Epilogue

“Who are you and what have you done with my sister?”

Siara turned and looked at her brother with an eyebrow raised. “What? I am not allowed to buy my brother a gift for his impending nuptials?”

“That is pure gold. And where am I supposed to wear that anyway?” he demanded to know, fingering the circling armband that his sister was currently considering.

“On stage. You do still intend to perform with Lisi and Kahn on occasion, do you not?”

“Only to keep up my image as an empty-headed entertainer,” he advised her. “I intend to keep the stalwart politician a secret until the Dekacon elections at the end of the year. Then I will step out onto the political scene and surprise everyone with my dazzling wit and intelligence.”

Before he could protest any further, Siara snatched up the armband and headed to the shopkeeper to pay. “I do not know how you managed to convince Mara that she would enjoy being a politician’s wife.”

“Mischa has been working with her. Besides, the wife typically remains in the background anyway, just as Mara likes it.”

Siara shook her head as they were finally leaving the shop. “I cannot believe that my little brother is getting married. Does this have something to do with the fact that you nearly died barely two weeks ago? Because this all seems rather fast.”

“I just know what I want and when I want it. I met Mara, and I knew there was no use looking anymore. And trust me. She is worth it.” He waggled his brows suggestively.

“Ugh. I did not need to know that,” Siara grumbled, slinging the sack from the store into her brother’s chest. “Here. Take it, before I beat you with it.”

“I love you, too,” he said with a grin. They had nearly returned to the Estata Building, just a stone’s throw from the shopping district they had been visiting, when Kyrin asked her, “How much longer will you stay here? I know that it is only a matter of time before you go. And when you go…”

He left that last bit hanging, but they both knew what it was he was not saying. When she left, she would not be coming back. Not ever.

“Soon,” she assured him. “Everything seems to be resolving itself nicely here. Although I do feel a little badly for foisting Gari off on Lisi and Kahn.”

Kyrin snorted. “Please. They love the idea of having an understudy, and the man will do just about anything if he thinks it might get him on stage.”

“True. And Jaelin seems to be doing well as Palli’s new favorite errand boy. I think Mischa wants to adopt him.”

“She will have to fight with Mara for that privilege,” Kyrin said dryly. “Have you heard anything from Rahm and Argynn yet?”

“They may not have even reached the new capital of Nubanynn yet, but I am sure they will write as soon as they arrive safely. I am not worried about Argynn and Rahm.”

They were still standing just outside of the building, and Kyrin reached out to place a finger underneath her chin, forcing her to look up at him. “Is it me you are worried about, Si?” he wondered.

“And me,” she admitted. “We have been together for so long.”

“Which is precisely why the past few months did us some good. We were finally able to go our separate ways and find our own separate lives. I cannot say that I will not miss you every day for the rest of my life, but I will have Mara to comfort me. And I will know that, wherever you are, you are content, too.”

She nodded, and then without warning, she stepped forward and embraced him, hard. “Take care, little brother.”

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“She left?”

Kyrin glanced over at Mara, who was sitting in one corner of their room, knitting. She always seemed to be doing something domestic, and in the past few weeks, Kyrin had found that he liked more than anything to come back to their room in Palli’s grand apartment and find her waiting for him. After the tumultuous few months he had just endured, and having his brain rearranged by his sister’s story of conversing with their god—not gods, but god—such simple comforts as having a woman, his woman, welcome him home had become so very important to him.

That Mara had somehow understood, without his even needing to really court her, that they would remain together had also made his life a great deal simpler. On the journey back to Terat, Kyrin had been too busy holding his sister to bother with discussing relationships with Mara. But afterwards, when they returned to Terat and Siara finally retired, she had been there to hold him in his sister’s stead.

“I did it,” she had whispered. “I saved you.”

“In more ways than one,” he had assured her. “Completely reforming me might take a lifetime, however. Are you up to the task?”

That had been his proposal, and after only a few token protests—she was too old for marriage, too old for him…a bunch of nonsense about her age—Kyrin had been forced to do what he did best and seduce her into giving him the answer he desired. An hour later, she had said yes to his proposal so many times that there was absolutely no way she could take her acceptance back.

