Epilogue
AESAR
Three years after the fall of Galaeryn
“Hold still,” Aesar said, tightening his fingers against the base of Vesryn’s skull before his brother could pretend the command had been optional.
Vesryn obeyed, though his posture made a quiet argument of it. “You nicked me last time.”
“You turned your head to watch.”
“I was assessing your technique.”
“By all means, do it yourself. Your last attempt only took six months to grow out.”
Aesar drew two fingers along the side of Vesryn’s head, where the long fall of silver hair gave way to a rough crop. Shadows gathered under his fingertips and thinned to a black razor against Vesryn’s scalp. Silver strands sheared away in a perfect line, lifting free into the highland wind.
Vesryn sat with his shoulders resting against Naru’s flank, a chick already pecking industriously at the polished buckle of his boot. Naru ignored the assault, busy combing his beak through the pinfeathers of another nestling from the clutch.
Beside her mate, Trella’s white chest rose and fell, each slow breath rippling through the meadow grass.
Aesar skimmed the shadow-blade over another strip of hair.
Vesryn lifted one hand toward the newly shorn side, and Aesar snatched his wrist. “Touch it before I finish, and I’ll carve something obscene into your scalp.”
Vesryn perked up. “Really?”
“Never mind.” He sighed. “I’ll just make the line crooked.”
Vesryn lowered his hand at once.
Beyond Naru, Trella, and their six chicks, the valley opened under a clear blue sky.
The high country stretched south from the Aetherveil, its slopes veined with meltwater.
Far to the north, the floating islands hovered in staggered tiers above the horizon, hazed by distance.
Here, sunlight lay unbroken over wildflowers and the nest Naru and Trella had woven from grass and down.
In Alari, the old dracovae stables still stood abandoned, and Aesar intended them to stay that way. The realms had made mounts of the dracovae for too long, barred flight behind stall doors, and bred obedience into carefully chosen bloodlines.
In the years after the war, the dracovae had scattered across the wilds, following warm currents, old instincts, and paths no keeper chose for them.
Some nested in mountain valleys or along sea cliffs.
Others still flew patrol with the rangers, choosing the long sweep of borders over a mate or nest.
Aesar kept the ledger himself. Reports reached him from rangers and the new Waykeepers, who monitored the overland roads and marked new nests, abandoned clutches, and dracovae sightings along their routes. Too few mated pairs remained, their kind too close to extinction for guesswork.
So Aesar recorded every clutch, every egg that cooled before hatching, every fledgling that survived long enough to test its wings. If the world meant to keep them wild, someone had to know when their numbers fell.
A trill cut through the grass nearby.
One of the dracovae chicks barreled past with a beakful of Vesryn’s severed hair, glossy pinfeathers spearing through wings too large for its body.
Sharyne chased after it on unsteady legs, copper hair bound into two wraith braids, silver eyes bright with ruthless determination.
A few paces beyond her, Fenn sprawled on his stomach in the grass, chin propped on folded arms. Two chicks scrambled over his back and a third picked busily at the rings along one pointed ear. Koln sat next to him with one knee raised, repairing a split bandolier.
“Cut off its retreat,” Fenn called.
“Fenn,” Vesryn said, his attention on Sharyne, “she’s three.”
“And fearless. I’m working with excellent material.”
Sharyne lurched into the chick’s path. The nestling squawked, ducked under one arm, and escaped with Vesryn’s hair still clamped triumphantly in its beak.
Aesar swept one final pass of shadows along Vesryn’s scalp, trimming the last uneven strands. “There. Are you ever going to grow all of it out?”
Vesryn smoothed a hand over his head. “No. Serenna likes it.”
Aesar settled against Trella’s feathered shoulder, her slow breath rumbling through his spine. “That’s hardly the endorsement you think it is, considering she also likes you.”
Vesryn snorted and glanced across the valley, where a turquoise shimmer paced along a distant ridge.
Lykor’s illusion strode back and forth in restless passes. Three lengths of the slope. A pause beside the split stone. Then his head angled toward them, swift enough to preserve the fiction of indifference.
