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I swallowed and squeezed his palm three times, a response that I wanted him, all of him. The darkest pieces and the brightest. I did not need a crown, nor a throne. But with him, I could face such a burden. Or I could walk away from it and live just as well.

Together, we looked back at the council.

Together, we agreed.

Together, we would face it all.

Epilogue

Lyra

I had never been so deep into the upper knolls of Myrda. It was lovely and bright, with a rich, salty wind that rolled in off the Long Sea. I leaned out the window of a wooden coach that rattled along the dirt roads like the wheels might spin off.

One arm rested along the edge, my face in the breeze. Next to me, Roark held my hand and looked out the other side.

In the last week, most of Myrda had ventured to the palace in the center knolls for the vows of the princess and her new Draven warrior wife. Gunter had been the one to seal Emi and Yrsa’s bond, and the folk of Myrda had been drawn into the rowdy celebrations of Dravenmoor the whole of the night.

I’d reunited with Hilda, Edvin, and their families. Hilda insisted that she never believed I’d killed the Jorvan king, but folk were kept under fierce watch while Fadey and Ingir overtook Stonegate.

Thane’s voice had opened the walls and lifted the tension of fear among the crafters within the royal keep.

Months since the battles ended, and the union of Yrsa and Emi was one of the brighter days. More came when Sindri was officially crowned as the heir apparent of Dravenmoor. He would not take the title of king until he came of age, but the boy had found a place in his new clan.

He tended to spend his days with Brynn and Auki and the wolves. Kael found a place within the Dark Watch, trading his Stav Guard white wolf for the double-headed raven seal.

With two remaining soul bones permanently placed over his heart, there were times when his eyes darkened and he would tilt his head to one side, fighting whatever cruel corruption tried to bleed into his soul.

Brynn’s touch would pull him back, simple and loving, a guiding light.

Only once had my brother fallen so far into it that he barricaded himself behind a door, and it took an even darker soul to draw him out.

Skul Drek had a way of controlling vicious souls. With Kael, he’d reminded him of his bonds, showing him how weak the darker pieces could be and how fierce his soul bond with Brynn and his connections to me and his half-siblings were growing.

It worked, and he’d yet to fall back into such a dark fog again.

We remained in Dravenmoor. It was no slight to Thane, but Stonegate had been a prison of sorts for us both. Myrda did not feel like home. So we lived in the Draven palace, the king and queen of craft.

To Roark’s horror and annoyance, folk desired that we sit on councils. They claimed that our voices held a finality, as though the other royal houses looked to our word more than others’.

In a way, they did. As promised, the heirs of craft held their own sovereignty, but somehow Roark, the Death Bringer, and his wife, the melder, were the royal word of the new realms of Stìgandr.

I found peace at his side, with our black iron crowns atop our heads, or in his arms beside the shore of the Black Fjords, or learning how to scale the damn Red Ravines like a true Draven.

The only time I felt like fleeing was when I returned to Skalfirth to honor Thorian and Selena, and Jarl Jakobson and his wife bent the knee to me.

I refused to sleep in their longhouse and insisted the jarl write to Kael in Dravenmoor with a sincere, apologetic heart for betraying his firstborn. If I was not satisfied, his title of jarl would be stripped.

Roark gestured nothing but allowed a bit of the shadows of his soul to bleed out.

I took some pleasure at the sight of Kael receiving a two-page missive not a week later.

I leaned back against the seat of the coach. Roark was glaring at the Night Ledges.

“Worried for him?”

He let his head roll to the side, facing me. He shouldn’t have gone with so few men.

“Thane holds his name of ‘Bold’ for a reason. He’ll be all right. He has craft now, and Unfettered Folk are friendly with the realms.”