Page 113 of The Blight of Hollowmire

Renard holds my hand through all of it. When the last spores sink into my chest, I slump against him. He kisses the top of my head, and is very chivalrous in not mentioning either my nudity or the tears that I don’t seem to be able to stop. When I can stand, I help Renard up. Or rather, we help each other up, using our shared momentum to rise through our varied aches and pains. Nibblebones climbs to my shoulder, then immediately abandons me for Renard’s, where she winds herself around his neck. Renard’s arm snakes around my waist just as mine goes carefully around his back, avoiding the wound. Together, we walk through what remains of the lower courtyard.

The corruption is undone—that much I can feel with certainty. The earth doesn’t feel stagnant or still—it simply feels tired, almost like waking up from a too-long nap. Yet even beneath the desolation, I can already sense the return of the tiny insects and creatures that will slowly turn the soil back to rights.

It will take time, though, as all healing does. And in the interim, the city will need food, hands, strong communities, and no shortage of grace and mercy. Valehar is not saved—not yet, but now, for the first time in an age, the stubborn persistence of hope can flourish.

As Renard and I pass by the people who are starting to rise, a woman steps in front of us, eyes flick from Renard to me, and then to the place where Arden vanished in a swirl of ugly consequences.

“Is it over?” she asks timidly.

“No,” I say, because I am too exhausted, too wrung out to lie and tell her that everything will be okay now. “But the worst of it is.”

She nods, tears falling down her face, and Renard places a gentle hand on her shoulder. He sighs—a bone-weary sound—and scratches thoughtfully at his beard.

“What now?” he asks.

“Well,” I squint up at the sun, struggling to break through the veil of clouds. “First, I’m going to bathe—I’m covered in blood and gods-filth. Then, I’m going to bathe you, and we will of course be distracted for a time, but that can’t be helped. Following that, we will find something to eat, and then get started setting your kingdom to rights. Shouldn’t take more than a day or so, I wager.”

His laughter is lively and boisterous, echoing off the ruined stones and doing more to heal me than a month’s rest.

“Broken things can be mended,” I say, squeezing his hand.

“They can,” he agrees. “And then, we go northwest to Moontide.”

My heart flutters at the thought—at the dream that felt so selfish at first, and then so silly in the wake of such heaviness. Now, however, it seems like another thing to hope for.

“To the coast,” I say with a smile. “And to a cottage with a garden, and enough wilds for Nibblebones to hunt.”

Nibblebones chitters approvingly, and Renard brushes a blood-stained strand of hair from my face, taking my lips in another earth-shattering kiss.

The sun finally breaks through the clouds, the golden light caressing the gold of Renard’s hair and the silver in his beard, even as it illuminates the ruin around us. There is work to be done—that much is true. But beside me, Renard is alive and breathing—my farmer knight, my ruin and my savior, and my forever love.

I slide my hand into his, and this time, neither of us lets go. The land beneath Valehar is bare, yes, but it’s not dead.

Neither am I.

THE END

Epilogue

Vireth

One year later

Sweat drips down his back, slowing briefly as it tracks over the puckered skin of his scar. I love watching him work like this—the axe making satisfying cracks as he splits firewood for the pile outside the kitchen. He does it shirtless to entice me—I know he does—because the sight of his broad shoulders and battle-scarred skin lights a fire in my blood that dwarfs whatever that wood will burn.

I’m content briefly just to watch him from the kitchen window, the dough beneath my fingertips momentarily forgotten.

Nibblebones emerges from the kitchen garden we’ve plotted out, though the planting will have to wait for next spring. She’s covered in mud from the beds we’ve set down, and because I couldn’t wait to grow something, tidy rows of little brown mushrooms have pushed up through the otherwise bare dirt. They’ll go nicely with the rabbit stew we’re having tonight to celebrate our first month together in the cottage.

After the events in Valehar, Renard and I stayed on to help try to get things back to some sense of order. Most of the people were absolutely terrified of me, but many of them remembered Renard kindly enough to listen and follow his lead. I suspect it was false modesty when he told me he had no head for politics, because though he grumbled a fair bit, he had quite the knack for inspiring reform.

Perhaps some of that was down to my subtle terrorizing of the council members who’d thrown their lot in with Arden, but I won’t take too much credit for it.

The first few months were brutal in Valehar. Granted, they were made somewhat easier with trade routes opened up between fae kingdoms and humans, but even with Arden’s corruption ended, we had a treacherous winter—though we lost fewer souls than Valehar had in the last several winters prior.

Spring may have had a helping hand, thanks to Sephia’s visit. I pleaded for her to come—and bring Bronwyn, if she must—to help the soil along and give some of the new plantings a fresh start. She came happily, and rather smugly, I might add. Something about her villainous husband being brought to heel, I gather. She wouldn’t share much more than that, but waved me away when I offered to rot his body inside out.

Bronwyn came some time later, right around midsummer, and helped us further restore some of the hope and good feelings that took root along with our first batch of edible spring crops in years. For once, she didn’t have a harsh word for me, simply looked at my antlers—much smaller now, thank the gods—and said they suit me better than wyrm silk ever did.