Delia elbows him.
Kael smirks. Dagan’s mouth twitches, almost a smile.
Jules kisses my cheek.
The crowd roars.
And above us, the Gemini Moon watches overhead like it finally approves.
And for now, it does.
Epilogue 2: Dagan
The First Night of the Four Crowns, The Barrow, Nightfall
The festival’s noise is a distant glow behind us—lantern light and song spilling across the terraces below—but up here, on the balcony carved into living rock, the world is ours again.
Nightfall’s sky stretches wide and endless, stars sharp enough to cut. The Gemini Moon still hangs bright—its two-faced shine painting the cliff side in bone and rust.
Alina stands between my arms, her back to my chest, wrapped in a heavy cloak that smells like wind and warm stone.
I rest my chin near her temple and let the steady hum of the Marches climb my bones.
The realm is calm.
Not asleep.
Just breathing.
My amulet—my Crown echo—rests against my skin like a second heartbeat. Hers answers it, faint and constant.
A shared pulse.
A shared burden.
A shared life.
Alina exhales slowly, watching the far lights flicker along the Stepped Vale, where the fields lie dark and waiting for the next season to rise.
“You know,” she says casually, as if she isn’t about to poke the beast, “it’s kind of hilarious that the secret to saving the multiverse was New Jersey.”
I grunt.
She laughs, soft and pleased, and her shoulders lift into my chest.
“I’m just saying. Maybe there’s something in the water.”
“There is,” I murmur. “Stubbornness.”
“Rude.” She tilts her head back just enough to look at me from the corner of her eye. “Also accurate.”
I brush my mouth to her brow, a quiet claim, a quiet thank you.
She leans into it, then clears her throat like she’s trying to sound practical. “So, hypothetical question.”
I already do not like where this is going.
“Yes, Oona.”
