Weaving through newly built homes and empty plots where children played and gardens grew, I waved and called out to each of the families and groups that called Fristad home. After the war, Torin and I traveled, but felt like we didn’t quite fit anywhere.
Hestin was no longer mine—despite my earlier relationship with Dria, it was clear she actually did a decent job ruling Hestin, and I’d readily handed over my title to her. I was tired of politics, exhausted from the weight placed upon my shoulders for years.
Vespera, while it held many of the people we loved, was too rife with memories and pain, and Torin had relinquished any hold he had in the south.
We were nomadic for a time before we felt called back here. The Valley was nothing more than scorched earth when we arrived, eerily reminding us of Meru before we innervated it once more. Something on the wind seemed to pull us together, our magics mixing to make something new.
Grass returned immediately, the earth sighing as flowers, trees, and plants sprouted, gardens growing before our eyes. Our magic took on a mind of its own, creating a long wooden house with a steepled grass roof over the site of the old main house. Once our reserves were exhausted, Torin and I had stumbled into the newly built house, not at all surprised to see his Earth Magic had built beds for us. Tired but somehow fulfilled, we’d crashed into the beds, waking again with new purpose.
After that, we never left.
The Valley was renamed Fristad and quickly became a safe haven for those who were lost or in-between. It grew faster than I anticipated and, four years later, we had a thriving community. Torin and I had plans to create orphanages and halfway houses for those in need, as well as a university that would teach everything from art and music to practical skills like the ones it took to keep this place thriving. We created a proposal and petition, removing our more modest clothes in favor of high-society dresses and tunics we’d long stashed in a trunk in our home. When we got to Vespera, though, Rohak simply waved a hand at our documents and side-eyed our outfits before sitting with us for dinner, saying our documents weren’t “needed.” Rohak and the Council of Eight allowed us a bit of freedom to function as our own entity outside the bounds of Elyrian law.
They said it was fitting since this place was historically always a little bit different.
I liked that, though. Being a little bit different. After decades of having to suppress who I truly was to fit the mold someone else dictated, it was refreshing and completely freeing to simply . . . be. Even more so, that I got to ‘be’ with my husband.
I found Torin on his hands and knees, planting seeds in one of the communitygardens before imbuing the soil with a mixture of Earth and Water Magic. While he could simply use his power to force the plants to grow, he enjoyed the effort of creating with his own hands.
I knew the feeling well.
“Torin! Have you seen the goat?” I called, leaning against the fence, my blonde waves blowing in the gentle, salty breeze, the scent of brine, soil, and manure in the air.
He raised his head, pushing the large hat away from his eyes to see me better. “He got out again?”
I nodded.
Torin grumbled something about “that damn goat,” wiping mud-covered hands on his pants before hopping the garden fence, landing with a softthunk.
Like me, he was barefoot, dirt caking up to his calves. His loose white tunic was open almost to his navel, exposing a swath of tanned, bronze skin. His pants were also loose and short, conducive to working in the mud all day. The biggest difference, though, was his eyes. Gone were the deep shadows and constant tight concern at the corners. In its place was lightness—a happiness that shone from the inside, infecting all those around him.
It was a simple life, but a happy one. One we deserved after all the death and blood we’d seen, all the sacrifices we’d had to make, and the pain we’d experienced.
“Well, let’s go find him, wife,” he said, holding out his calloused palm for me to grasp with my own. I grinned as we ran through our village, laughing all the way down the grass-covered streets that once housed only ruin and death.
But built on those ruins and in the wake of so much hate, was hope. Hope that the next generation would guide us forward in love, that what we sacrificed wasn’t for naught. That Elyria could be rebuilt again with compassion at its core.
That love could win.
Only time would tell if our hope was foolhardy or deeply rooted, founded in a mutual understanding that this war, the Second Sundering, was the last our people would experience.
But, for now, I’d run barefoot through the grass, let the sun warm my face with my husband’s hand clasped in mine, and lean on hope.
Part Four
YEARS LATER
Chapter One Hundred Thirty-Three
Fate
FORTY YEARS LATER
Istood in the middle of the Academy library, hidden in plain sight by dense shadows. They danced over my body, licking and caressing my exposed skin. I pulled them closer, tightening to the point of near suffocation; even after nearly fifty years of original power returning to Meru, it was a relief to feel my innate magic.
Perhaps this was what it felt like to be human, mortal. A ticking clock of flesh with a clear expiry date, want to imbibe heavily in the nuanced joy found in the littlest of things.
I would vow to never take my magic for granted again, but that was a foolish promise, one I knew I’d break in the thousands upon thousands of years left in my existence.
