Epilogue

Raffe

He refilled Kayu’s wineglass without being asked. She didn’t look up from the papers crowding the desk—greetings in every language Raffe had ever seen written, all in calligraphy at varying levels of ornate—but she sighed in appreciation and took a long sip, nearly spilling some on the letter she was currently reading.

Raffe peered over her shoulder, taking his own sip from the neck of the bottle. “Who’s that one from?”

“The First Duke of Alpera.” Kayu pushed the letter away and sat back. A stack of blank paper sat next to her hand, along with a fresh pen and inkwell, but she didn’t reach for them. “He sends deepest condolences for our loss, says he has the highest hopes for my reign, and that he looks forward to speaking candidly about renegotiating grain prices.”

He took another drink, pulling a face. “I wouldn’t look forward to that, personally, but to each their own.”

“I do have one piece of good news.” Kayu sifted through letters until she found the one she was looking for—the paper less fine, the writing more economical and less flourishing. “Valdrek wrote back. He thinks official sovereignty sounds like the best idea for everyone still above where the Wilderwood used to be, since they’ve been governing themselves for so long anyway. Valdrek agreed to be my emissary in exchange for shipbuilding supplies, now that the fog has lifted and they can sail from there.” She beamed, then put the letter in one of her haphazard stacks that apparently signified concluded business. “One thing down! Approximately fourteen thousand to go!”

In the month since Neve came back—and then left again—Kayu had stepped almost seamlessly into her role as Valleyda’s queen. There’d been minor pushback, mostly from nobles who didn’t like the idea of their next queen being an outsider, but after a meeting of the council, all had agreed that the line of succession was clear. Since Neve died without an heir, the throne went to Kayu.

The funeral had been one of the strangest things Raffe had ever experienced, which was truly a feat. Funerals for Valleydan queens were strangely private affairs—the family prepared the body and stood vigil over the pyre alone. Nobles and subjects didn’t see any of it until the ashes were presented. He’d burned a thorny branch and one of Neve’s old gowns, attended by Kayu and Arick.

Usually, a priestess would attend the burning, too, but there were none in Valleyda. News of the High Priestess’s death had spread, though, apparently, it was being spun by the Order as self-inflicted. The few rumors Raffe had heard made it sound as though the Order had put all their trust in Kiri, curved their dying religion in her direction. Now that she was gone, faith was quietly fading. The Order and the Kings had long been something that most paid the barest homage to, and Raffe expected even that would be gone sooner rather than later. The world moving on, finding new gods.

Kayu had already preemptively canceled the prayer-taxes, a move that vexed Belvedere beyond belief. But, she argued, canceling them now would put them in the other monarchs’ favor, rather than having to wait for them to try to weasel out of the taxes on their own. She also made a point of telling Belvedere that she never had any intention of taking money under false pretenses, and they all knew the prayer-taxes were pointless.

So now she had to negotiate things like grain prices. Candidly, if the Duke of Alpera’s letter was to be believed. But Raffe thought she could do it.

And he could help, as her Consort.

It’d been prudent. That’s what he told himself, when he put the idea forward to the council. He’d wondered if they’d allow it—typically, a foreign-born inheriting queen would have to marry a Valleydan citizen—but the council agreed that Raffe would fulfill that role just fine. He’d lived in Valleyda for most of his life, and he was a convenient tie to Meducia, their greatest ally. A marriage between him and Kayu made sense, especially as they released Floriane from annexation.

He dropped a kiss on her forehead. She smiled.

“Here’s another one, from Elkyrath.” She tapped the letter on the table. “All they sent were condolences for Neve’s death.”

It still sounded so strange to say out loud. In the end, though, it’d been the easiest lie to tell. Neve had died, after all. And when she left the Keep, days after coming back to life, it’s what she’d told them to tell the nobles.

Raffe had woken early, that morning. Two days after everything happened, and all of them were still at the Keep—some of them because they didn’t know where else to go, some of them because they wanted to stay close to others.

That was why he’d stayed. To stay close to Neve. Things were different between them now, but he still wanted to make sure she was safe. That she was as well as she could be.

So when he was walking to the kitchen and heard her and Red talking quietly in the foyer, he’d followed their voices.

