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I had to wonder if we had really beaten chaos. Surely this God that had lived for millennia had only been defeated temporarily, banished back to the underworld. I couldn't quite make myself believe in happy endings enough to think evil was gone forever.
But perhaps he was gone for my lifetime. Perhaps I could believe in some sort of happy ending. Perhaps I would… later. For now, I just felt numb.
When I had carried the last of my men back to Rylow, Branok asked me quietly, “Why don't you go see Hanna?”
When my men were bustling around, dispatching their troops to chase the last remnants of Kallus’s battered army from our shores, a visit with my sister seemed ridiculously unimportant in the grand scheme of things. As much as I wanted to see her. I worried that she had felt abandoned in the chaos of the city the past few days.
“She needs you,” Branok promised. “We can handle this. You're the only one who can help her.”
“Oh, I don't know about that. I think she might like you better than she likes me at this point. She had a lot to say about her incrediblebrothers.”
Branok winced. “I feel like this can only end in disappointment for her.”
“Oh, I don't know. I think you're pretty great.”
My men couldn’t find Caris, and none of the spies had seen him leading the army in days. From the sounds of things, Kallus’s forces were in desperate retreat trying to return to their ships. Or rather, what remained of their ships, given Morick’s forces in the water. Caldren and Jaik were discussing allowing safe passage to the coast—and back to the Poison Kingdom—for all who surrendered.
They had things under control.
I kissed Branok goodbye and went to find Hanna.
She ran down the steps of the Posselbaum Academy into my arms seconds after I rang the doorbell, so I knew she had been the one standing guard by the door.
I rocked back on the cobblestones and hugged her back. She seemed like she'd grown taller somehow since the last time I saw her. My sister could stop growing anytime now. She was already taller than I was. Although almost everyone was.
“Let's take a walk,” I told her.
She craned her head behind me, looking around, and I smiled.
“I'm sure they're there. Even though I didn't invite them.”
“You have to be careful,” she said. “You're the queen. Which is not weird for me at all.”
“Yes, but all the nobles are swearing loyalty to me. Not that I would entirely trust that loyalty... given what Damyn and Jaik would do to them if they didn't. But given what all my men are capable of... I feel safe.”
“I can see why. I felt safe around them too.” Her eyes sparkled at me. “But someone ordered me back to Rylow anyway, so you can take precautions anyway.”
She was teasing, but she wasn’t happy about having returned to the academy.
I waited until we were walking to say, “Hanna. You don't have to stay at the Posselbaum Academy. You can live with us at the palace and go to another school or have tutors at home, until you're old enough to take your place and live in the coral mansion by yourself.”
She grabbed my wrist, so I swung around, looking into her wide blue eyes. “Are you sure?”
“Of course. Just because I desperately wanted to go to the Posselbaum Academy doesn't mean that it's the right place for you. In the end, I had to find my own path. And so will you.”
Her eyes flooded with sudden tears.
I pulled her into a tight hug, feeling like I couldn't speak. “I didn't realize things were so bad there for you. I just wanted you to be safe there while I was fighting.”
“No, it's not that,” she said into my shoulder. “I just... I felt a little trapped by your legacy.”
“Can we not talk about my legacy? I'm twenty-three. I'm not ready to have a legacy.”
“Everyone knows who you are. So if I'm not brave, if I'm not strong, if I'm not clever and quick...” she chewed her lower lip. I thought she wasn't going to finish, and then she added, “then I'm a disappointment.”
“To who?” I asked, ready for a fight all over again even though the war had just ended.
“To myself,” she said in a whisper.
