Slowly, carefully, Selestra draws closer to me.
The soldiers and the warriors around us are transfixed. There is no sign of battle in their eyes as they regard Selestra and her infinity.
“Are you okay?” she asks.
I gather my breath. “Sure,” I say, though my hands are trembling.
It is not just because of the souls that threatened to rip through me, or the magic of Selestra’s grandmother that sought to corrupt me. My hands tremble because they feel so light without the weight of my father’s sword.
I’ve been carrying it for so long, I’m not sure what to do with my hands now.
As if sensing that, Selestra slips her fingers through mine, lacing us together.
My hands instantly stop shaking.
I look at her, remembering how she was bathed in light like some kind of goddess.
“You just set free thousands of souls,” I say. “You saved the Six Isles.”
“We set them free,” she corrects. “We saved the Six Isles.”
“I’m sorry about your mother,” I say.
There is a pain in her eyes that nearly splits me in two.
Selestra’s shoulders collapse and small tears break through to her eyes. “As am I,” she says. “But at least she is at peace now. At least she belongs only to herself.”
My father too, I think.
Lucian approaches us with a stained sword at his side.
“Is he dead?” the warrior asks, looking down at the headless body by our feet.
He means Seryth, of course, but the word dead brings only one face to mind.
Micah.
I whisper his name and Selestra goes rigid beside me. I don’t wait for her to speak, because if I wait any longer, then I’ll be drowned in grief.
I steel myself and walk to my friend’s body.
He’s lying on his side, eyes wide open and scared. I reach out to close them, hoping that wherever his soul is now, he was able to get a good look at the battle before he went.
“We did it,” I tell him, just in case. “We saved everyone.”
I lock a hand in his.
My friend. My brother. My family.
Selestra’s jaw shakes as she clutches on to my shoulder, keeping me steady and grounded. Tears threaten to seep from her, but she keeps them hidden.
Perhaps she’ll mourn for him later, but for now I know that she wants to be strong for me.
I sob at Micah’s side, the world feeling out of focus without him there. I’ve never not had Micah with me. Every bad plan, every disastrous trick and scam I came up with on an afterthought, through Last Army training and nights in strange taverns.
“We’ll bury his ashes here,” Selestra says. “And erect a great tree in his honor. As we will do with all who died here today, Last Army and Polemistés soldiers both. They deserve honors for their sacrifices.”
I shake my head and swipe the tears from my swollen eyes. “No,” I say. “Micah would want to go home to his family.”
He wasn’t an orphan like me, or a forsaken child like Selestra. He was loved and cherished, and his family will want to bury him themselves. I won’t steal away their chance to mourn their son and to say a final goodbye to him. But when they do, I’ll let them know that he died to save us all.
“They would be proud,” Lucian says.
His voice is still gruff with battle, and though blood drips from his stomach, he keeps his head high, ignoring the depth of the wound.
It doesn’t matter that around the beach everyone has stilled, most dropping their weapons to the ground as they await their new orders in eerie silence.
Lucian keeps his blade close, not yet trusting that things are over.
“Everyone who died for this war would be proud,” he says. “Including Eldara.”
I tense. “That’s easy for the living to say.”
“Nothing is easy for the living,” Lucian says. “They have to remember.”
His tone softens some. As much as a warrior with a voice as deep as a whale song can.
“We will always remember,” Selestra announces, loudly enough for it to sound like an order to the entire beach and the two armies that still crowd it. “We will remember this day and every person who died here on this beach for eternity.”
My shoulders loosen, the weight of the world sliding gratefully from them.
“Now what do we do?” I ask. “No more enemies to fight.”
“There are enemies everywhere,” Lucian says.
Spoken like a true warrior.
“But that will come later. For now, it’s time we begin,” he says.
Selestra groans. “I thought we just ended.”
“We must begin the new order,” Lucian clarifies.
Selestra’s gaze cuts to him, a hard line casting across her brows. “We don’t want to give any orders,” she tells him. “The time for that is done.”
“A new world order,” Lucian corrects her.
He casts a hand across the beach and to the soldiers who eye us tentatively, waiting for proclamations or commands. Now that both of their leaders are dead, they’re looking to us like we have any kind of certainty.
Lucian steps forward and clears his throat.
“Lucian—” Selestra begins, but he breathes in sharply, ready to address the crowd of Polemistés warriors and Last Army soldiers.
They watch him eagerly, waiting to hear the new plan for their futures with wild impatience.
For so long things have been uncertain, caught on the cusp of war, but now the threat of peace hangs and not a one of them seems to know what to do with it.
“Bow,” Lucian calls out to them. To old enemies and allies both.
Selestra takes in a heavy breath and her eyes widen, like she senses exactly what’s coming.
“Bow to your new queen of the Six Isles, Selestra Somniatis.”
And they all do.