“Yes,” he answered her question, collapsing back onto their bed.

“She did not stay for the wedding.”

“But she bought me my wedding gift already, so I guess I forgive her.”

Mara sighed and walked over to the bed, sitting down beside him. She reached out and took his hand, holding it in her lap as she gently traced the lines on his palm. “She gave me my gift as well.”

“Oh? Was it expensive? Because I swear I thought I was going to spontaneously combust when she dished out so much coin for this armband she bought me.”

“Her gift to me was priceless.” When he glanced over at her, he saw that she was smiling down at him, and he understood.

Siara’s gift to Mara had been him.

“She said that she hopes I give you plenty of children. I cannot say if she meant it as a blessing or not, though,” Mara admitted.

Kyrin could not help it. He grinned. “You know what, Mara?” He rolled over, forcing her onto her back and trapping her beneath him. “I think that everything is going to be all right.” He leaned down and kissed her gently on the forehead. Then his gaze turned lewd as he said, “About those multitudes of children…”

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Tika sat in a leather-covered chair in front of a roaring fire and watched as over twenty pages of carefully-written script slowly burned to ashes. The smell of scorched parchment wafted to her nostrils, traveling the short distance from fire to chair. She supposed she should feel grateful that she was not actually in the fire, what with how tiny her room was. Work on Balia’s future home—nothing so grand as the previous palace, but something a little bit more upscale than the current shack in which she and Tika were both living—was still underway. As for the title her new ruler had decided to adopt…

Well, Balia had decided that titles were entirely too restricting. So the people were to call her Balia. And that was that.

“Do you honestly think it is going to make you feel better to pretend as if he did not even write that letter?” Balia demanded to know, having snuck into Tika’s room at some point in the past few minutes without her realizing it.

“Maybe. I don’t know.” She was trying not to cry, but the sting of smoke in her eyes was not helping her endeavors. “What did that idiot think he was doing, anyway? As if I wouldn’t be able to tell he was saying goodbye.”

“We have heard nothing from Merata. He could easily still be alive,” Balia advised her.

“Or dead,” Tika argued. “I will not know until I actually see him, and in the meantime, I have that stupid letter to think about.”

“It couldn’t have been too stupid if it has you this worked up.” Balia walked over to her and yanked her up and out of the chair. “Come on. Let’s go wander around camp and admire our subjects. That will make you feel better.”

That seemed to be the only thing that could make Tika feel better lately. Walking around with Balia as former nobles who had once reviled them and now bowed to them always lifted her spirits. They had no more stepped from their makeshift home, built in the valley atop the bones of earthstompers past, than Tika stopped, her eyes drawn to an approaching figure in the distance. Even though the sun was setting and all she could see was a dark outline, she would have recognized that long-legged stride anywhere.

“Rahm.”

He stopped walking, as if he had heard his name spoken softly from her lips, even though he was more than a hundred yards away.

“Well damn. There went my evening of fun,” Balia grumbled, although she did not sound the least bit put out.

They approached the pair standing in wait on the outskirts of their camp, Rahm standing tall and straight, Argynn leaning wearily against the earthstomper’s right leg. As they drew near, Tika could see that her old friend and lover had not shaved in weeks, and his hair now curled nearly to his shoulders. He was filthy and weary and looked as if he could use a very strong drink.

She had never seen anything so wonderful in her entire life.

“About damn time,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest.

Hesitant at her sour tone, Rahm asked, “Did you get my letter?”

“Yeah, and if you ever dare to tell me goodbye again, I will damn well kill you myself,” was her reply.

“I only wanted to…”

She couldn’t hold it in anymore. Before he could finish his sentence, Tika stepped forward and kissed him, sobbing all the while. Then she pulled away so she could throw herself at her father and welcome him home as well.

“You have fleas,” she complained.

Argynn growled and licked her face with his warm, wet tongue.

“You guys are going to make me sick.” At Balia’s joking words, Argynn tensed and gently stepped back from Tika. He approached the ruler of Nubanynn with slow steps and immediately nudged at her hand with his head. “Nothing changes, huh?” she said as she began to scratch behind his ears.

