Epilogue

EPILOGUE

Izar wiped his mouth, grimacing when more blood oozed out of his lip. Fuck. He’d gotten careless. He’d assumed…

Well, he’d forgotten that some people were soft-hearted idiots.

The wounds weren’t too terrible, but Izar really wasn’t any good at healing magic. That had always been Frey’s domain. He would need to wait it out here in the cave, concealed by his magic, until he’d recovered enough to travel again.

At least he’d gotten a horn. Having the whole dragon would have been better, but Izar wasn’t going to risk going after another one.

He stared at the horn in his lap. It was larger than he’d expected, and even now, it pulsed with magic. The shade demon had been right that a dragon horn would do a lot more for him than any other magical creature he’d hunted over the years.

Izar was so close. He could almost taste success, could feel it like a whispered word against his lips. He just needed a few more ingredients to complete the spell.

Like unicorn blood.

That one might even be more difficult to find than a dragon horn. No unicorn would simply waltz into Izar’s shop, and Izar had no hope of attracting a unicorn on his own.

A problem to consider once he was less tired.

Izar lay down across his blankets and pulled out the thin silver chain with the simple locket at the end. The locket had small stones embedded around the edges, each a different one, for different aspects of a spell.

Izar kissed the locket and imbued it with just a spark of magic. After a few seconds, an illusion flickered into existence in front of him.

Frey, smiling at him, from the day they’d made this locket together—and Frey leaning in to kiss Izar. His ghostly lips passed across Izar’s, leaving no impression behind at all.

Izar closed his eyes and blinked against the far too familiar tears.

“I’m bringing you back, Frey,” Izar whispered. “Don’t worry. We’ll be together again soon.”