Epilogue
JUNIS
The coastline comes into view slowly. Smoke threads upward from what used to be homes, thin and pale against the sky.
The docks have half-collapsed into the water, debris drifting outward in slow circles that the tide has not yet decided what to do with.
Gyarin looks like something the sea is still deciding whether to take.
The ship sits heavy in the water, its decks crowded in a way they were not when it arrived. The dead have been driven back. The living have been gathered. The work of it shows on everyone still moving.
Behind them people fill every available space rather than soldiers, wrapped in blankets that belong to someone else, sitting close together because space stopped mattering sometime in the night.
The children are quiet in a way that has nothing to do with peace.
The adults stare outward, bodies present and minds still back on the shore, still in it.
Junis moves through them slowly, stepping over outstretched legs, adjusting a blanket here, pressing a waterskin into someone’s hands there.
He does it quietly, his attention moving from one person to the next without pausing long enough to be thanked.
Whatever this is now, it has been worn into him by too many nights like this one to feel like anything other than habit.
Eravic stands at the rail watching the shoreline.
“It will take time,” Junis says, coming to stand beside him.
Eravic does not look away from the water. “Everything does.”
Junis exhales and turns slightly to scan the deck again. That is when he sees him.
It does not register at first. Just another figure among many, seated against the railing with his wrists loosely bound, his posture carrying something wrong that has more to do with time than rope. His clothes have been worn down into something shapeless. His hair has thinned. His face—
Junis goes still.
“Baron Dyvarin?”
The name carries across the deck and the man flinches before he understands why, the way people do when they have spent too long waiting for something bad to happen. Slowly he lifts his head.
Recognition comes to him late, moving through something thick and slow before it arrives.
Junis steps forward. “Baron Dyvarin.” More certain this time. He crouches to bring himself into the man’s line of sight. “It’s me. Junis.”
The Baron’s mouth opens. Nothing comes out.
Junis waves one of the crew over. “Get these off him.”
The ropes are cut. Dyvarin’s hands fall to his sides and stay there, as though the concept of being free has not fully reached him yet.
“What happened to you?” Junis asks, his voice dropping.
Nothing. Only breathing, slow and uneven.
Junis straightens and looks to the crew. “He’s coming with us. Water, food, whatever he needs.”
Eravic looks over then, taking in the scene. His attention lingers just longer than it needs to, something moving through his expression before it closes off again.
Junis rests a hand briefly on the Baron’s shoulder. “You’re safe now. We’ll take you back to Veynar.”
The Baron’s head drops slightly. Movement, but nothing more.
The ruined coast sits behind them, not yet far enough to look small. Ahead the water opens up, wide and indifferent to all of it.
Junis stands there a moment longer, watching the man he believes he has just saved. Then he moves on, orders already forming, his mind already on what comes next.
Behind him the Baron sits very still.
And says nothing.