Chapter Forty-One
Calroy, Rowhan, Palto, and I met in the grand library Jina had designated for us. Calroy sat with his forearms on the table, the five pure stones laid out between us, each one catching the candlelight from the sun beaming through from the open ceiling.
He looked at Rowhan first. “Yeri and I have decided we’re not sending you back.
” He let that sit a moment before continuing.
“Under one condition. You do not expose yourselves as gods. You walk among the Seaborn as ordinary men. You stay within Jeju.” He glanced at me, then back.
“Jina will give you each a room in the castle, a horse to move about the city, and a monthly allowance.”
Rowhan said nothing for a moment, then released a long breath. “That is more than we deserve. I knew there was a chance you would send me back, but I must admit I’m relieved.” He glanced at the stones on the table. “And the allowance is generous.”
Calroy turned to Palto. “The same goes for you.”
Palto nodded, a grateful smile crossing his face. “And the others?” he asked.
“They stay as they are,” I said. “Too many gods is its own kind of problem. The world has been trying to find its footing without us. Putting us all back at once—”
“Would tip the balance and cause a different kind of chaos,” Rowhan finished.
“Junio, Eules, Saura,” Palto’s voice softened. “They regret what was done. You know that, don’t you?”
“I know,” Calroy said. “And they’ll continue to regret it in your realm. That’s not cruelty. That’s consequence. We’ll revisit this topic when the world is steadier.”
Palto offered a curt nod. He didn’t push.
“The stones stay with me.” I looked at each of them in turn. “All of them. Not as a threat, but as a safeguard. If either of you move against the balance we’re trying to build, we have the means to act.”
Rowhan held my gaze. “Of course.”
“As we agreed.” Palto dipped his head once.
Calroy reached across the table and gathered the stones. “Rowhan and Palto, you will walk among the living.” He placed them back inside the velvet pouch Fraya had carried since Pandrano. “The rest remain where they are.” He pulled the cord tight and handed it to me. “The stones stay with Yeri.”
A small lie, one only Minha and I would ever know. Minha would keep them hidden in the cavern where we’d grown up, tucked away in the secret hollow she had carved into the wall for her first shell dagger.
The safest place in any world is the one no one thinks to look.
“They were always Yeri’s to carry,” Palto said. “From the moment she took them from the cavern.”
I picked up the pouch and closed my hand around it. The hum was familiar now—steady and low, coming from three of the stones. The other two, the ones that had held Palto and Rowhan, were silent. Their essence had gone home.
“What about me?” A spirit rose through the table. He shrank himself down to three feet, adorable instead of scary, then bowed at me. “My Lady, it’s so nice to see you again.”
“Careful, Oscan.” Calroy’s nostrils flared. “What are you doing here?”
“I would like to know the same.” Palto crossed his arms. “I left you in charge. Have you forgotten?”
“I’m visiting My Lady.” Oscan’s cloak lowered, showing only the upper part from his shoulder in front of me, still through the table.
Palto furrowed his brow. “You left an entire realm of the dead unsupervised to come flirt with a taken goddess?”
“I prefer to think of it as delegation.” He turned his head to Palto, then back to me. “You trained me well, My Lord.”
Calroy’s jaw ticked. “Delegate yourself back.”
“Jealous, God of the Sky?” Oscan’s cloak trembled, chuckling. “Anyway, I didn’t get to say a proper goodbye, My Lady. I was thinking I could get a simple kiss.”
“Get lost, Oscan,” Calroy snarled. “Before I—”
“It’s fine.” I grabbed Oscan’s hood and kissed where I thought his forehead would be, then looked at Calroy. “See... a simple kiss.”
Oscan sighed dreamily, his cloak tilting to the side. “Thank you, My Lady. I’ll never wash my face.”
A flash of red crossed where his cheeks should be. Was the wraith blushing? Then he slipped lower to the table and disappeared, leaving me giggling.
Rowhan tried to hide his snort with a cough. “Anyway, what will the god of the sky and the goddess of the sea do now that the war is over?”
Calroy leaned back in his chair. The corner of his mouth lifted.
“I’ll continue to help Nira rule Caelum, but my free time belongs to Yeri.
” His hand found mine under the table. “We have many years to make up for.” That familiar blue lit his eyes bright.
“Now if you’ll excuse us.” He pushed back his chair and rose, then he offered his hand to me. “We have somewhere to be.”
Rowhan and Palto exchange glances, brows furrowed.
“Some things never change,” Rowhan said, the suggestion of a smile crossing his face.
Palto chuckled.
Good. Let some things never change. Let this be one of them, please.
Calroy’s wings expanded, then shot us both into the sky, right through the open ceiling.
The wind rushed past us, the city shrinking below until it was just scattered light and rooftops.
Calroy pulled me closer, his lips brushing my temple. “Where to now, Little Star?”
I let the question sit for a moment, looking out at the horizon, at everything still waiting to be rebuilt, reclaimed, and discovered.
But for the first time since I could recall, long before this life, there was no queen hunting my blood.
No countdown to a next ending, or next lifetime spent searching for each other.
Just this. Just him, and a horizon with nothing standing between us. I got to choose him. Not because a prophecy demanded it, not because death was coming for one of us. For the first time, the choice was simply mine.
“Anywhere,” I said. “As long as it’s with you.”