Epilogue
Briony
Five years later
I sit on the porch, watching as the sun crawls up into the dark sky bringing early morning with it. In the distance, Blaze and the two female dragons spin and swirl and tumble in the air playing with their latest litter of children.
I smile, yawning as I rock gently in the large chair and drop my gaze to my arms.
My baby daughter – named after the friend I lost to demons all those years ago – suckles contentedly, her tiny fist curled around my finger and the strands of her golden hair catching the first rays of light. She’s warm in my arms and smells like freshly baked bread and I lower my head and kiss her plump cheek.
I think Clare would have been truly captivated by this little creature. My other best friend, Fly, certainly is. He’s visited as often as his busy schedule as the realm’s most in-demand fashion designer will allow, always bearing gifts – mainly fantastical outfits he’s created himself. This child will be the bestdressed in the realm. Although perhaps not even Uncle Fly is as captivated or as enchanted as I am. Or as the four men she will one day call her fathers.
There have been so many occasions when we’ve laid her in the center of our giant bed, and the five of us have just stared at her, truly amazed that we could ever have made anything so beautiful or so wondrous. Despite all the things we have done over the years, all the things we have achieved, she is our most precious and treasured creation.
Behind me, the floorboards creak, and Beaufort and Thorne appear, both dressed in nothing but pajama pants, both rubbing sleepy dust from their eyes and stretching their large, strong bodies in the morning light.
“Here you are,” Beaufort says, resting his hand tenderly on my shoulder and kissing my mouth before he bends lower to kiss our daughter. “I didn’t hear her stir.”
“I didn’t want to wake you all,” I tell him.
“You know we don’t mind,” Thorne says, coming over to greet the two of us with a morning kiss.
“Anyway, I thought we’d come out and enjoy the sunrise,” I tell them both. “I guess we weren’t the only ones.” I motion towards the grassland.
Beaufort strides across the porch and leans on the railing, looking out toward the dragons still playing in the sky.
“They’re going to be big, strong, healthy dragons those little ones,” Beaufort says, watching as the six new baby dragons chase each other in a chaotic, zigzagging circle.
Despite his newfound duties as Emperor, it was Beaufort who nursed the two new firestones we’d found in Slate Quarter into hatchlings, and then trained and watched them grow. To his delight, the two new females had taken an interest in Blaze, and before the year was out, we had four new firestones.
After the election, after he’d handed over the throne to the newly chosen emperor, he’d dedicated himself to caring for and raising the dragons, learning all he could about them and committing himself to their conservation. He’s been studying them, training them, breeding them ever since. I think he knows more about dragons than anyone else in the whole realm.
“Where’s Hells Bells?” I ask him.
I thought leaving the palace, moving out here to the prairie lands, and the arrival of the baby would prove difficult for Hells Bells, but she’s loved every minute, spending most of her time tearing around with the other young shifters who live out here.
“Still sleeping,” he says, “she was chasing around after those dragons all yesterday. She’s exhausted. She won’t be up for hours.”
“I did remind you it was a school night.” I smile at him. He has a soft spot for his little sister and she has him twisted right around her little finger. I suspect it will be the same way with his daughter too.
Thorne stands by my side, watching the baby, and when she starts to fuss, he takes her from my arms, balancing her against his broad shoulder and rubbing her back, soothing and pacifying her.
I think most people assumed Thorne, the most powerful shadow weaver in the realm, would spend his days training the next generation of fighters and recruits. But my quiet mate, who always struggled with his words, has found them far easier to come by on paper than he ever did spoken out loud. It started when the council requested that someone make an account of all that had passed, and Thorne had been the one to do it. It hadn’t stopped there. He’s found a flair for stories, and there’s nothing I like more than sitting by his side and listening to the latest of his creations.
Dray stumbles onto the porch next, his platinum hair a tangled mess around his head, his body completely bare. Despite the passing years, he’s grown no fonder of clothes and would spend most of his days naked if he could get away with it.
In his hand, he holds a steaming cup of coffee, which he passes to me with a morning kiss. I take it gratefully and cradle it in my hands.
He peers over at our daughter, sleeping, snuggled under Thorne’s chin.
“She’s been up feeding again?” he asks.
“Uh huh. She definitely has an appetite,” I say with a chuckle. “She neverstopsfeeding.”
“You’re doing a great job, Mama,” he tells me, squeezing my shoulder.
I’d like to say my shifter mate has mellowed with age. He hasn’t. He’s just as chaotic and energetic as ever. But underneath it all is an ability to make me laugh, an ability to put me at ease. It’s a skill that has served him well over the last few years. He’s needed to use every ounce of his charm and optimism and good humor to reconcile with his family and keep the wider shifter community in line. And to his credit, and with the help of his younger brothers, it’s worked. There have been fewer quarrels, fewer fights, fewer random acts of violence.
