And when their lips met again, it held the promise of eternity.
EPILOGUE
Rune
The Shadow Keep was carved into a cliff of obsidian, rising high over the rivers of molten fires and black sand dunes. A jagged fortress, winged with spires and bleeding with ancient magic. Karag Dûr’s presence greeted Rune with torches that lit at will and corridors that shifted at his command.
With no light of dawn to tell time, Rune spent many nights in bed with his queen, making up for lost time. Alora hardly slept. She only watched him, admitting his new form, and godly grace. He often sensed she feared if she closed her eyes, he would vanish again.
“I am not going anywhere, songbird,” Rune promised, and the Fates agreed.
Time moved differently now, made vast by eternity.
When they were not spending their time with each other, they were rebuilding kingdoms. The Netherworld demanded order, beginning with the Seven Courts.
Calla’s ascension had been immediate. Morvenna’s defeat left no room for dispute, and the Lust Court accepted her as its new Lady with deferential fear. She ruled it with elegance and cruelty in equal measure, and it flourished beneath her hand.
Hadeon’s claim to Wrath had been slower. The court had esteemed its former lord. But such devotion did not survive Vahl’Tor. In time, Wrath learned to kneel.
Gluttony had proven more difficult.
Deimos refused the title of Dominion outright until he realized such status also came with indulgence. He could dismember, dissect, and destroy in excess—within reason of course. Then He accepted Gluttony’s crown with a smile that unsettled the entire court.
Envy did not require conquest.
It bent to Alora without demand or decree, drawn to her like a mirror to truth. Want, longing, and grief recognized their sovereign at once. Some powers were safer bound to hands that had known ache without letting it curdle. She ruled it so it would never rule anyone else.
And yet Rune sometimes wondered if they should have traded courts.
Because he sat in his envy whenever the Mortal Realm was blessed with her presence.
It was not that Rune couldn’t follow. As a god reborn, he could move freely between Realms now, and the sun no longer burned him. But freedom did not mean permanence. He could never remain long.
And when Alora wasn’t with him, Argyle held her focus.
With the Sleeping Curse finally broken, the land required tending, and so did its people.
The years passed quickly, and Rihan eventually learned what it meant to rule. He replaced the kingdoms colors in favor of deep scarlet banners, bearing a new coat of arms with ablack dragon. He opened his borders, welcomed all, though fae acceptance came slowly, history made room for them. The mountain that overlooked Argyle was renamed Montezuma, after the Lord who gave his life for him.
A symbol of endurance Lord Zuma was.
And a place the Minotaurs could at last call home.
Rune considered all that remained to be rebuilt, though he had little interest in the Hall of Bargains. Once, it had been crowded with contracts bound in blood. Now it stood nearly empty. Every bargain he had ever forged became ash the moment he died, freeing every soul he had damned.
Yet there was no urge to seek more.
He would always answer those who called to the dark. That part of him had not changed. But his contracts had become selective. Some souls deserved damnation. Some did not. And he would weigh that, too.
It seemed the gods were not disinclined to change.
In a rare act of benevolence, Elyon had adjusted the terms of the Covenant.
Instead of a single reunion every five years beneath the Blood Moon, Alora was now only required to leave him each spring to rebind the Rift in the Mortal Realm while he did so from the Abyss.
Still, Rune dreaded those months apart. But it was a compromise he had learned to tolerate. Odd, that wasn’t a sentiment he was used to obliging.
“Rune?”
