Epilogue #2
Ophis wasn’t “Ophiuchus,” but “Ophiia” or “Ophera” depending on whether you were talking about the person or the magic. Even “assembly” was just a word they’d picked up from interacting with us.
The day we figured out what really happened after the First Crossing, our whole world shifted, quite literally.
Seraphine was a council leader, and a rider. She quickly learned how to communicate using our language, but it was choppy, and Tala translated most of it. She was the one who told us the story of the fall of the home worlds.
“Our oldest records say the world was ending. The bane came, and everything was death, and the sky itself was torn apart. The Ophera gathered the survivors, called the last Portal, and our people were evacuated. But not everyone left. Those who could not reach the Portal, like the weak, the sick, the children. They hid, and the leaders who remained, my ancestors among them, led a retreat into the deep underground safe havens. They closed the doors and waited.”
“It was centuries before our ancestors were able to come to the surface. The records are incomplete. The bane hunted us, even below ground. But eventually, they left. We came back to the surface, thinking we were the last.”
That’s why they never searched. Never opened a portal to Earth.
If you spend centuries underground, generations passing, all the old stories morph into tales.
Even if you had a record, even if you had an archive, so many details get misconstrued.
And when you come back up, what do you find?
Ruins. Maybe a handful of your own, survivors so changed by the experience they don’t even recognize themselves.
You build new houses from the shells of the old. You start again.
That’s what they’d done. Every shield team, every axis, every goddamn tradition we’d been raised on, all of it had been invented or re-invented in isolation.
I’d asked about their armies, whether or not they had shield teams the way we did. Someone to protect the defenseless now that they knew what they were up against.
“We do not call them that. We have entire companies of warriors who share bonds, but we bond for battle, not for life. Our… academies…as you call them, are for war training. Every Allari serves for a portion of their lives as children and into their young adult years. Ophis are trained from early childhood.”
“What about contact with the other twelve worlds?” Tala had asked.
“When the old portal routs were rediscovered, we found the other worlds had done the same. Allari everywhere survived in safehavens, then rebuilt.”
They’d survived. Adapted. Maybe they’d suffered different wounds, but the people were still here. And they were united not by paranoia or bureaucracy or political bullshit, but by a shared promise to never let the bane tear us apart again.
I must have dozed off on the balcony, because when I blinked my eyes open, the world was dark and the sky was the wildest thing I’d ever seen.
The stars were bright and abundant. Not the familiar constellations of Earth, but new ones.
I wondered for a moment, if I might be staring at Earth’s sun in the distance right now and not even know it.
I stretched and felt the ache in my bones, the leftover exhaustion that never really went away these days, not even with the best sleep in the world. Noodle was still draped along the balcony rail, his eyes reflecting the starlight, tongue flicking lazily whenever the wind shifted.
Below us, the lights of Aurelian had come on.
They glimmered in the crystal towers and the bridges and the walkways, sending ghostly reflections over the river that looped the city in a protective arc.
The city was alive, even at night. I could hear voices and the sound of distant music.
People lived here. People thrived here, even after everything, and they weren’t afraid of the dark.
I sat up, rubbing my eyes, realizing I wasn’t alone. My shield had claimed the balcony.
Theo and Eris had dragged out a low crystal table and set up an impromptu camp around it, complete with chairs, blankets, and at least three different types of snacks.
There was a platter of what looked like candied nuts, some alien fruit, and a wedge of cheese that probably should not have been neon-blue but was.
Phoenix lounged backwards on a long padded bench, his arms behind his head, every muscle relaxed for probably the first time in months, deep in conversation with Rowan seated across from him.
Draco was perched on one of the armchairs, a crystal glass in hand, head tipped back as he studied the stars and talked to Jamie, who reclined next to him, petting Gretchen who perched on his lap.
Lucas was at the edge of the balcony, standing with his arms braced against the railing, glasses pushed up in his hair, eyes scanning the city below.
Aiden was in the lounge chair closest to mine, arms folded, gold eyes reflecting the city lights.
He hadn’t spoken much since the day we crossed over, but the bond told me everything I needed to know.
He was quieter now, less angry, less desperate to prove himself every second.
Now that his father was gone, and wasn’t this looming shadow over him, he was lighter.
Percy was slumped in the chair beside mine, still in the armor, boots propped on the balcony rail, arms crossed over his chest. He looked like he was asleep, but I could sense his awareness, the way he watched the rest of the group, the way he kept checking the bond, making sure I was okay, even as he let the exhaustion drag him under.
The lines of tension around his eyes were softer now.
Eris sprawled on the biggest chair, knees spread, a crystal decanter in one hand and an empty glass in the other.
He poured himself a drink, took a long swallow, and then passed the bottle to Theo, who accepted it with a flourish and immediately refilled his own.
The two of them were deep in conversation about the best way to organize the next portal expedition back to Earth. Particularly to retrieve their mothers.
The night air up here was thin, the wind faster than it had been at sunset.
I shivered, and immediately, Lucas detached from the railing, crossed the balcony in three long strides, and draped a blanket around my shoulders that had been draped on the chair next to me.
He tucked it around me carefully, his fingers brushing my collarbone, and his lips brushed my temple softly.
Theo got out of his chair and poured me a glass, the wine catching the starlight in shades of burgundy and violet. He handed it to me, fingers lingering over mine, and then leaned in and kissed me.
The taste of sweet berries from his lips lingered as I sipped the wine. It was stronger than anything I’d ever had on Earth, but not in a bad way. It burned a little, but then settled into a gentle warmth that spread through my chest and made my fingers and toes tingle.
I looked at my hands, the silver fissures tracing pale lines over my skin, catching the light.
I supposed they were a permanent part of me now.
I realized I was fine with that. Noodle slithered off the railing and onto my lap, curling himself into a tight spiral and resting his head along my knee.
I stroked his scales and felt the slow, thrumming pleasure in his mind as he soaked up my warmth.
No one was fighting. No one was angry.
I just watched them. My nine bonded mates. My warriors. My protectors. These men who’d been hand-picked by the Assembly to be my partners, my shield, my lovers, my family. They could be bastards sometimes, absolute buttholes, but they were mine and I was theirs.
We had so much work to do. For every moment of peace, there were a thousand threads waiting to unravel. There were more of our people stuck on Earth, people who’d never even dreamed that the home worlds were still out here, waiting.
But in the end, no matter what happened from here on out, this was home. Not Earth, not the dark halls of Dominion or the ancient ones at Imperium. Not anymore. This was home. A place with a night sky so full of stars it made you wonder just who else was out there staring right back.