Epilogue
Nyssa
Six Months Later
Six months into godhood, you learn the difference between silence and peace.
Silence is the Pantheon realm at its worst: fog thick enough to choke, doors that remember your failures, the constant hungry suggestion that you don’t belong. Silence is what the Devourer wore like perfume.
Peace is what comes after you take the Throne and make the realm stop flinching.
I sit on the Chaos Throne with my bare feet tucked under me and watch the realm breathe.
It does that now.
It has rhythms.
It has mornings without a sun and evenings without a moon.
It has wind that moves because it wants to, not because the place is anxious.
It has distance that behaves. The staircases mostly go where they claim.
The marble doesn’t bleed shadows unless I ask it to.
The dead don’t scream unless someone deserves it.
And by gods—pun intended—it’s intoxicating.
Not the power. Not the way the world shifts when I think too hard about a wall. Not the way my voice carries with the weight of law if I let it.
What’s intoxicating is the fact that, for the first time in my life, nothing is syphoning me dry. Nothing is trying to kill me. Or abandon me. Or control me.
No invisible leash.
Just me. Whole. Anchored. Me.
I roll my shoulders and feel the Crown braided through my soul like a second spine. It isn’t a snake anymore. Not in the way it used to be. It doesn’t hiss at me from the corner of my mind like a smug artefact with opinions.
It lives where it belongs.
Quiet.
Content.
Waiting.
“Your posture is terrible,” Tabitha says from the edge of the dais.
I don’t turn my head. I don’t have to. The realm tells me exactly where she is, like the air itself is reporting to me. “You’re early.”
“I’m punctual,” she replies, as if punctuality is a virtue worth worshipping. She steps into view and stops at the base of the dais, hands clasped behind her back. No kneeling. No bowing. Just a woman in neat black clothes with a face like a locked filing cabinet.
My oracle.
She stands in my realm and reads the threads of the universe like they’re spreadsheets.
And the worst part is—she’s useful.
I lift a brow. “Report.”
Tabitha’s eyes flick upward, as if she can see the lines between worlds. “The Pantheon’s fracture index has stabilised. The scars from the Devourer’s pressure are holding. Your laws are… accepted.”
“Accepted,” I repeat flatly. “By whom?”
“The realm,” she says, as if that’s obvious. “And the lesser gods who still have the sense not to test you.”
A flicker of satisfaction tightens my chest. It’s not vanity. It’s relief. Because if the realm doesn’t accept me, it doesn’t hold. And if it doesn’t hold, everything collapses into hungry nothing.
I tap two fingers against the armrest of the Throne. The obsidian answers with a soft thrum.
“Earth,” I say.
Tabitha’s mouth tightens. “You check on her every day.”
“And?”
Her gaze sharpens, but she doesn’t argue. She reaches into the air and draws a small sigil—order lines, clean and precise. It blooms and then opens into a narrow pane of sight.
Not a portal. Not a door.
A window.
My rules.
The window shows my cottage kitchen first. The kettle’s on. A mug sits by the sink. Someone’s been in my space.
Then the image shifts, guided by Tabitha’s hand, and settles on BlackFen Edge’s cemetery.
It’s raining. Ireland never misses an opportunity.
Rynna stands under an oak with her hood up, blade in one hand and a stake in the other, staring down a hole in the ground like she’s deciding whether to kick something in it.
She looks… different.
Not older, exactly. But sharper around the eyes. Like she’s been forced to learn that bravery isn’t just attitude and good timing—it’s waking up every day and choosing to keep going anyway.
She’s wearing my old leather jacket. One that I myself hadn’t worn for years.
My throat tightens.
“Still stealing my clothes,” I mutter.
Dastian appears beside the Throne without walking, heat kissing my shoulder. “That’s sibling love. Theft and insults.”
I tilt my head to look at him. He’s sprawled on the step below the dais like he owns it, boots on ancient marble, grin lazy, hair a mess. He looks too bright for this place, like a spark that refused to be put out.
“You’re late,” I tell him.
“I was busy,” he says, and the way he says it implies he caused at least three minor disasters on the way here.
Voren arrives next—no sound, just a drop in temperature and the faint whisper of wraithlight sliding into the room. He stops at my left, as always, gaze going straight to the sightline.
Dreven is already here. I don’t see him arrive; I feel him settle behind the Throne like a shadow deciding it likes this corner.
I don’t turn. I don’t need to. His presence is a line down my spine. Steady, possessive, protective in that quiet way that makes me want to bite him and thank him at the same time.
Rynna moves into the sightline. She crouches by the hole, reaches down, and drags something up by its collar.