Still vigilant. Still circling.
Jassyn had left that morning with the Accord delegation bound for Centarya, and Lykor had endured the separation with all the grace expected of him—which was to say, by assigning four squads of wraith to shadow the First Keeper’s every step.
But at least the pacing belonged to the valley now and not the inside of Aesar’s head.
Fenn shoved himself up from the grass, shedding chicks in a tumble of down and offended chirps.
Sharyne finally caught the hair-thieving nestling around its scaly middle, squealing in triumph as it screeched its outrage. It endured the indignity for all of a heartbeat before squirming free and vanishing under Naru’s folded wing.
Fenn brushed grass from his leathers and held out one claw. “Time to go, little elfling. We’re going to be late.”
Sharyne’s head snapped up. “See Renna?”
“To the flight trials,” he confirmed, shifting into wings.
“And if we hurry,” Koln added as he rose, “we might claim the best perch in the sky to watch her knock fliers out of it.”
Sharyne scrambled toward Fenn, but Koln snatched her around the middle before she made it two steps and swung her upside down.
She shrieked in delight, braids dangling toward the grass. Koln cackled, flipped her upright, and settled her onto his shoulders.
Vesryn stretched his legs out. “Make sure she’s prepared to critique everyone’s form.”
Fenn’s grin flashed, all fangs. “We’ll be merciless.”
“How fortunate our sister has so many exemplary influences,” Aesar said.
Essence flared and a portal split the air beside Fenn. Sharyne flung up one hand in a frantic wave before the three of them vanished.
The valley fell silent in their absence. Trella stirred behind his back and drew her beak gently through his hair, each slow stroke tugging softly at his scalp.
Wind moved through the grass and a nestling wandered toward Aesar on oversized claws. It paused between his knees, tail flicking once, then scrambled into his lap.
It tipped its head back, exposing the new pinfeathers along its throat with shameless expectation. A wild thing, warm and taloned, folding its weight into his hands.
With a quiet chuckle, Aesar scratched the growing feathers under its beak. Its eyes slid shut, wings going lax against his thigh.
“So you’re leaving the flight trials unattended?” Aesar asked. “I assumed the druids required your personal supervision to feel properly terrorized.”
Vesryn turned his head enough for Aesar to catch the edge of his smirk. “Zaeryn took my rotation. I’ll owe her two in return.”
But his humor faded as his gaze drifted to the place where the portal had closed. Vesryn drew one blade of grass through his fingers, splitting it neatly along the vein. “Sharyne had another dream.”
Aesar’s fingers stilled against the chick’s chin. It opened one disgruntled eye and released an offended chirp.
“What was it this time?” he asked softly.
Vesryn studied his hand as a mote of Essence gathered above his palm. “She said the sky drowned in stars.” He curled his fingers, and the light slipped between them in luminous currents. “And someone with silver eyes was throwing them down.”
Vesryn looked up then, silver gaze catching Aesar’s.
Aesar had never grown used to the change. In certain light, it seemed as though it was their sire staring back.
“But Jassyn assured us Sharyne’s mind is her own,” Vesryn murmured. “For now. Serenna’s and mine as well. Though he was less complimentary about my capacity for rational thought.”
The attempt at levity lasted only as long as the magic. Its light flickered between Vesryn’s fingers, then vanished.
“Sometimes the whispers get louder,” Vesryn said, staring off into the distance. “When I channel Essence for too long. There are moments when I feel outside my body.”
Aesar went still. The chick resettled its weight in his lap, four claws pressing through his leathers.
Across the valley, Lykor’s illusion paused on the ridge. Even at that distance, Aesar sensed the angle of his attention, the fixed, predatory readiness that meant he’d found no threat and trusted that least of all.
“Lykor remains convinced something could’ve come through the king’s portal before it closed,” Aesar said.
“I agree.”
