Epilogue 1 Alaric
One Year Later, Site of the Last Battle Against the SoulTakers, The Rooted Marches
One year has passed.
Nightfall has always measured time in cycles of war and mourning—by how many pyres we light, how many names we carve into stone, how many screams echo through the tunnels before the realm goes silent again.
But tonight the realm measures it differently.
Tonight, it measures time in laughter.
In music.
In the fat, fragrant smoke of roasting meat and spiced fruits and honeyed breads. In lanterns floating like small captured stars across the vast black sky.
In the way The Barrow’s living rock has shaped itself into terraces and amphitheaters without being asked, as if the Marches themselves wanted front-row seats to this.
The First Night of the Four Crowns.
I roll the title around in my head and nearly choke on it.
Four Crowns—metaphorical not literal.
Four Lords.
Four viyellas.
No single Prime to shoulder it all—no bottleneck of power for greed to circle like vultures.
Responsibility shared. Anchored. Balanced.
It still feels like cheating.
But the Fates have been quiet—almost satisfied.
And if anyone knows what it feels like to stare the Fates in the face and dare them to blink, it’s me.
Jules catches my wrist as I move past a table of offerings, her fingers warm and firm.
That ring of Crown-fragment glints on her hand.
Mine, it answers, a faint vibration through my bones that never quite goes away now.
“You’re brooding,” she says, eyes narrowed in the way I’ve learned means she’s about to bite.
“I am appreciating,” I correct smoothly.
She snorts. “That’s not appreciating. That’s plotting.”
“I have never plotted in my life.”
Her brows lift so high it’s practically an accusation.
“Okay,” I amend, “I have never plotted today.”
“Alaric.” She leans closer, lowering her voice. “It’s a celebration. Try smiling like you’re not about to start a coup.”
I glance down at her—my viyella, my miracle—and I soften despite myself.
“You are the only being alive who dares speak to me like that.”
“That’s because I’m the only one who knows you’re full of shit.”
She kisses the corner of my mouth, quick and precise, like sealing a spell.
“Go on. Make your speech. Don’t make it weird.”
“I will absolutely make it weird.”
Jules laughs and gives me a gentle shove toward the dais carved from living stone.
The crowd shifts. Miners. Farmers. Soldiers. Dreamwrights in their layered robes, eyes bright and watchful.
Children dart between legs, squealing, chasing ribbons of harmless illusion that I’ve set loose in the air like friendly little spirits.
And then there’s them.
Kael stands with Phoebe at his side, his hand possessively spread over the small of her back like the world might steal her if he blinks. She pretends not to notice, but her mouth keeps twitching like she’s fighting a smile.
Thorne is, well, he is simply Thorne.
A towering, brooding inferno of a male trying to look like he isn’t one casual comment away from burning down the entire festival out of protective instinct. Delia is right beside him, calm as steel, her hand linked with his in a way that says she can pull him back from the edge with a touch.
And Dagan? The Lord of Earth stands slightly apart, as he always has, like the horizon line itself. But he isn’t alone anymore.
Alina leans against him, her hair braided, her expression bright and stubborn and utterly unafraid. The Marches hum under their feet like a cat purring.
It hits me, sudden and sharp.
We’re still here.
Nightfall is still here.
I step onto the dais, and the murmurs fade.
The Gemini Moon is risen—one face bone-pale, the other rust-red—and it hangs low in the sky, watching.
Listening. Remembering.
“Tonight,” I begin, voice carrying without effort, “we mark one year since Idris fell, and the SoulTakers broke.”
A shiver runs through the crowd at the name, old fear remembered, but it doesn’t take root. Not anymore.
“Tonight,” I continue, “we mark one year since the Crown stopped demanding a single ruler, and accepted what it should have accepted all along.”
I raise my hand, and the ring at my finger flashes—soft, bright, alive.
“Four Crowns,” someone murmurs.
“Yes,” I say, and smile despite myself. “Four. Shared. Tempered. Anchored by bonds that cannot be stolen, cannot be coerced, and cannot be corrupted.”
I glance at Jules.
My viyella lifts her chin, proud and radiant, Marcel cradled against her. Our son’s silver-streaked hair catches the lanternlight, and his eyes—gods help me—are already too clever.
He yawns, utterly unimpressed by my speech.
The crowd laughs softly, and something in my chest loosens.
A Dreamwright steps forward as I finish, her hands stained with ink and ore dust, her face solemn in the way of those who watch the multiverse breathe.
“Lords,” she says, voice carrying. “The flow is stable. Dreams move clean again. The forges sing. Nightmares are fewer.”
A ripple of relief spreads like a warm wave through the gathered people.
“And,” she adds, eyes glinting, “we have reports from the other realms.”
I feel it—subtle, like distant thunder.
The connection.
The invisible thread between Nightfall and everywhere else.
The Dreamwright lifts her palm, and a small image forms above it—an echo of another world.
Earth.
A dark bedroom in New Jersey—to be precise.
A child—maybe eight, maybe nine—stirs beneath a blanket patterned with dinosaurs. Their mouth curves into a sleepy smile as they whisper something into the dark.
“Dragons,” the child breathes, delighted. “And a castle… and a lady with wings…”
The image shifts—another bed, another world, another child. This one laughs in their sleep, clutching a stuffed bear like a lifeline.
Color returns to their dreams like water to a dried riverbed.
The crowd goes silent.
Not out of fear.
Out of awe.
Phoebe’s hand flies to her mouth. Delia blinks hard like she’s fighting tears. Alina squeezes Dagan’s fingers, and even Dagan—stone-faced Dagan—looks like the earth inside him has gone soft.
Jules turns her face into my shoulder.
“See?” she whispers. “It matters.”
“It always mattered,” I whisper back, holding her tighter.
I look out over my people—over our brothers, our mates, our children—and I let the truth settle in my bones.
Nightfall is not a weapon.
Nightfall is a promise.
And for the first time in an age, we are keeping it.
I lift my cup.
“To the Four Crowns,” I say, voice rougher than I intended. “To the Dreamwrights. To the miners. To the ones who bled in the dark so hope could be forged.”
I glance at my brothers and their viyellas.
“And to our mates,” I add, because I am not too proud to name the true power behind any of this. “The ones who made monsters into men worth following.”
Thorne grunts like he’s about to argue.
Delia elbows him.
Kael smirks. Dagan’s mouth twitches, almost a smile.
Jules kisses my cheek.
The crowd roars.
And above us, the Gemini Moon watches overhead like it finally approves.
And for now, it does.