Epilogue

God of Night

The Oryndhrians might call her Starkeeper.

I call her my fucking end.

The azdaha beneath me spreads her enormous wings and roars a mournful song for her own mate—a male taken captive by the new king’s brother a year ago. We had both felt it when he had met my soul-fated, the burst of akasha that had connected them in the space beyond the realms. His pain had been agony, but until that single moment, he had been lost to us, his magic dampened by forces insidious enough to render him invisible.

Indira had been inconsolable, mindless in her rage.

Is it time, Darrius? she rumbles in my mind.

“Soon, my friend.”

I pat her venom-spined neck with gloved fingers, feeling her restlessness. I’ve promised to get her mate back. I might not desire to keep mine, but bonded azdahas would weaken over time and eventually die. Indira is strong, but she isn’t invincible.

Unlike me, she needs her mate.

And Vena, that meddling diviner of the fates, is not wrong . . . the winds of prophecy have spoken.

War is upon us.