Page 131 of The Nymph King

Imani shut her eyes, feeling ill at the thought of returning to the Under.

The Mesial kingdoms had fallen into place for her, but the world beneath them was coming apart. They would fight the next war where the dead still breathed.

EPILOGUE

KIRAN

Kiran refused to call it defeat. Defeat implied an ending, and he was nowhere near finished.

Frigid air sliced across his body as he flew over the mountains surrounding Kehomel, wings beating hard against the weight of his failing strength. Blood fell from him in steady drops, dark against the snow and stone below, marking his path across the jagged ridges and narrow passes that carved through Niflheim’s terrain.

The land stretched vast and unforgiving beneath him, cliffs plunging into steep descents, ice clinging to rock in fractured sheets, everything stark and exposed at high elevation.

The bond still lived in him, but it was distant and hollow, a dull, constant tingling that did not fade with distance as he’d hoped. The numbness spread through his chest as he flew, leaving him aware of the loss without the will to anchor it.

With his wand held in his massive maw, he huffed, breath ghosting around his face in an enormous cloud.

Imani had turned on him, used every weakness he had given her, every opening he had left exposed, and she had done it without faltering.

His clever heartmate.

Respect rose despite the numbness, threaded with another fiercer emotion that refused to loosen its hold. One he did not want to examine too closely.

The Lundr Mountains fell away beneath him as he continued flying, the terrain opening into long stretches of broken stone and ice, valleys cutting through the land in deep, uneven lines. His wings flapped harder, forcing speed despite the strain, blood falling in a steady path behind him as the distance from Kehomel grew.

His heartmate bond stirred again. But this time warmth returned to his chest in a low pulse, faint at first, then building, feeding something that had not been extinguished. She was still there, thinking about him. The absence he had felt began to fill with a new emotion—and direction.

He adjusted midair, banking left, the motion pulling his body through a tight arc as the landscape blurred beneath him. He turned back to Essenheim as his wings reoriented.

His earlier plan had failed, but his larger one was still in play. As was a new one.

The first plan had been simple enough: make Niflheim believe he was its true king, make the lie stable enough that Imani could believe in the power behind it, and give her every reason to choose his side. Saevel had ruined that. The Throne had answered his brother too clearly for Kiran to keep pretending the claim was uncontested.

But Niflheim had never been the endgame. The Under was. He still intended to take its monarchy, and that ambition required more than brute force. He needed Imani beside him, and eventually he needed her father willing to stop standing in his way.

Which meant he needed another way to make himself impossible for Imani to dismiss. The Drasil came first. Lochheim came after. With both in hand, he could return to her with more power, more territory, and an alliance strong enough that siding with him would look less like surrender and more like the only intelligent choice left.

Tanyl had a Drasil and Kiran had always planned to take it. The owner had changed, but the wand was still his. He would not make the same mistake twice. If flesh magic could not hold what he had taken, the Drasil would give him another way to force the world into obedience.

Fire built in his chest as he drove forward again, beating his wings even faster now, despite the injury to his back, finding strength he hadn’t had before.

She had broken his first route to power. Fine. He would build a better one, and one day she would understand that he had built it for them both. This ridiculousness with Ellisar would fade eventually. His bloodthirsty heartmate wouldn’t accept anything less than monstrous from her partner—and he would deliver.

He had wanted her to find Saevel. That part had gone according to plan. What Kiran had misjudged was how completely the Throne would recognize his brother once he stood before it. Flesh magic had let Kiran force the Throne to answer him for months, and he had believed that advantage would hold long enough to control the confrontation. He had been wrong.

Soon, the harsh stone and ice of Niflheim gave way to darker earth and denser tree growth as Essenheim rose to meet him. Snow thinned, replaced by grass and clustered forest, the terrain smoothing out toward the capital. Roads and buildings appeared in patterns below. He rose even higher into the clouds, not wanting anyone to spot his descent into the capital city. They would get no warning.

Stralas emerged ahead, its walls and towers cutting the skyline, untouched by the damage he carried.

A fresh wave of pain radiated from his back, but it no longer held his focus.

Healing magic worked beneath the injury even as he flew, slowing the bleeding and holding damaged flesh together without truly repairing it. Adrenaline did the rest, dulling the pain enough to keep his wings moving and his body responsive. He knew the strength was temporary. The moment he stopped pushing, everything his magic and fury were holding at bay would catch up to him.

Another urge took its place. Bloodlust built in his chest, heat gathering low in his gut and spreading up, feeding a more violent desire with every beat of his wings. The closer he moved toward the city, the stronger it grew, coiling tighter, harder, until it filled him completely behind his ribs.

The palace turrets rose high into the dark clouds he soared through, and with a wide arc, he flew around one before dropping clean from the air and shifting seamlessly. Teeth clenched around his wand, he let himself fall until he smashed into the roof. Shingles broke away and fell to the ground from the dizzying height.

He grunted, finding purchase against the shingles, his fingernails bleeding from the effort. Crawling down the top, he found a dark window and positioned himself over the ledge. With a deep breath, Kiran pushed his body back from the building and swung his feet into the glass. It shattered, and he fell inside, in a tangle of limbs with a loud thump.