Epilogue #4
They collapsed in a tangled mess of limbs on the sheets, breathless and spent. He cradled her against chest with a gentleness that didn’t match the frenzy he unleashed on her small body, feeling her racing heartbeat against his.
Alora lay limp, half-dazed, body still trembling. He carefully cleaned the mess he’d made, then wrapped her in the sheets.
“Are you conscious, shadow darling?” His magic wove into her, searching for any internal damage.
There never was, but he always checked.
A lazy smile played on her lips. “Hardly.”
It was all the reassurance Rune needed and he relaxed. “Next time, perhaps you will think twice before teasing a god.”
He pressed against her thigh, ready to go again.
“Most certainly,” Alora laughed tiredly. “But I can only endure the consequences once tonight. I will need my strength once I return to the Mortal Realm tomorrow.”
Rune tried not to react to the reminder. They had a few more hours until dawn. Until duty arrived to separate them.
“I hate that you must leave me.” He meant it as a common statement but couldn’t disguise the hitch in his voice.
Alora’s expression saddened. “I wish I didn’t have to…”
But it was the consequences they lived with.
Rune laid back, carefully shielding his end of the bond. He had done well to practice honesty, but at times it was difficult to expose those poisonous thoughts that secretly dug into him like barbs whenever spring came.
“How fares Argyle?” Rune asked, changing the subject. He stroked patterns on her back, kissing her shoulder.
Alora snuggled close. “It is flourishing, and the land is healing. Now that Rihan is eighteen, he will be crowned soon. Oh, and Theia has finished writing her book about the Sleeping Curse.”
His eyes narrowed, amused. “Oh?”
“Though she’s embellishing, of course. In her version, the princess is trapped in eternal sleep by an evil dragon who has spread his darkness over the land. A brave, handsome prince then arrives to break the curse and win her heart.”
Rune scoffed, knowing who the handsome prince was inspired by. “Drivel.”
The truth was far darker and far more wicked.
“Agreed. I think she can do without a prince to save her.”
He chuckled and took Alora’s hand, kissing her scarred fingertip. “In this tale of the cursed princess and the dragon, is there a happy ending?”
Alora studied him a moment, and the bond went quiet on her end as well. There came no answer as she slipped from bed, getting dressed. “Come with me.”
Rune sat up warily. “Where to?”
A flicker of worry wormed its way in his chest, but he fought it back. He summoned his trousers and plates of armor. Taking his hand, Alora’s shadow light carried them away.
They arrived within the crater of spider lilies, their sweet scent filling the air. The glowing blooms billowed beneath the branches of the Azure Tree.
Rune wasn’t sure how he felt about this place.
It was where he had been abandoned, and where he’d been reborn.
Now, he sensed another change coming.
Alora faced away from him, gazing up at the tree. “Rune…there is something I must tell you.”
“Wait.” He clenched his fists to steady them, then from the shadows, he drew out what he had been keeping since his return from the Abyss. “Before you say what you must, may I speak first?”
She turned, her eyes widening at what he held.
The fruit glowed like a ruby in his palms. His glamor fell away, exposing the burns on his hands and arms. He’d earned them when he made his way into the deepest pit of the Seven Hells and plucked the fruit from the Anar Tree forever burning with white flame.
“It cannot be said that the King of the Netherworld would shy from tradition,” he said, drawing closer. “Forgive me. It should not have taken me this long to propose properly.”
Alora laughed softly, smiling though her eyes were sad. “You refer to this tradition as if it were not one many don’t survive. You didn’t need to risk your life to give me this. I am already yours.”
“I suppose…” He looked down at the Anar fruit. “I give it as another vow to always await you every spring, even if… one day you choose not to return.”
To a land of darkness and wickedness.
To him.
Those big, soft eyes the color of honey met his, and Alora’s face crumbled. “Oh, Rune.” She took the fruit from his hands and wrapped her arms tightly around him. “I will always return to you.”
And her god’s promise rippled through the atmosphere with a silvery sheen.
“Then… you weren’t planning to say goodbye?”
“What?” Alora pulled back to stare at him incredulously. “No. I have other news.”
He braced again, sensing a coming storm.
Her hand rested on her stomach. “You are going to be a father.”
All thoughts halted.
He stared at her for a long moment, unblinking. For the first time, words failed him.
“Rune?”
He choked on a shocked breath. “That’s—”
“Impossible?” Her smile widened. “Well, once we defied fate, anything became possible.”
Then Rune recalled his mother’s gift that he had assumed was for him.
Not a mantle… but a swaddle.
This was why he had been craving Alora so fiercely. An instinct he now understood.
Rune sank to his knees onto the bedding of crimson flowers. His palm shook as he laid it over her stomach with reverence usually reserved for altars. A glow hummed beneath his touch as he heard a faint little heartbeat.
It was the smallest sound he had ever heard, and the most powerful.
They had been given another chance at life, but this…
He had never expected this.
“Seven Hells, Alora.” His eyes widened. “Why did you let me behave like an animal—I could have hurt you. What if it—he—”
“Her.” Alora laughed, cupping Rune’s cheek when he was struck silent again. “Don’t worry. She is perfectly safe. Daughter of both a god and a Primordial, I have a sense she will be something to behold.”
Now he truly may faint.
She sat beside him, luminous in the field of glowing spider lilies. “I most certainly will need my mate to help me raise her.”
Then everything in Rune settled with a low breath. As if at last the scales had truly balanced.
He had often wondered why Elyōn made the choices he did, never once understanding him.
What did his father feel as he watched from whatever height the gods deemed from on high. Did he feel affection or regret when it came to his sons?
In the end, Rune no longer needed to know. He had lived past the purpose he was made for, and that, perhaps, was enough.
“I understand now why Deimos presented us with that hideous doll,” Rune mused as he played with a lock of Alora’s hair. “But now I am curious what Calla and Hadeon gave us that required a veil.”
Alora laughed softly. “A cradle.”
Of course.
Rune drew her close, his wings wrapping protectively around the next part of their future. “You know, songbird,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to her head, “I ought to be offended that everyone knew before I did that you carried my progeny. Yet I find myself far too pleased to care.”
Alora’s eyes glittered with her smile, and he could already imagine how their lives would change.
As if sensing what was coming, the Netherworld Gate thrummed in quiet slumber far below the Shadow Keep. And he silently promised his daughter would never live a single day doubting she was loved.
Because her story would begin here.
Where all the best stories begin.
Scarlet petals swelled in the wind, lifting them into the moonlight. Alora looked up at the sky, sensing the movement of the sun in the Mortal Realm.
“It’s all right,” Rune murmured, playing with a golden coil of her hair. “They are yours to rule by day, but at night you are mine to ruin.”
He drew her lips his, soft and sweet.
A kiss that asked for nothing and promised everything.
The world would tell tales of a cursed princess and a dragon. But within the Netherworld, where shadows breathed and spider lilies bloomed, only one truth existed:
Every fairy tale ended in light—except this one.
Standing, Rune offered his hand and she took it. The shadows lifted them into the sky, above the moon, above the lava rivers, above the world where they danced through the everlasting night, cloaked in light and dark.
No music but the beat of their hearts.
No witness but the stars.
They danced like they had done it for centuries.
Like they would do it for centuries more.
“Forever,” Alora whispered, finishing his thought.
Rune spun her among the stars, the pleats of her dress curling like the blooms below.
“Eternity with the God of Shadows,” Rune mused, bringing her mouth to his. “Would you resign yourself to such a terrible fate?”
Alora smiled against his lips. “That, my darling, is what I have always desired. To dance with you forever, in once upon a dream.”
The End