Neve was dressed for traveling. A long cloak, leggings, and a too-large tunic that she’d undoubtedly borrowed from Red, a pack slung over her shoulder.

“I need to,” she’d said, murmuring as if she didn’t want to wake anyone.

“I understand, really, I do.” Red’s tone and the look on her face made the statement a lie. “But why can’t you stay here, just for a little bit? Or let someone go with you—”

“No.” Neve shook her head. “I need to go alone, Red. I just… I just need some space. Away from here. Away from…”

“Everything?” Red’s voice edged to a break.

Raffe stepped forward then, not caring that he was interrupting, his immediate need for coffee upon waking forgotten. “You’re leaving?”

Neve sighed. Nodded, lips pressed to a thin line.

Clearly, she expected resistance, for Raffe to form a united front with Red. But instead, Raffe nodded. He’d probably do the same thing, if he’d been through what she had. The desire for space, for distance between herself and the place where her life had reached such a definitive closing point, made perfect sense to him.

He’d thought Red would rage at that, but instead she almost mirrored her sister’s stance, arms crossed, mouth tightly closed. Her eyes shone, and Raffe thought fleetingly that the past two days was the most he’d ever seen the Valedren sisters cry. “Please be careful,” she said quietly. “And please come back.”

“I always will,” Neve whispered.

“Good morning!”

Arick. He stood halfway down the stairs, dark hair tousled, sunny grin on his face, and still looked at them all as if he had no idea who they were. His green eyes went from bright to concerned when he saw Red. “Or not good?”

“Everything is fine, Arick.” She waved a hand, wiped at her eyes.

He didn’t look convinced—even without his memories, Arick still seemed uniquely attuned to Red’s emotional state, a fact that bemused Eammon—but he nodded. “I’m going to get breakfast. I can’t remember much, but I do seem to recall a recipe for pancakes.” He looked closer at Neve. “Oh. You’re leaving.”

She bit her lip. Nodded.

Arick met them at the bottom of the stairs, and for a moment Raffe was stricken by the synchronicity of it—the four of them, together again, the bonds between them so altered they were nearly unrecognizable.

“What should I tell them?” Raffe asked. “I mean, the lie has been that you’re sick.”

“Tell them I died, then.” Neve snorted. “It won’t even be a lie, not really.”

“There’s something, at least.” Raffe ran a hand over his close-shorn hair. “I was getting too good at lying for my own comfort.”

Arick’s lips twisted. “I look forward to recovering my memories. It seems you all have had quite an adventure.”

“You could say that,” Red murmured.

Another bout of silence. Then Arick moved toward the kitchen archway. “Goodbye, then.”

“Goodbye,” Neve whispered.

Then she slipped out the door, into the woods. Into the world she’d saved. Red and Raffe had stood there a long time, staring and silent.

“If you’re willing to share, I’ll take some wine. I don’t even mind that you drank from the bottle.”

Arick’s voice startled Raffe from reverie as he strode into the queen’s suite as if he owned it. He was dressed like his old self now, a doublet and breeches rather than the white, flowing garments he’d been wearing when he came back from the dead. Or almost the dead. Red had tried to explain it to Raffe, and he’d never quite grasped it. Certainly not enough to tell Arick about it.

In any case, Arick was here. His family estate was ready for him in Floriane—to the knowledge of everyone in court, he’d never left, and he would be taking over the small country’s rule sooner rather than later—but he seemed to want to stay near Raffe, in Valleyda.

Raffe still wasn’t sure what the best course of action was, as far as telling Arick about his old life. So far, he’d given it to him in snatches—he was the betrothed of the queen who’d just died, and been in an accident that caused his memory loss. He didn’t tell him that Neve was the queen in question, didn’t mention Red other than as the former queen’s sister. He’d tell Arick eventually. Somehow.

There were worse things than a blank slate.

For now, he poured his old friend a glass of wine.

Red

She’d never thought it would be Eammon who’d initiate another trip to the sea.

The small house, in a strange turn of events, belonged to Kayu. It was a tiny, one-room structure built on stilts right at the waterline, the only thing for miles in either direction, with a large deck that set out over the water and a giant bed taking up most of the space inside. After a thorough use of said bed, Red was standing on the porch, leaning against the railing and letting the sea breeze dry the sweat into her hair.

