“I am still suitably terrifying,” I reply, sliding an arm around her waist and tugging her closer. “Ask anyone.”
“At this point, I think they’re more afraid of disappointing you than of you incinerating them.”
“That is progress,” I say gravely.
She laughs, warm and bright.
Down below, Evonne stands with a cluster of miners’ wives and daughters, already talking animatedly about training schedules and emergency responses and the logistics of creating a permanent infirmary wing.
Xavier is in the corner with Alaric, Kael, and Dagan, discussing ward reinforcements. I catch the words “Gemini moon” and “new array” floating up between bursts of laughter.
Jules, hand on her stomach, is telling a group of children a story about a dragon who got stuck in his own hoard. Phoebe is sketching something on a napkin, tongue caught between her teeth in concentration—probably a new emblem or banner or cover for the Dreamwrights’ records.
Nightfall still hangs by a thread.
The SoulTakers still lurk at the edges of reality.
Idris still plots in the dark.
But The Ember Vein pulses.
The forges burn.
Dreams still rise and spill into the skies above countless worlds.
And here, in this moment, in this hall of stone and flame, I am not alone.
I have brothers at my back.
I have a realm at my feet.
I have a woman at my side whose love has become the axis of my existence.
Nightfall still lives.
We have done our duty.
And tomorrow, when the stars shift and the Gemini Moon turns its twin face upon us again, we will do it all over.
Together.
Epilogue 2: Delia
Ashfell
That night, as we walk back to our chamber, I feel settled.
More than that.
I feel home.
The castle hums around us—distant hearths, low voices, the steady crackle of flame sliding through the walls like the whole place is breathing.
The Gemini Moon hangs outside the windows, bone-white on one side, rust-red on the other, spilling strange, beautiful light across the stone floors.
Thorne’s hand is wrapped around mine, big and warm and sure.
My viyen.
