Epilogue
Timur
In the month since Elaine’s return to Teneris, Ciana and Kurai had a wedding ceremony on the main plaza in front of the palace. It was the most beautiful celebration I’d ever seen, and I’d seen quite a few state events in my lifetime.
Kurai looked dignified and magical in his golden attire of a Joy Guardian.
Ciana was a vision from fairy tales in her white-and-gold dress with a wide skirt and a long train that stretched across the entire main plaza of Teneris.
Elaine told me it’d been Ciana’s lifelong dream to marry in a dress like that, and I was glad she finally got her wish.
The most beautiful, however, were the expressions of utter joy on the faces of the bride and groom when they swore their undying love and commitment for each other.
“Is this something you’d like to do too?” I asked Elaine, who was sitting on my lap in my new chair.
I’d had a new self-moving chair delivered from the Lorsan Wetlands, complete with a brand-new set of bracers to navigate it.
Having the chair was easier than flying in some situations, like right now when the entire palace and most of the city gathered here to witness the ceremony of the Joy Guardian of Teneris marrying the love of his life.
Elaine had a different chair placed for her next to mine. But at some point, I hadn’t even noticed when exactly, she crawled onto my lap as she’d often done before. It just felt more natural for us to be as close to each other as possible whenever we could.
“Would you like to have a wedding some day?” I kissed her hair that she’d pinned up high and decorated with strings of sweet-smelling honeysuckle flowers.
She gave me a cheeky smile. “Are you proposing?”
“Proposing? Are you asking if I’m proposing to have a wedding?” I asked, realizing that our conversation had turned into a lot of questions and no answers.
She laughed softly. “We can talk about it later. But I’ll just say that it really doesn’t matter to me. We can have a ceremony and even a party if we feel like having it one day. But I don’t need any of that to know that you’re mine and I’m yours already.”
She was right. Elaine was mine in every way that mattered.
And I was hers. My mating fever had passed shortly after the queen’s arrival to Teneris, and my mating cluster had disappeared for now, with my crotch no longer glowing at every inopportune moment.
My desire for Elaine never left me, of course, and I knew it never would. She was my one true mate.
On the last day of my mating fever, her own tendrils appeared. She had three—one in the back of her neck and two on her left arm, just like me. My mate now had full access to all my emotions, just like I had to hers.
Elaine’s and my assumptions proved correct.
Her emotions didn’t harm me. On the contrary, her love and compassion had stopped the poison’s progression in my body.
I kept everything I’d gained from the dragon so far—my wings, the fire breathing power, and all the less desirable attributes like the tail and the scales.
But the pain never returned, and I’d had no new changes since. Nothing at all.
The queen’s healing hags who’d examined me all concluded that the poison was now gone from my body, and with it the risk of an untimely death was gone too.
None of them could explain how it happened, calling it a miracle.
But I knew exactly who my miracle was. My Elaine.
She was my salvation long before anyone knew it.
Queen Abeille still remained in Teneris, and so far, no date had been set for her return to Kalmena.
Meanwhile, Prince Rha sent several of his councilors and Joy Vessel Keepers to Kalmena to ensure the city is managed well and to establish a new order in the queen’s sarai, one where humans were no longer manipulated and where they had full control of their bodies and their emotions.
In Teneris, the queen participated in all Prince Rha’s council sessions and attended many of the meetings that the prince held with his generals, including me.
She was a smart woman with vast experience in warfare and governance.
I was glad for the prince to have the queen’s experience and approval on his side now.
Through Prince Rha, the queen finally granted Kurai and Dawn full access to the Temple of the First Priestess. After visiting the temple and its massive library. Dawn only asked for a book of handwritten notes to bring with her to Teneris.
One night, Elaine and I found Dawn on her patio swing. She raised her eyes at us from the book she was reading, her cheeks stained with tears.
“She did it, Elaine,” Dawn said softly, not bothering with wiping off the tears from her cheeks. “Melanie came back to Alveari Kingdom, but the River of Mists brought her to the Time Before the Beginning. That’s what the shadows called it then. Look.”
She turned the page to the very beginning of the book she was reading.