“What’s on your mind?” Eammon, still shirtless, came through the door with a bottle of wine—Meducian, provided by Raffe—and two chipped mugs. He poured healthy servings into both, handed one to Red.

She took it without looking away from the tide. “Same thing as always.”

He didn’t pry further. Eammon nodded, tousled her hair, and took a drink.

Red closed her eyes. Over the month since she and Neve destroyed the Wilderwood and the Shadowlands, she’d grown mostly used to the empty feeling in her chest, so much so that now she didn’t notice it unless she went looking. But other than that hollowness, being soulless didn’t seem much different.

It had taken her a week to fully explain to Eammon what she and Neve had done, what it had cost. She hadn’t realized how afraid she was to tell him until she was in the thick of it, vainly attempting to keep her tears from halting the truth, terrified he might not love her anymore once he knew she no longer had a soul. That was what people fell in love with, right? Souls?

But he’d gathered her in his arms and pressed his forehead against hers. “I love you,” he said simply, with the vehemence of a prayer. “I don’t care about anything else.”

And then he’d proven it, which she didn’t mind at all. Red hoped Neve had someone who could reassure her in the same way, if she needed it.

But she thought the one person who could was long gone by now.

“Do you think I should’ve made her stay?” she murmured against the lip of her cup.

Beside her, Eammon sighed, though it wasn’t in frustration so much as sympathy. She’d asked this question over and over again, never satisfied with any answer.

“I think,” Eammon said carefully, “that you have to let Neve do what she feels is right.” He took another long sip of wine, the wind teasing his tangled black hair around his scarred shoulders. “And if that’s wandering all over the continent for reasons unknown, you have to let that be fine with you.”

The reasons weren’t really unknown, though. Maybe Neve thought she was just going traveling to soothe the itch in her center, but Red knew her sister, and Red knew that deep down in her soulless depths, Neve wanted to find Solmir.

What Red still didn’t know was how she felt about that.

She turned, picked up Eammon’s arm to drop it over her shoulders and burrow into his side. He made a surprised, pleased noise, dropping a kiss into her hair before drinking more wine.

The air around them shimmered, a quick effervescence that could’ve been a trick of the light were it not for the slight tingle in Red’s fingertips. “Did you feel it that time?”

“Not in the slightest,” Eammon answered, and didn’t seem upset about it at all.

The way he moved was so different now. Before, Eammon had walked heavily, every motion seeming burdened even after he and Red split the Wilderwood between them. Now, though he still bore the scars he’d made for the forest through all those centuries, Eammon had left the weight of magic behind. All of it, seemingly. Red could sense the tiny frissons of it in the atmosphere, wild power waiting to be harnessed. Eammon sensed none of it, and he seemed perfectly fine. Unencumbered humanity.

She didn’t begrudge him that. He’d been so tired for so long, and their lives were still an uncertainty—she didn’t doubt they’d live an unnaturally long time, after being so suffused with magic, but immortality was no longer a foregone conclusion.

And where would she go once she died, soulless as she was? She had no real concept of an afterlife, but having a soul seemed to be a requirement for such a thing.

Red pressed harder into Eammon’s side. She’d shared those fears with him, too, all her truths pouring out like they always seemed to do with her Wolf. And he’d caressed her hair and kissed her gently. “Wherever you go,” he murmured, “I’ll find you.”

She maneuvered herself between Eammon’s chest and the railing, still facing the ocean so her back pressed against his abdomen, and drained the rest of her wine. “I don’t think I’ll ever use magic again,” she said quietly. “Even though I can feel it. Do you think Lyra will?”

“I think Lyra feels it too strongly to completely ignore, even if she wanted to.” His muscles moved behind her as he shrugged. “But if anyone is worthy of magic, it’s her. And Fife will help.”

Fife felt the magic in the air, too, though he tried mostly to ignore it. The two of them were off traveling, Lyra finally towing Fife along as she explored the places they’d been left out of for so long.

