. In the clearing before it sat an unfamiliar wagon, missing its horses. Beyond, the cottage door was ajar.
My heart leapt, that old feeling of danger that I’d once been so accustomed to flooding me. I took the dagger I wore at my hip and wove through the vineyard to keep myself hidden. Ducking helped keep me from sight, but still I moved slowly, quietly, until I reached the building’s side.
I crept toward the wagon and looked within.
It had been mostly cleared save for a small crate of effects—a rosewood box, a few books, a little blue notebook with curled edges.
The thump of my heart remained, but my knot of nerves began to unwind.
I set down my dagger and took the notebook into my hands.
It was filled with page after page of mediocre charcoal sketches.
One of a bowl of grapes. One of a cut crystal goblet. One of the Eleuthios.
A wide smile spread over my face as my attention snapped to the open door. I bolted inside and froze.
He was there, setting new logs atop the fire. He wore his traveling clothes—the same he’d worn when we’d first trekked north together. A brown linen shirt, worn-down trousers in a darker shade. He stood and clapped the soot from his hands.
“You’re early,” I said, breathless.
Theodore whirled. “Gods.” He looked suddenly afflicted, a hand to his chest. “I am.” He stayed where he was. Both of us did. Simply staring. “I expect you’ll do this every time I look at you…”
“What?” I whispered.
“Steal my air.”
I smiled and watched him, unable to believe, unable to fully accept my good fortune.
“The ship came in three days ago,” he finally said. “The meetings with the other islands’ rulers went very well. I told the new parliament members the same. Then I left.”
The fire behind him popped. Crates of his things were stacked beside the walls. “There’s more to do, though, isn’t there?” I asked, still clouded by disbelief. “Things to oversee, papers to sign, and plans to make for the election?”
He nodded. “They can all be done from here. Or by others.” A half-smile snuck over his lips. “I’m no longer the king, Imogen. Genevreer is no longer my home.” He took a moment to swallow back his emotion. “So I, for the first time in my life, can do whatever I want.”
With each word, he’d taken a step nearer. A stunning smile spread across his face as he came. The main room of the cottage was spacious, cool, and dark from the setting sun, but he seemed to fill up every inch of it with a soft, warming glow.
He came close and wrapped one arm around my waist. His other hand sank into the hair over my neck. “And what I want to do right now, Imogen, is marry you.” Too slowly, he lowered his lips to mine, but never touching. “What do you say?”
I felt like I’d caught aflame. I was incandescent, awash in the sweetness of surprise.
In a rush, I closed the little distance between us, letting our lips fully meet.
Letting the hard feeling of his body, the softness of his kisses, the arresting scent and sensations of him overwhelm me.
It was the first kiss we’d shared that I could enjoy without the lurking worry of it being our last.
His teeth scraped my lips as we finally parted.
The song of evening birds lulled us through the still-open door; the warmth of the hearth rolled through the room.
I took his hand in mine and led him toward it.
He watched me, looking wistfully starry and rapt, as I lowered myself before the flames and gazed up at him.
He’d told me once that loving me would not be the end of all things, but the beginning. He’d been wrong, though, in part, for so many things had needed to end—to fade and die and fall—so something new could start.
A smile dimpled his cheek as he lowered himself to his knees in front of me. He pulled his dagger free. “In front of the fire.”
I held up my open palm, offering it to him unreservedly. “Just like last time.”