Rowan calls Eleanor’s name. She has Marius, resurrected during the same spell as Aitna, propped in the empress’s throne, Eleanor’s yellow citrine crown balanced on his head. This psychological jab seems to affect the goddess more than any other. Her dark eyes turn to pits of rage, and she abandons Aitna to redirect all her wrath and magic at Marius. She never has a chance to release the blow. Aitna pushes and the heirs pull, and Eleanor’s feet land in the center of the triangle.
Clarissa sings a high note, and the outline of the symbol ignites in purple light. Gabriel and Alexander drop the chain. Sylas recovers and joins Colin, Tobias, and Xavier at her side.
Eleanor raises both hands, but when she unleashes her dark power, it is unable to penetrate the containment of the symbol. The three sisters are chanting, locking Eleanor in and draining her, feeding her energy to Aitna. The true goddess grows stronger as Eleanor shrinks, twelve feet, to ten, to six, until she drops to her knees, looking no stronger than before she ascended.
Raven breaks from her sisters and reaches for her daughter, Charlie, plucks a feather from her white wings, and takes it to Eleanor. “You murdered Medea and Tavyss to keep their unborn child from being born, not because the baby was a danger to Paragon but because it was a danger to you.” She drops the feather into the triangle.
Eleanor gags, holds her throat like she can’t breathe, and then she starts to age. The heirs circle around the symbol. Eleanor’s hair goes gray, her eyes rheumy, and she collapses. With a wave of Raven’s hands, the glow around the symbol dissipates. Raven stands over Eleanor, her sisters behind her. Eleanor’s skin puckers to her bones.
She reaches her hand out toward Nathaniel. “Help me.”
Of all the heirs, Nathaniel seems the most distraught about watching his mother fade, but he shakes his head once and turns his back on her.
“You don’t know what you have done, witch,” Eleanor hisses at Raven. “You will never have peace. You will never have unity. Ouros will never accept a dragon mated to a witch!”
Her eyes sink into her head. Her hair and teeth fall out. And then her body crumbles to dust. A loud clink echoes in the empty space when her citrine heart, damaged and hazy, falls to the stone. Gabriel crushes it underfoot.
Aitna grows, towers over the mountain, her light illuminating Paragon all the way to Hobble Glen. With a turn of her wrist, she calms the volcano. The lava stops flowing and cools.
A row of lights shines in the distance. Soldiers from all five kingdoms watch in wonder. She reaches down and plucks the crown from Marius’s head and places it on Gabriel’s. As she does so, the gems in the setting change, morphing from citrine to emerald. Then the goddess forges another in her palm with fiery magic and places it, still smoking, upon Raven’s dark head.
Marius doesn’t move. Doesn’t protest. He stares unblinking at the lightening sky.
Gabriel and Raven are left speechless. The goddess becomes normal-sized again and places her hand on Charlie’s head, casts a smile in Raven’s direction, and then she is gone.
The two suns break over the horizon, shining light on the effects of war. Paragon is carved in rivers of steaming lava, the palace is destroyed, and Eleanor has been reduced to ash. Pieces of her blow away on the wind.
I, Leena of Niven, have witnessed the end of Empress Eleanor and the beginning of something entirely different. Entirely new. Perhaps the folktales of old were true. The child of a dragon and a witch did bring about Paragon’s destruction, as did the three sisters, but they also saved it. Now a new day dawns on a new kingdom.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Raven’s bones ached. The power she’d used to hold Eleanor and drain her immortality was unprecedented. She’d depleted herself down to her essence. If it weren’t for Gabriel’s steadying hand on her back, she wasn’t sure she could remain standing.
She stood on the edge of the veranda, staring out over a palace in tatters, a garden destroyed, a kingdom in pieces. From the mountain to Hobble Glen was nothing but smoke and stone. There was no ceiling left above them, just a hole in the side of the mountain. The ornately carved wooden doors that used to separate this area from the great hall had been torn free and probably burned in the magma which had now cooled below them.
The walls were gone, save for a few random pieces that jutted up between fallen stone and smoldering furniture. Raven had a clear view of Marius, who still sat on the throne at the far end of what used to be the great hall, staring at the sky and its rising suns. She was too tired to consider what his resurrection might mean for Paragon.
Behind him was nothing but rubble. She thought of the golden grimoire. Hera had it now. That was for the best. She hoped the queen of the gods would rest, her vendetta finally appeased.
Raven glanced over at Gabriel, at the crown on his head, and felt the full weight of the crown on her own. It was clear what the goddess wanted, but that didn’t mean their roles as king and queen would be accepted by the people. After thousands of years of brother and sister ruling side by side, would Paragonians accept mated monarchs?
What about Charlie? She glanced at her daughter, still in Leena’s arms, and worried she wouldn’t be accepted either. Maybe it was her exhaustion, but despite Eleanor’s death, she felt defeated, felt like she was at the bottom of an uphill battle. She closed her eyes. She couldn’t think of this now. Later, after she rested.
Gabriel turned to her, a smile stretching across his face. “Do you hear it?”
“Hear what?”
“Listen closely.” He took her hand and held it above their heads.
Raven silenced her breath and listened. Her eyes focused in the direction of Hobble Glen, of the people in the streets and what remained of the gardens. They were cheering.
“I can’t see that far, Gabriel.”
“But they can see you. They’re cheering for us, Raven. They’re dancing in the streets.”
Warmth started in the general vicinity of her heart and spread out across her body. Hope. She reached for Charlie, and Leena delivered her into her arms. The cheers grew louder.
“Oh, Gabriel…” She was overwhelmed. What did it all mean? Where would they even begin rebuilding this kingdom?