All of them scattered, trying to make sense of the world they’d made. In Valleyda, Raffe and Kayu were embroiled in the intricacies of succession, the official story being that Neve had died of disease. And there was Arick, still without his memories, building a whole new life. One where he’d never been wrecked by Solmir and Kiri and the Kings, one where he’d never loved her and been ruined for it.

So much uncertainty, so much change. But the Wolf behind her was her constant.

She sighed, laid her head back against Eammon’s shoulder. “Come down to the water with me.”

He gave a long-suffering sigh—he’d made it extremely clear on the trip to Floriane in a hired coach that this journey was solely for Red, and he was still no great friend to the ocean—but followed her down the winding steps from the porch to the sand.

The water was warm. Sunset played along its edges, painting them in pink and gold. Red pulled off the shirt of his that she’d stolen, ran into the shallows, splashing at Eammon and teasing him when he sputtered. He followed her in, lifting her up, threatening to dunk her.

They settled, both breathing hard, her legs wrapped around his hips, his chin resting on her head as they floated in the warm salt of the sea. “It’s been strange,” Red murmured into the space between their slicked skin. “But I wouldn’t change it.”

“Not one thing,” Eammon agreed, and pressed his mouth to hers.

Neve

One year later

She was surprised to discover how much she liked taverns.

There hadn’t been many opportunities for her to spend time in them before. As the First Daughter, she’d been always guarded; as the Queen, she’d been too busy, too recognizable. Now that she was neither of those things—just Neve, wholly human Neve—she had plenty of opportunities to sneak in for a pint.

Another surprise—she vastly preferred ale to wine. Wine gave her a headache, ale just made her mind pleasantly fuzzy. This ale, in particular, was extremely good. The Alperans knew their way around a beer barrel.

The pretty woman behind the counter filled her cup again and tossed her an inviting wink. Neve just gave her a wan smile back, uninterested.

In her first months of wandering, she’d allowed herself occasional companions. Fleeting people to keep her warm, nothing lasting. All she saw when she closed her eyes was Solmir, anyway. But now she’d taken to keeping herself alone. She liked being alone, another surprising discovery about herself. In her former life, she’d had so few opportunities for solitude.

Neve smiled slightly, took a sip of her ale. Slowly, methodically, she was finding out who she was. Every day, the empty ache left by her absent soul lessened, and some days she really had to try to feel it at all.

Souls are mostly a nuisance, she told herself. Again.

Every time she heard it in her head, it was in his voice. Neve didn’t want to think she was traveling only to try to find Solmir, but it would be foolish to pretend that wasn’t part of it. She didn’t know what they could have—if they could have anything—but she wanted to see him. To know he was as well as he could be.

She twisted the silver ring around her thumb.

“Did you hear about Freia?”

The man sitting next to her addressed a newly arrived companion, knocking snow from his boots as he took a place at the bar. He shook his head, cheeks reddened by wind. “Other than that her youngest was sick, no. He hasn’t taken a turn for the worse, I hope?”

The first speaker smiled. “The opposite. He’s better. Woke up this morning like he’d never been ill at all.” He leaned closer to his friend. “But to hear Freia tell it, his healing wasn’t just a turn of luck. She says she… did something.”

“Did something?”

A nod. “Magic.” He drained his beer. “I went by to visit, and she looked like she’d seen a ghost. Just sitting there, staring at her hands as if she’d never seen them before. Said last night she put her palm on the boy’s forehead, wishing for a miracle, and saw all this gold around her fingers. Felt something happen.” He shrugged. “Could be she was dreaming, but the boy woke up good as new today. She’s convinced it was magic, like long ago. Slinking around in the air and waiting to be used.”

“That was centuries ago.”

The first man shrugged. “Stranger things have happened.”

Didn’t Neve know it. She quirked a tiny grin into her own tankard. The world had magic again, and sooner or later, someone would make up a story as to why. She wondered how close the myth would get to the truth. She wondered if someday, someone would tie the disappearance of the Wilderwood and the last Second Daughter to the rebirth of magic.

She wondered if she’d be part of the story at all. Neve couldn’t decide whether she wanted to be or not. It seemed exhausting, being a myth.

