Epilogue
VIENNE's POV
Jinx became the Royal Spymaster at sixteen.
She kept the crossbow. She added a library.
Kael married a northern blacksmith with arms like tree trunks and a laugh that shook the rafters. They named their first daughter Iraia.
Echo built a school in the ruins of Novus. She taught children to read, to question, to fight. No collars.
No collars ever again.
Torvald forged a new crown. Not for wearing. For remembering. Iron and silver, wolf and tower, displayed in the palace hall where every visitor could see it and know the story.
And Rafe?
We never found the body.
But sometimes, on cold nights, the ravens would gather in the northern mountains. They would circle a spot where the snow never settled, where the air shimmered like heat off stone, where something watched and waited and planned.
I kept the chip.
Not to use. To remember.
That the war was never truly over.
That peace was a choice made daily.
That love was the only real magic in any world.
And that the Lady King—once a ghost, once a thief, once a queen of borrowed skin—had finally, finally come home.
THE END
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A/N:
But every ending is just a door...