“At least one more time.”
He holds me just a bit tighter. “One day, I hope you see that I will be a good father. I would give anything to a child. But I understand it is your choice.”
I want to pull away and resist. Want to be stronger than I am. Instead, I lean into him.
I’m tired of fighting.
I look up at him, twisting around, and see those glowing marks once more. Hesitantly, I reach out and brush my fingers over them. They mean he is mine. If I want him.
He closes his eyes, sinking into my touch and then taking my hand to kiss my palm. I let him. And when he pulls up a flat stone, I watch as he takes out a knife they must’ve given him and begins to carve the name.
Lirio.
Then he carves the name Adra.
Then he taps the stone, and somehow, the names light up. My mouth falls open.
“To the girls that made us,” he says softly.
Something about the statement pinches deep, and I look around the room, realizing something crucial.
“Your cleaver,” I start. “What happened to it?”
He shakes his head. “It is gone. But I do not care.”
“It has been with you for all these years.”
He looks at me.
“It is my past. I would like you to be my future. I will find a new weapon, and perhaps a new life.”
First Epilogue
VANN
The hearth burns low, painting the stone walls in ribbons of amber light. I’m in Arlet’s home, having largely abandoned mine. Mostly, I leave my weapons to sit there by the door, far away from the gentleness in our little bubble. Instead, the walls are crammed with paintings and tapestries and trinkets from adventures taken upon Seraph’s back.
Even after the murder, we were able to fully clean the stone, and just like the blood, the memories faded as well. The stone walls took on new meaning.
The air smells of lavender oil and smoke—her scent has soaked into the very stone by now.
I like it better here. It is warm. Every part of this little home hums with her: the scrolls she leaves half open on the table, the woven blanket she kicked to the floor, the faint shimmer of Fuegorra light that glows faintly through her skin.
She retrieved a stone shortly after arriving to Enduvida, and the first time I heard our mating song I nearly cried.
The last months, as her belly has swollen and her heart continues to soften to me, I feel nothing but grateful.
Arlet lies beside me, hair spilling across the pillow, eyes half lidded with that lazy, satisfied calm that always comesafter we’ve forgotten the rest of the world. Her chest rises slowly and steadily. She’s not frail anymore. The hollows of her cheeks have filled in, her skin is warm and sun-touched again, her eyes bright and sharp.
In the corner hangs a tapestry, one she started long ago, with woods, and a meadow, and a rocky mountain. She finished it with the section she likes to name after me.
Ulla said she might always be tired, that her body might never fully recover from what the curse took. They were wrong. She’s more alive than I’ve ever seen her.
Even her companion is in brighter spirits.
I watch her trace idle circles against the sheets. I wonder how I am even allowed to see such beautiful sights after the past year and a half.
“You’re staring again,” she murmurs, voice still husky with sleep. She rolls over, revealing her large belly. The one holding our child.