Epilogue
- Evangeline
I once believed in love. True love, real, I-will-do anything-for-you love. That it didn’t have anything to do with being lifemates – the literal other half of one’s soul that had been ripped from us by the gods at birth and flung out into the worlds for us to find. It had to do with someone simply loving another, devoting their life to their happiness.
I’d learned of this by watching Jace with Aurelia. He had been obsessed with her, the poster boy for true love, the very standards I’d based my entire belief of it on. He’d spent hours every night cleaning Aurelia’s uniform because she hadn’t liked the sight of all the blood. He’d gone searching through the sea of corpses to find Vylians on the verge of death. He’d stood against our own soldiers to protect the enemy she was trying to save. He’d never once told her she was being stupid like I, Deirdre, and Richard had constantly had. Had never once made her feel hopeless for doing a hopeless task.
He’d simply supported her. Stood in the shadows at her back and loved her without any expectations of a princess returning the feelings of a lowly guard.
For years, he’d been in love with her.
Devoted to her.
And then he’d killed her.
And killed a part of me too – the one that believed in love. That believed there were people out there that would do anything for you.
But as I laid in Redric’s bed, his arms around me, my stomach swollen with our second child as he snored softly behind me, I thought that maybe I was starting to believe in it again.
Just maybe…
I guessed only time would tell.