EPILOGUE
MORGAN
Ihear the door to the cottage and quickly hide the knives I’ve been polishing under the cloth as Bryn comes in.
She’s dressed in a peach colored gown that Dawn helped her choose from the Trading Post, and her hair is plaited and wrapped around her head like a crown. She wears a necklace Jak bought for her while we were in Kitore.
Over the past few weeks, she’s settled into life in the village. She’s happy.
It helps that the deal she made with Calder has been voided by the Underhill of course, and that she’s been given leave to stay in Halsford for as long as she wishes without any stipulations at all.
It annoyed me that the Council Five didn’t accept that Bryn had done everything asked of her, though. As far as I’m concerned, she upheld her end. She went to the Dark and put herself in harm’s way to get the fae bitch. It’s not her fault Fiana got away.
But, I suppose I understand in bureaucratic terms. Once they realized that Voss wasn’t who he was pretending to be, and that Calder had been foolish enough to be manipulated so completelyby Fiana’s spy, he was taken off the Fae Council too. Last I heard, he slunk off with his tail between his legs and rarely leaves his home now.
If I get the chance to kill him, I still might, but, for now, he’s in a place where I cannot get to him.
I’m trying to be content with the fact that he has been stripped of all his power, both in the Underhill and in Halsford.
I wish I’d been able to get Voss, but Lia and Bryn had it in hand. Hopefully, he’s either dead, or far beneath the First City, a prisoner of its wards until he succumbs to starvation and thirst.
I smile darkly at the thought.
Bryn puts some packages on the top of the cupboard in the kitchen, humming to herself. When she finally notices me, she jumps but her smile is wide and unbridled.
‘I didn’t know you were back.’
‘We finished the final cottage this morning,’ I say. ‘But we’re building ten more just over the rise.’
‘For Fiana’s former slaves?’
I nod. ‘That will be their part of the village for now.’
‘I’m glad they’re allowed to stay.’
I snort. ‘The Underhill has their own problems. So long as the village doesn’t fall to their enemies, and we don’t become a liability to them, they no longer seem to care what Halsford decides. At least for now, though some of them would likely be pleased if we killed each other.’
She frowns. ‘Do you think that will happen? That the Light Realmers and the Dark will fight amongst themselves again?’
I shrug, sitting back in my chair. ‘Who can say? Many are afraid that it will happen as it did before, but there will be safety measures in place, and, thanks to Tavish’s very vocal change of heart, there are quite a few in Halsford who think it could work. We’ll have to see. At least with Gwen back on the Village Councilalong with Lia, we won’t be thwarted every time a change needs to be made.’
Bryn nods and turns away from me, pulling at her dress a bit.
I raise a brow. ‘Are you feeling well? The need you sometimes feel, is it upon you?’
Is it wrong that I almost wish it was?
I feel as if it’s been ages since I took my little human to my bed, but, after how she saw me in Fiana’s dungeon, I’m not certain if she wants to be there any longer. She hasn’t asked it of me.
She shakes her head. ‘No, I haven’t felt it since Merediea.’
She turns away and mumbles something that I’m not sure I hear correctly.
‘What did you say?’ I ask, sitting forward.
She turns back, looking annoyed. ‘I said that I wish it would come upon me, then at least you’d…’
She lets out a huff, and I regard her with a dawning awareness and dismay.
