Kara rested her cheek against the baby’s head anyway.“For now,” she whispered.
* * *
Raja stood aloneat the edge of the graveyard as silver light rolled briefly across the dead world beneath his feet.The foundations had stabilized.Interesting.They weren’t healed, just delayed.The child had bought them time.And Gerick ...
Ah.Now that had surprised him.
Raja smiled slowly into the darkness.Sacrifice.The living did love making themselves vulnerable in the name of hope.How beautifully predictable.
Around him, graves trembled softly beneath the weakened veil between life and death.
The corruption still spread.The barriers still cracked.The foundations still bled.And now?Now the realms had something precious enough to fear losing.
Perfect.
Raja lifted his gaze toward the dark horizon where storm clouds swallowed the moon whole.
“Run while you can,” he whispered softly.
The dead beneath the earth began to stir.
And somewhere out of his reach, for now, a newborn child opened her eyes as the realms trembled once more.
EPILOGUE
“There is nothing that can dim the celebration of new life.Not even a contrary troll elder who likes to chatter.”~ Nick
The Troll Realmhad finally stopped shaking.
Mostly.
Every now and then a faint tremor still rolled through the mountain beneath Kara’s bed, a low shiver in the stone that traveled up through the layers of fur and tickled the soles of her bare feet beneath the blankets.It was subtle enough she might have imagined it, if not for the way Nick’s body immediately tensed beside her every single time it happened, his shoulders going rigid, his head tilting toward the wall like he could glare a mountain into behaving.
Her mate had developed approximately zero chill since becoming a father.Honestly, less than zero.He was operating somewhere in the negative chill zone, a mathematical impossibility that her sleep-deprived brain refused to engage with.
Kara lay propped against an absurd number of blankets in the large stone chamber the trolls had returned them to after the foundations had stabilized, surrounded by enough furs and woven throws to insulate a small village.Soft amber lanterns glowed along the walls now instead of the colder blue mineral light from before, casting warmth across the carved stone in pools of honey gold while a fire crackled steadily in the massive hearth nearby.Every now and then a log shifted, sending a quiet shower of sparks up toward the chimney.
The room smelled faintly of herbs, milk, smoke, and wolf.
Mostly wolf.
Nick sat beside her on the bed, one arm braced behind her shoulders, looking deeply offended by the existence of literally everyone else in the room.
Which currently consisted of:
Verna.
Three elder troll females.
Rachel, who had been checking on her and the baby constantly, using her healer powers to monitor them both.
Zara.
Aphid, for some reason.
And Torvik, who had somehow snuck in carrying flowers that looked mildly carnivorous, the petals snapping faintly whenever he turned the bouquet the wrong way.
Nick’s irritation had only worsened once Verna started helping Kara position the baby for feeding, the elder female’s weathered hands moving with practiced calm while Kara fumbled through the most awkward exam of her life.