Argynn sighed happily, his tail wagging back and forth.

Tika turned to Rahm, her eyes no longer leaking and a smile on her face. She reached out and took his hand, gave it a squeeze, and said, “Welcome home.”

He returned her smile, his own eyes suspiciously wet, and said, “I told you I would not break my promise. Marriage and babies, here we come.”

Tika just shook her head and laughed.

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Siara did not remember it being quite this hot in the Waste during her first journey through the desert. Of course, she’d had others traveling with her to keep her mind off of the heat. It all seemed so long ago, impressing Harri and the lackeys with her firewalking skills, lying beneath a canvas canopy as she talked to Harri—or Drake. She felt almost as if she had been an entirely different person back then, living an entirely different life from the one she led now.

The Sand Whips were daunting without more than just herself to keep watch for them. Still, she managed to survive by keeping a vigilant eye on the horizon and resting by the prickly trees.

She had lost track of how long she had been traveling and was on her last skein of water before she saw him. At first, she thought he was just a hallucination brought on from heat exhaustion, but even her jegeer stilled and started sniffing at the air, as if it could determine by scent who this newcomer was. Siara did not need scent. The sight of him alone was confirmation enough.

Clumsily, she slid from the back of her jegeer and began to run towards him. She had barely taken five steps before he was standing before her, falling at her feet, his arms wrapped around her waist and his head pressed to her stomach.

“You are here,” he whispered, and she could feel the trembling throughout his body.

“Of course I am. I thought you said that you trusted me,” she replied.

“I did. I do. That did not make the waiting any easier,” he advised. Then he stilled, having finally noticed that the surface upon which he rested his cheek was not entirely flat. “You are…”

“Yes. There was a purpose to all of this, you know. Kyrin’s abduction, my journey, meeting you…all so I could ascend to the heavens and receive a blessing from our god. So our child could receive His blessing.”

Kir stared in amazement at her belly, concealed by the thin fabric of Kyrin’s shirt. She had borrowed it shortly before her departure and had never given it back. This was a piece of him she would keep with her always. “The Ethereal Being…is our child?”

“Our son,” she confirmed. She knelt in the sand before him, clasping his face between her hands as she had done weeks ago when she first saw their son, throwing himself into his father’s lap. “He chose us,” she told him. “Just as He chose your people to be the guardians of our son, his messenger.”

“Then I suppose we should not disappoint Him,” Kir murmured, leaning in to kiss her. For a long time, they remained connected thusly, before finally he pulled away and suggested that they return to city and get out of the sun. As they walked, the jegeer trailing behind them, he told her about all of the changes that had been made since his return. The walls of the Palace of Oracles had been torn down, eliminating the separation between the halves of the city. He had also decreed that all Guardian bannens were to start learning how to speak, and no longer would children be raised as part of any one caste. There could be no definition of castes, anyway, as all of the bannens now had white hair, like Kir.

“How is Ana doing?” she wondered as they neared Orcalia.

“Terrorizing my people, of course.”

“Do you think she will stay with us?”

“I know she will.”

Siara glanced sideways at him, her lips pursed. “You could not have possibly had another vision.”

“Not recently,” he admitted, “but I had one some time ago when we were in Losaeria. Let’s just say that Ana’s destiny is here, in Orcalia. She is not going anywhere.”

And as they walked into the city hand in hand, Siara felt for the first time in her life that she was finally coming home.

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Author’s Note: So. It is finally done. Now that I know I can write two books simultaneously, I do not think I will do so ever again. Especially not after that whole posting the wrong chapter in the wrong book debacle. Hopefully, everything turned out all right in the end. If you couldn’t tell, I do eventually intend to write another book that will be sort of like an epilogue to this series. I haven’t decided if it will be full-length or not, or even what, specifically, the plot is going to be. But it will be about Kir and Siara’s son, of course. Ana will also be a main feature, and I would like to tidy up things between Balia and Argynn. I don’t like having loose ends, no matter how small they might be. Again, I hope everyone enjoyed this book, and please leave reviews and tell me what you thought!

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