Vesryn’s answer came too quickly to be new. He leaned his head back against Naru and lifted his gaze to the sky. “That’s why Fenn and I still lead the hunts. For remnants of the king’s magic. For anything that doesn’t belong here.”
“But you haven’t found anything besides fallen talents.”
“Not yet.”
Aesar resumed smoothing the chick’s pinfeathers. It sighed into his palm, untroubled by dead kings or whatever survived them.
“Perhaps you, Serenna, and Sharyne are simply closer to what came before us. You nearly touched the stars and returned changed.”
Vesryn gave no answer. He stared somewhere beyond the valley until his silence had said enough, then planted one palm on the ground and rose.
“Are you coming to the flight trials?” he asked, scratching beneath Naru’s jaw.
Essence gathered, and darkness drew a seam through the sunlit valley, widening into a portal.
“Wait.” Aesar eased the chick into the grass and stood.
For one absurd instant, he considered leaving the truth where he’d kept it these past months, sealed behind his teeth.
Instead, he said, “There’s something I want to tell you.”
Vesryn turned fully toward him. “That sounds regrettably serious.”
“It’s not.”
“Then you should have no trouble saying it.”
“I…” Aesar folded his hands behind his back. “I met someone.”
The portal collapsed.
Vesryn stared at him.
Five seconds passed before Aesar’s patience began to decay. “You’re being dramatic.”
“When did you meet him?”
“That’s not the question I expected first.”
“It was the least invasive one.” Vesryn tilted his head. “You’re stalling. Who is he?”
“One of the Accord’s Waykeepers,” Aesar said. “He charts the new overland routes and oversees the crews opening roads between the human cities and the settlements taking root in the druid wilds.”
Vesryn blinked. “He’s human?”
Aesar had anticipated that question. Worse, he’d already done the arithmetic too many times, measuring Marrek’s years against the longer reach of his own.
“Yes,” he said. “And before that thought finishes assembling itself in your head, I’m aware.”
Vesryn studied him more closely, but said it anyway. “Humans are shorter-lived.”
Aesar’s jaw tightened. “Cinderax said the scalebond lengthens human years. Should he choose to seek a boon.”
Vesryn’s brows lifted. “So you’ve thought this through. How did you even meet him?”
Aesar glanced toward the distant ridge, where Lykor’s turquoise shape continued its restless patrol. “Lykor tried to kill him.”
Wicked delight lit Vesryn’s eyes. “He survived Lykor?”
“Only because I intervened.”
“How disappointing for Lykor.”
“He remains most aggrieved.”
“I imagine so.” Vesryn crossed his arms, entirely too pleased now. “How long?”
“Long enough that I’m willing to subject him to all of you.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one you’re getting.”
“Does this mysterious Waykeeper have a name?”
“Yes.”
He didn’t provide it. Vesryn would be relentless until he had every answer, and Aesar had no intention of rewarding him so soon. He opened a portal instead.
After sending word to Lykor and sensing Lykor’s presence coil back into his mind, Aesar stepped toward the threshold.
“I’m happy for you,” Vesryn said behind him.
Aesar halted.
The valley wind passed over his shoulders, carrying him for an instant into grief worn familiar by years.
Kal had died in a world that no longer existed. A harsher world. A world that had taught Aesar how to lose and called the lesson survival. He’d carried that lesson into the quieter aftermath and spent months believing that remaining alone was a form of loyalty.
But healing had never required him to love Kal less.
Marrek had buried someone in that broken world too and never flinched from Kal’s name or asked Aesar to leave it unspoken. There’d been no rivalry between their dead, only the understanding of two people who knew what it cost to survive someone they’d meant to grow old beside.
Somewhere along the way, keeping Marrek hidden had ceased to preserve anything. And Vesryn had simply been happy for him, without asking Aesar to defend it.
Aesar glanced back at his brother. “Well, are you coming?”
Vesryn crossed the grass in three long strides and hooked an arm around Aesar’s shoulders.
Aesar sighed. “You’re going to be unbearable.”
“Yes,” Vesryn said, drawing him through the portal. “Start at the beginning.”