“Is that Melanie’s handwriting?” Elaine asked, sitting next to her friend on the swing set.
Elaine gestured for me to join them too. Dawn nodded in approval, and I sat on the floor at Elaine’s feet.
“Yes, she wrote this entire book,” Dawn said.
“She wrote so many things. There are hundreds of scrolls in the temple’s library.
The names and descriptions of human emotions.
Detailed instructions on how to create the connection between the shadows and humans.
The early history of this world before it even became the kingdom.
And even how the shadows transformed into the fae for the first time ever.
But this book she wrote specifically for me.
See?” She pointed at the first page with ink-black writing in a language I couldn’t read.
“It says ‘To my little sister. Don’t be afraid, Dawn. After a storm always comes peace,’” Elaine translated for me, her eyes already glossy from welling tears too.
I knew these words well. They were often spoken among shadow fae as a soothing, comforting message passed on from parents to their children.
Only the Joy Guardians had inadvertently modified it during the translation.
The way I remembered the words of the First Priestess was, “Don’t be afraid of the dawn. After a storm always comes peace.”
The words that many generations of shadow fae whispered to themselves during a trying hour while holding on to hope were actually meant for the sister of the woman who wrote them. And somehow, that made them even more profound and their meaning even more comforting.
“Melanie didn’t land in a good place when she returned to our world,” Dawn spoke.
“She says here that she was happy knowing that I stayed with the man I loved instead of following her through the portal. She says she came back to Alveari to save her life when it was threatened. But there was nothing but chaos and shadows here back then. She had to literally start a civilization from scratch.”
“And she did it.” Elaine smiled.
“She did,” Dawn laughed. “My sister is the First Priestess, can you believe it?”
“If anyone could do it, it’d be Melanie. She always reached high.”
“She was so stubborn.” Dawn wiped off her tears.
“That helps too,” Elaine agreed.
Dawn closed the book and stroked its tough, snake-skin cover.
“Melanie bonded with a shadow,” she said, staring at the cover as if reading right through it.
“She lived for over five hundred years because a bond with a fae expands the human mate’s lifespan.
It makes me happy that she achieved so much, found her true love, and well…
founded a whole entire world. But a part of me…
” She drew in a shaky breath. “A part of me is sad, knowing the truth. Melanie is truly dead now. When I didn’t know what happened to her, I always had hope that I may see her again one day by some miracle. Now that hope is gone.”
Her chin trembled again, and Elaine wrapped her arms around her friend.
I left them then, not wanting to disturb their mourning.
There were many bonds in life, magical and otherwise.
I shared a deep connection with Elaine, the one that bound our souls, bodies, and hearts.
But she also had a bond of friendship with Dawn, and she could comfort her in grief better than I ever could.
Afew days later, a man approached me at the market. His garment was still lifted over his head as if he’d just come to the city from the desert.
“General.” He approached my chair.
I’d just bought a small case decorated with a mosaic of shimmering beetle wings set in gold filigree.
The merchant asked a hefty price for it, but the exquisite workmanship and the rare materials told me the case was worth it.
It also was just the right size for Elaine to put her glasses in before going to bed.
Elaine wouldn’t let me buy it if she knew how much it cost. But she would absolutely enjoy having it, and my general’s wages allowed me to spoil her as much as I wished.
I placed the case into my satchel, then slipped a hand into the slit of my skirt, finding the handle of a throwing dagger strapped to my thigh.
Breathing fire was an excellent weapon that was always with me.
But unless I wished to burn an entire city block to the ground, I often found my throwing knives a more preferable option to deal with people on an individual level.
“It’s me, General.” The man pulled the end of his garment away from his face.
“Zayr?” I recognized Ray’s former enforcer and let go of the dagger. “When did you get to Teneris?”
“Just this evening. I had no idea where to search for you. Thankfully, you aren’t hard to find.”
“No, I’m not,” I agreed.
My chair was easy to spot in the crowd. I’d stopped wearing a cloak a while ago too. Most people in Teneris recognized me now. The odd stares I still got every now and then mostly came from newcomers or visitors.