“Where are the other survivors?” I asked, turning to give Faylinn some privacy with the child that was now hers—ours—after the death of her friends.
“This is them,” Felix said, spreading his arms wide, a sad smile painting his face.
I blanched, heart quickening as my stomach sank like a stone.
“Once Lex departed, Sol and Leal pushed as many of the unAwakened cadets inside the mess hall as they could, which is where I found them days later.”
His explanation was missing vital information, glossing over all the important parts, but I had trouble focusing on any of it.
“Sol? Thandi? Leal?” I asked, my words growing more desperate as Felix shook his head with each stuttered name.
“None,” he admitted quietly.
“The rest of the citizens of Vespera?”
“In the tunnels beneath the Academy”—I breathed a sigh of relief—“they refuse to come out or return to their homes until the bodies are cleared.”
ThatI could understand.
I nodded shakily, running my hands through my hair as I looked, unseeing, at the unAwakened cadets in the mess hall.
Felix’s hand clasped my shoulder, the gesture grounding me once more.
“How did you survive?” I asked.
Felix gave me a tight smile, and I knew it was something he’d never answer.
“I have my ways,” was all he said. “But my time here now is done. May Fate guide and keep you for the remainder of your days, King d’Alvey.”
The older Mage squeezed my shoulder once before he made his way to the mess hall doors. I turned, hands locked in my hair with mouth agape, as he simply fucked off.
“I’m no king. I never wanted it and still don’t,” I called gruffly. Whythatis what I chose to say when he was leaving me with an insurmountable mess to clean alone was a mystery I doubt I’d ever solve.
The Mage stopped and looked over his shoulder, a smirk on his face and the same knowing glint from earlier in his brown eyes.
“Maybe not, but it is your fate.”
Chapter One Hundred Twenty-Six
Faylinn
It took weeks to fully restore Vespera to what it was before Samyr’s troops blasted through the outer walls and destroyed every living thing they encountered. Rohak and I coaxed the full story from the unAwakened cadets little by little, day by day, after we pulled some of the citizens from the catacombs below to aid us in the cleanup efforts.
Thankfully, every person who had elected to stay in Vespera’s city limits was huddled beneath the Academy. The normally cool and dry tunnels were muggy and rank with sweat, excrement, and the pervasive scent of fear. After much coaxing—and a few exhaustion-driven threats—a Fire Mage, Earth Mage, and Air Mage followed Rohak and me up and into the courtyard, where we, finally, made much quicker progress.
Trying to move bodies with my own bare hands that had decomposed into the ground below was an experience I never wished to repeat, nor was it one I would quickly forget.
With the dead burned—their ashes interred in a mass urn in the graveyard next to the Academy—the air finally started to clear. The carrion slowly disappeared, and life eventually returned to the courtyard.
Blood still stained the stones, a reminder of what was lost and sacrificed here for the lives of those left behind.
We never identified Leal’s, Sol’s, and Thandi’s bodies, though we hazard cautious guesses based on the bones we’d found.
Leal—or who we assumed was Leal—died with daggers still clutched in her fists, a dozen enemies felled around her, her weapons stuck ineye sockets and other vital organs. We interred Leal with the daggers still in her hands—a warrior in death just as in life.
Sol and Thandi were found together; Thandi’s massive frame huddled on top of his fallen Mage, their bones melding together until it was impossible to tell where one ended and the other began. We buried them together in their own plot, a headstone engraved with runes for love and life marking their final resting place.
Grief was heavy and rampant, but eventually, life resumed.
