Epilogue
Vasso
The way magic ripples through a planet when a new King comes to power is so destructive that one may ask why that planet would wish for it in the first place.
Why, when demons are already so close to being immortal, would Eraphon choose to crack herself wide for a new ruler of her people? One might never know unless they spoke directly with the world herself.
Wake.
He stirred. For so long, he’d buried that voice down. Deep into the cracks of his subconscious, she stayed buried, only speaking to him in his dreams. But this pain. He wasn’t dreaming. He was reborn.
Water dripped from the ceiling above. It trickled down the walls, carrying sediment and minerals from the rivers and lakes far above.
I said, Wake, King Vasilios.
Sour coated his mouth and tongue. A reverberating ache and searing burn coursed through his arms and legs. Someone had killed him, and thus he had regenerated.
But how?
It does not matter how, only that you are whole.
“Ugh,” Vasso groaned into an empty black cavern. It was a chore to turn onto his side. “I didn’t agree to let you out of your hole, Eraphon.”
You have no choice now, Vasilios. You are of full power; we are one.
“Let me find a knife, and I’ll remedy that.”
Eraphon went silent, and Vasso chuckled to himself, despite the throbbing in his head. Each new breath brought a deeper ache to his lungs. How much had he grown in this new generation?
His groans echoed off the walls back to him. The sound stirred a commotion of light and shuffling from the cave entrance. Vasso squinted against the oncoming torches. The shades, although curious, quickly scattered from the procession of demons.
His destiny.
There was no more putting it off.
“Your Majesty,” his old adviser bowed low.
The tendons and ligaments in his arms pulled and snapped as he sat up on the cold, damp cave floor.
“You couldn’t have put me in a bed, Supay?” Vasso growled and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms.
“Forgive us, your majesty. Your regeneration was taking a long time. Eraphon…she—”
Vasso held up his hand for silence. Of course, she requested that he wake up cold, dark, and sore. But for Shadow’s sake, why did his chest hurt so much?
Do not speak of her.
Vasso ran his hands through his hair. It was short. Much shorter than he liked it.
Dinah came forward, bowed, and extended her hand to help him. Then, he saw it: a raised, angry demon brand, one in the shape of a raven.
“Who dared to brand me?” he seethed.
The demons, including his adviser, flinched. Only Dinah stood true and straight, ever the soldier, his fury. If there was one thing he could count on in all his years, it was her, and her steadiness.
It does not matter.
“Who?” he asked again, ignoring his commander’s voice in his head. He was taller in this new form, almost a head and a half above his friend. She looked the same, blood red hair shorn to her collarbone.
Yes. Ever the soldier.
“Do you not remember?” Dinah asked him. Her brows were furrowed something fierce, a stitch of panic on her tongue. “What was the last thing you remember?”
Vasso thought back. Memories of a tent after a battle came forward. One, he thought he’d survive. That didn’t seem to be the case. The words of the prophecy rang through his ears. He would be the downfall of the realm. He would be the last Demon King. Then there was nothing.
“The battle of Okaterth.”
His creatures, his lords and ladies, gawked at him as if he were mad. Vasso growled in response.
“Your Majesty,” Dinah lowered her voice. “That was one hundred years ago.”