The curse becomes the cradle.
Steel clatters to the ground, shaking me from my awe, and the humble Caelorian army that remains raises their hands in surrender.
We don’t fight them.
We let them go.
They stumble back, boots falling over each other, scrambling from our unity.
But I don’t care.
I tilt my head back, rain and tears mingling on my skin, watching as the world remembers itself.
Teddy crashes into me in a brother’s embrace, tear-stained cheeks and covered in blood.
Jax joins us next, her body wracked with sobs of grief she’s held onto for a decade.
An eruption of cheers drowns me—a cacophony of victorious cries that echo through our vibrant homelands.
Restored.
Returned.
Remembered.
“Welcome back to Zerynthia,” I say, my voice broken and raw.
But through the tether, it’s her that I hear.Welcome home, my Sky.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN
ELYSSARA
The world isquiet after ruin.
Rain slicks the stones, washing the blood to the rivers newly born. The sky—no longer a ceiling of ash and despair—spills the dawn light, and I relish the warmth on my face.
My muscles ache, my throat hoarse from the cries of hopelessness and victory that tore from my chest. But my heart—broken, bruised and brimming with hope—aches the most.
I can’t help but weep for the mother I’ll never know.
The friends I’ll be forced to know only through memory.
But I also gained something in this battle: a future.
One I didn’t think I’d get to have.
Once-Marked shoulders rest on the steps of Kryntar Castle. Shoulders rounded in sorrow for what was, heads shaking in confusion at the truth.
Ronyn limps up the steps with only undergarments on, arm slung around Seren as he regales her with exaggerated stories about how they saved the day.
I huff a laugh at his irreverence, and it feels like the first time I’ve laughed in too long.
And then?—
I hear them.
Not soldiers.