A vampire. Newly turned by the look of it. Still stupid enough to think fangs make you immortal.
He snarls at her, eyes glowing, claws scraping at wet earth.
Rynna headbutts him.
It’s brutal, efficient, and deeply Rynna.
“Arsehole,” she mutters, and drives the stake straight through his heart.
The vampire goes rigid, then collapses into ash.
Rynna stands, shakes ash off her hands, and looks around like she expects applause.
None comes.
She doesn’t need it.
But she takes a bow anyway.
My heart lurches.
She wipes her face with the back of her sleeve and starts walking out of the cemetery with a gait that screams exhaustion and stubborn pride.
My chest aches.
“She’s doing well,” Voren says quietly, and it’s the closest thing to reassurance he offers.
“She’s doing too much,” Dreven replies, voice a low rumble behind me. “Without the Order to guide her, she is on her own.”
“She’s trying to prove she’s not just ‘the sister,’” Dastian adds, and for once, there’s no humour. “She’s trying to prove she can do what you did.”
My jaw tightens.
I could fix this.
I could step through. I could appear in that cemetery, grab Rynna by the shoulders, and tell her to slow down. I could wipe the blood and ash off her life with a god’s hand and spare her the parts of this job that hollow you out.
I could.
But that’s not the point of choice.
That’s the point of control.
And I promised myself I wouldn’t become another Aethel.
So, I watch.
And I let Rynna be what she is now: the slayer of BlackFen Edge, chosen not by an Order but by the world’s need.
The sightline fades as Tabitha closes her hand.
“Any Order movement?” I ask because I have learned the universe doesn’t stop trying to bite you just because you won once.
Tabitha’s gaze slides to me. “Yes.”
Of course.
Dastian sits up straighter. Voren’s eyes sharpen. Dreven’s shadows tighten behind my shoulders like they’re listening.
Tabitha exhales, irritated. “Cormac is alive. Finnian is alive. They are not powerful, but they are connected. They are gathering old vows, old favours. They have allies.”
I lean forward slightly, resting my elbows on the armrests. “Where?”
“Belfast. A safehouse layered in warding and mundane camouflage. They are building something under a church.”
Dastian’s grin turns mean. “Oh, I love churches.”
“No,” I say sharply, and the chamber stills. “No impulsive raids. Not yet.”
Dastian’s brows lift. “Who are you and what have you done with Nyssa Vale?”
“I’m still me,” I reply. “I just have a realm to hold together and a sister on Earth who doesn’t need her world set on fire because you got bored.”
His grin softens a fraction. “Fair.”
Dreven’s voice is quiet behind me. “You want to handle it.”
“Yes,” I say.
Not because I don’t trust them. Not because I’m trying to prove anything.
Because I’ve accepted what I am.
And being what I am means I don’t outsource the things that matter.
I stand.
The Throne lets me go without protest, which is new. In the beginning it used to cling like it feared I’d walk away and leave it empty. Now it understands: I leave because I choose to, and I return because I want to.
I step down the dais. The realm shifts to accommodate me—floor smoothing, distance aligning.
Tabitha watches me, eyes unreadable. “If you involve yourself directly on Earth, you will attract attention.”
“I’m already attention,” I reply.
“You are also a destabilising factor.”
I smile. “Then I’ll destabilise the right people.”
Voren’s hand closes around my wrist, cold and careful. “If you go, I go.”
Dastian falls into step on my other side. “If you go, I go. Also, I’m bringing snacks. I like mortal snacks.”
Dreven’s presence slides to my back, shadows brushing my shoulders like a cloak. He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t need to. The promise is there.
I look at Tabitha. “You’re coming too.”
Her brow lifts. “Excuse me?”
“You wanted to be useful. You wanted to keep order. You wanted to survive.” I tilt my head. “Now you get to help protect the slayer one last time.”
Tabitha’s jaw tightens. “Fun.”
Silence stretches as I stare at her.
Then she nods once, sharp and reluctant. “Very well.”
I turn, and the realm answers.
Not with a door. With a fold.
The air in front of us creases as if someone pinched fabric, and a thin seam opens—not the jagged fissure from before, not a wound. A controlled threshold.
My threshold.
I glance back once, taking in the chamber: the pillars, the obsidian, the place that used to feel like a trap and now feels like a crown that actually fits.
Then I step through.
The cemetery in Belfast looks much like every other one.
The transition doesn’t make me nauseous anymore. It doesn’t tear at my soul like a bad decision. It’s smooth, like stepping from one room to another.
“Don’t wake the neighbourhood,” I murmur.
Dastian’s grin flashes in the gloom. “I make no promises.”
I shoot him a look, and he mimes zipping his mouth shut.