Epilogue: Midsummer

Kendal listened with half an ear to the complaints of the Speaker for the Craftsmen. “Why don’t you just use slightly less pure silver, lower your prices accordingly,” Kendal advised, as he had the last fifty times, “and more merchants will buy in.”

“But Rhio! You know nothing of supply and demand! Of the duty I have to my customers, to…”

Duty. It was just one more reminder this year, a reminder of his beloved.

“…and so such a suggestion is simply not implementable! Your father understood this, you kn—” The Speaker for the Craftsmen cut himself off, aware that he had crossed a line.

The single tear tracing down his King’s cheek, he attributed to the loss of his father, in such an awful way! Kendal had refused to replace the dented silver Dragon Crown that his father had worn that day (Kendal wore it now) and a new Heir’s Circlet waited for the next Rhio or Rhia al’Mandragori—that had been lost in the battle, he said.

XX

In honor of the victorious Midsummer Battle of the year before, Orchard Pass was renamed Battle Pass. Ilsa Peteri was part of the crowd, just like the year before, as Aaron Lukera made another pronouncement that was met with cheers.

But today, unlike the year before, there was a month-and-a-half-old baby in her arms, happily nursing. Ilsa knew her little Miriara, the golden mirror of her father, would be named “bastard,” “Lady-child,” “Mother’s-name,” but Miri couldn’t know who her father was, not yet. Depending on the color of the hair that was still fuzz on her baby’s head, she never had to learn. But if the gleaming garnet eyes, the same shade as her father’s, were any indication, Miriara would live up to her name in every way.

Ilsa took a breath, let it out. Miri’s eyes were safely shut now. But Ilsa would have to teach her to walk among the scorning Valleymen and –women with her eyes down; to always wear a headscarf as old-fashioned, modest maidens did; to speak the rudiments of her father’s language, in the hope that someday…

Ilsa imagined herself walking fearlessly down Battle Pass, her tall daughter by her side. And in the distance, at the end of the pass, was a golden dragora, ready to take them home.

Only Goody Sarra, who had helped the birth of Ilsa's Lady-child only to have the girl cuddled away from her before the infant's eyes opened—only she noted the tear that ran down Ilsa’s cheek as the young healer looked down the pass toward the Dragonlands, and only Goody Sarra wondered…