A shiver worked through her shoulders as the door opened again. Alpera was just as cold as Valleyda, especially up here on the northern end, right before you crossed into the Wastes—wide expanses of nothing but rock and ice. But inside the tavern, the light was warm and the air warmer, heated by the dancers enthusiastically twirling to the sounds of a string band at the back of the main room. Neve didn’t understand the language they sang in, but the lilts of it reminded her of Solmir. She tapped her foot in spite of herself.

“A dance, sweet one?”

The asker was a big man, with shoulders half as wide as Neve was tall and a ruddy, good-natured face. A refusal was poised on her tongue, but his eyes were kind and his smile genuine and he didn’t strike her as the kind who might pressure for more if she gave in to a dance. She’d grown skilled at ferreting those out.

So, with a laugh, Neve relented, tossing back the rest of her ale and offering her hand. “Lead the way.”

The steps to the folk dance were as foreign to her as the language the song was sung in, but her partner—Lieve, he informed her, making the introduction between twirls with a dramatic flutter of his hand—led her gallantly through them, gentle touches on her wrist or hip to guide her in the right direction. Neve caught on eventually, laughing hard enough to give herself a side stitch, and when the dance ended with everyone clapping both hands above their heads and stomping one foot, she was right on the beat.

After, the band meandered into a slower tune, one whose melody seemed vaguely familiar. A slight frown creased Neve’s brow as she turned toward the instrumentalists, trying to think of where she’d heard it before.

Lieve smiled, a more reserved one now, and once again held out a somewhat tentative hand. “Slow dances are much easier to learn.”

She could see in his face that he wanted to keep dancing with her, that though he’d never push for something she didn’t want to give, he still wanted to ask. The kind thing to do would be to cut him loose now, let him down gently.

Neve smiled, patted his hand. “I’m afraid I—”

But then a lone voice rose to accompany the melody, and Neve remembered.

It was the lullaby, the same one Solmir had sung her in the crumbling cabin at the edge of the inverted forest. The one he’d sung as he carved the night sky she still kept in her pocket, a worry stone to run her fingers over.

She stood there stricken, until Lieve’s face went from sheepish embarrassment to concern. “Sweet one, are you—”

“May I cut in?”

The voice reverberated from behind her, the one she’d heard in her head all these months. Neve whirled around.

He looked the same and wholly different. Solmir’s hair was still long, worn pulled back in the front, bleached lighter by time in the sun, making his dark brows that much more severe. The scars on his forehead weren’t quite as pronounced, their color blending into his pale skin. His blue eyes were only on her.

“You,” she murmured.

“Me,” he answered.

Behind her, Lieve excused himself with as much dignity as possible. Neve barely noticed. She and Solmir stood in the center of a sea of twisting dancers and neither was quite able to move.

There were too many words between them. Too many things to try to say. So they didn’t. Solmir held out his hand, and Neve took it, and he pulled her in. Neither of them tried to follow the steps of the dance, just swayed against each other, listening to each other’s heartbeat.

She wanted to ask him if he was staying. She wanted to ask what he’d been doing with his time, if he’d been wandering like her, set adrift in a world that slowly changed to be what they’d made it. She could feel magic itching at her fingertips sometimes; could he? Did he try to ignore it as vehemently as she did, unsure if he’d ever be able to stomach the thought of power again? Did he look into the faces of people he passed, wondering if they could feel it, too?

Wondering if they were good?

“Have you decided to believe me?” His lips brushed the shell of her ear, as if he’d read the thoughts in the pattern of her heartbeat.

Neve pressed farther into him. “Tell me again.”

A deep breath, as if he could root her in his lungs. “You are good.”

Her eyes closed. “So are you.”

“Not yet,” he said, close enough to her ear that she could feel his smirk. “But getting closer, I think.”

And she wanted to ask if he’d be there to tell her in the morning, the day after that, if he was staying to make sure she believed it for the rest of whatever strange lives they’d lead. But she didn’t, because she couldn’t be sure of the answer, and if she closed her eyes and breathed him in, lived in this moment until she wrung it dry of everything it could give her, it could be enough. For right now, it could be enough.

That was something else she’d learned about herself.

But when the song ended, when Solmir stepped away from her, when he cocked his head at the staircase that led to her room like a question—she nearly ran up the stairs, grabbing his hand as she went, tugging him behind her.