Epilogue

EPILOGUE

WICKED QUEEN

W hen my daughter’s blade pierced my skin, I knew it immediately. She had found her Siphon—or at least something close to it. Perhaps that was how she broke through my shield, though the thought was a trifle embarrassing. I’d been away from the Stone Throne too long. But indeed, that unique tone of power reverberated through her. A small, weak part of me grieved to think she might never realize it.

She looked young—so painfully young. She was brave and fierce, reminding me of a different self, one untouched by the Stone. Though she would likely never know such a sentiment from me, I played the part I always knew I must: the Wicked Queen.

And that bastard Darlan—the fat king had admitted to plotting Terra’s end before he lost his head. Clever… manipulating her, throwing her off guard while he planned her assassination in that wretched competition. Claiming it served only to protect Cas from the prophecy.

Of course, he failed to mention that her death would undo a thousand years of progress, wreaking havoc across our queendom, and weakening those he viewed as rivals.

Ever the political mastermind. Too bad that lost him his head this round.

Still, a blunder on my part, underestimating him. I should’ve known he’d figured out what she was. Not that it mattered now.

I flashed back to that room where I birthed her—when the Elders visited. And everything had changed.

The Drakkarians called her ‘the key.’ They clearly had been misinformed.

If they truly knew our bloodline’s ugly past, or what the Rexiprima sacrificed to form the island I’d inherited to rule, they wouldn’t call her the key.

They’d call her the Undoing.

Terragnata, the first Earth Daughter in a thousand years, born on the day of the Creatrix Full Moon, to a future queen, was no key .

She was an impending explosion. She was the fulfillment of the prophecy delivered to the Witch Killer who’d formed our great nation.

I’d tried to stop it. To send her away. To eliminate anyone who might try and succeed at locating her, using her. I’d spared Cas, only a child, thinking naively he would move on.

Even Cold Hearts could make foolish mistakes.

My wound oozed, throbbing in a way that would kill me. Should they let it.

As we floated through space and time, I saw all their faces, in that great hall, tattooed and shaved—the faces of those I’d been taught for so many years to hate. They did not look so fearsome. They looked empty.

It took him many portals, the Drakkarian called Sedric, to bring us to where he sought. It was impressive that not only did he keep us from being lost to the in-between, but he kept us from being lost in general . The hours turned to days turned to weeks. He was not a healing Witch, but he clearly intended to keep me alive, clumping fistfuls of algae and moss to my wound in whatever field training he’d learned.

I laughed at his efforts, almost wishing he would just let me die. It would be fitting for Terra to take my life, as she felt I had taken hers. Maybe that would restore some gods damned balance the Elders droned on about.

I was not so lucky. Eventually, we made it to Mesha, or so I assumed. He brought me to some dreadful cell, dripping and cold, and a young healer came in to patch me up. They left me there for days, and I puzzled over my use. They hadn’t bothered to torture me for details of Nebbiolon forces or the like.

Nor for details about the significance of my Earth Child.

On the fourth day, a hooded figure approached my cell. His scent was familiar, though he dressed as they all did, and swirling lines of ink on his jaw peaked out from beneath his hood.

Even with such deception, I knew, and I froze, huddled in a ball on the cool stone.

“Hello, Nef. It’s good to see you,” the figure said.

I held my chin high despite my pathetic position.

“Hello, Viturius.”