EPILOGUE
In the Throne Room, Meilyr’s blood pooled across the stone.
His eyes slipped closed as the life left his body. In Osian’s arms – in the roar of his lungs and the grasp of his hands – Meilyr died.
Meilyr had died.
Cold took him.
It was all-consuming. No golden light, only the bite of ice, the gnaw of the wind.
A shard of something sharp landed on his cheek. It melted into a tear. Another.
Meilyr opened his eyes to an ashen winter sky.
Snow fell, upon him and upon his hair. Upon his stained clothes and the ground around him.
It fell upon the corpses of the men and the horses that littered the hillside, already frozen where they had fallen. It fell upon the torn, discarded banners: the White Dragon and the Red.
It fell upon the fox, sat at the edge of the battlefield, waiting for him.
Cyngalon, Year 717 A.S.