EPILOGUE

She stands on the brink of the cliff, right at that last pivotal edge before the drop. Some small part of her—a part that still feels anything at all—searches for that old sensation. What was it called? Fear. The dread of the plunge and the prospect of pain, all underscored by that horror of the unknowable existence in the dark beyond the end. A simple set of emotions, but so infinitely varied in their subtleties and hues.

She feels none of that now. No dread, no horror, not even the faintest unease. Even if she should cast herself over this brink, even if she should shatter every bone on the stones far below, there would be no end for her. Not yet, in any case.

Behind her, huddled close to the fire, the mage continues his endless lament. “I cannot return to Evisar!” he declares, spitting the words through clenched teeth. “Not without the princess. I am Morthiel’s last hope, and to return empty-handed? It’s not to be borne.”

She doesn’t answer. She stands up on her toes, leaning out a little farther into that void. Daring her old body to react. Perhaps there’s still some instinctual urge for survival lying latent down inside. But nothing. No thrill, no terror, not even a little vertigo. She sinks back onto her heels. She would sigh if she had breath with which to do so, but her ragged lungs hang limp in her breast.

“Besides,” the mage continues, running his fingers through his pale hair, “that gods-damned half-breed took the talisman. It would be suicide to try to reach Evisar without it, and it will take months to write another. Meanwhile what if the fae work out how to use the spell? They will lay siege to the citadel with everything they’ve got. It will require all the magic my people have amassed for decades to ward them off. And what will that mean for Morthiel?”

She rolls her eyes heavenward, idly studying the stars in their distant dance above. She doesn’t care about any of the mage’s petty little plans. Yes, the loss of the gods-gifted princess is a blow . . . but she doesn’t think it’s a mortal blow. While Mage Artoris assumes the girl died in the battle, she suspects otherwise. After all she knows Taar. She knows how her beloved thinks. He would not leave a damsel in distress to perish at the hands of monsters. No, no. He probably rescued the girl, took her captive. Her lips quirk in a vicious smile. He always did have a dangerously self-destructive need to protect the small and the weak. It is his one great vice.

“I’ll have to return to Beldroth,” Artoris declares at last, stirring his fire with the end of a long stick just to watch the sparks fly. “Gods skewer me, I never wanted to see that cursed place again! But I must inform the king of Ilsevel’s death and urge him to somehow fulfill the marriage bargain with the Shadow King after all. He has other daughters; one of them can surely take Ilsevel’s place. It’s going to take a troll army to defend Evisar if the fae come marching on our gates.”

He turns then to where she stands, right there on the edge of that drop. If he’s concerned for her safety, it does not show in either his voice or expression. “I won’t keep you and your people here, Shanaera,” he says. “I know you must return to Cruor, to replenish your strength. I need you there in any case. Evisar is going to need a steady supply of unicorn blood if we are to survive what is coming. Can you do that?”

Can she? Can she lead the warped corpses of men who used to be her battle brothers into the stricken land that was their home, hunting down the very creatures whom they once held in sacred reverence? Can she be the monster, devouring and hungry, that she needs to be in order to survive? In order to bring about the righteous end she has secretly purposed in her heart?

She smiles at the mage, her half-rotted mouth twisting. “Absolutely I can.”

And while she’s hunting down licorneir, she will keep her eye open for Taar and the little princess. Because something tells her—call it an intuition, perhaps—that when she finds one, she will find the other. Then all will be made right. Her kingdom will be delivered, these gods-damned Miphates will be obliterated, and she and Taar will reign as king and queen over the newly liberated Kingdom of Licorna.

Forever.

TO BE CONTINUED