The Queen of the Dawn, page 39
part #5 of Shadows and Crowns Series
“Cepheid…”
“She saw this ending we’ve reached before the others did, as is her power,” Solatis explained. “She left her blessing for me to pass to you, along with some of her magic.”
Cas studied the marks for a moment longer, then lifted her eyes to the spot where the two goddesses had disappeared, unable to put into words how she felt in their absence. All the questions she still had for them… She could have spent a lifetime trying to understand and fully connect with them, and though they might not have been dying, part of her still ached at the thought of them going their separate ways.
“There is nothing left for them in the mortal world,” Solatis assured her. “They gave the last of their power in it to you—willingly so—but they have other places to be now. So don’t shed too many tears for them.”
Cas nodded; she hadn’t even realized the tears were forming until the goddess mentioned them. She tried to blink them away, but another familiar voice reached her before she could truly collect herself.
“We’ll still be with you in a way, even if you can no longer visit us.”
She turned to see the Goddess of the Moon standing on the shore in the distance, the silver light surrounding her a stunning contrast to the golden water.
Cas no longer tried to keep her tears from falling; they ran freely down her face as she went to the goddess and wrapped her arms around her.
The goddess’s usual warmth enveloped Cas as she hugged her back. It had always made Cas feel a bit sleepy but safe. Now it struck her as a feeling of finding the way home, of being found after being certain you were irreversibly lost.
“We’ll take different paths now,” the goddess whispered before pulling away, “but that doesn’t change the roads we’ve already walked together, does it?” Her hand brushed the crescent-shaped mark along Cas’s jaw. It tingled, and though she couldn’t see it changing, Cas suspected it was shifting to something that more closely resembled her other marks—another permanent symbol she would carry until the end of her days.
The goddess planted a kiss on the top of her head, then went to stand at Solatis’s side. Together, they reached toward the lake. The golden waves parted, creating a path that led farther than Cas could see.
She didn’t have to ask where it led. She knew it was a road back to the mortal realm. Back to her empire. Her friends. Her husband.
To everything after.
The Moon Goddess encouraged her toward it with a nod.
Cas hesitated. She was almost too overwhelmed to move, too afraid to take the first step into a future that seemed so big and so full of possibility.
But she was well-practiced at doing things in spite of her fear, so she clutched the broken shard of her sword and managed to put one foot after the other until she was at the beginning of the path.
“One last thing before you go,” said Solatis.
Cas turned and found the goddess’s hand outstretched, her eyes on the piece of sword Cas had clenched in her hand. As Cas handed it over it began to glow, its edges softening and expanding.
Once it was in the goddess’s hand, it melted completely, twisting into a shapeless form that rose above her outstretched palm.
Solatis used her other hand to conjure up threads of gold, which she wrapped around the melted sword piece. The threads twisted and spun, creating a churning mass of energy around it. A tinging like hammering upon metal echoed from the mass. The goddess simply watched it all for a moment, letting it shift and tumble until, just as before, she pulled a solid shape from the chaos—two shapes, this time.
Two crowns.
The golden face of one was engraved with a half-circle, like a sun rising over the horizon, while multiple jewel-tipped spires rose like shooting rays around it. The other was more simple but equally beautiful, a circlet of twisting gold with five white jewels spread across it, the one in the center larger than the two on either side of it.
“A fair trade, I think,” said Solatis. “A sword for a pair of crowns.” She offered them to Cas, who took them without any hesitation.
They were unexpectedly light, just as Shadowslayer had been.
“Hold tightly to them,” the goddess said, taking a step back, her shining gaze sweeping over Cas one final time. “And now, I think you’re ready to go home.”
Cas opened her eyes to the sight of the fully risen sun.
She was on her back, and it was directly above her, high and bright. Its beams were relentless, bouncing off the crowns Solatis had given her, making the jewels on them shine so brilliantly they nearly blinded her.
She clenched the crowns tighter, took a deep breath, and sat up.
As her vision adjusted, the battlefield came into sharp focus all around her—all the dead and burned things laid out before her a chilling contrast to the heavenly gateway she’d just left behind.
So much brokenness.
Cas got to her feet and made her way to the first patch of unburned, unstained grass she could find, kneeling among its softness and trying to get back to the peace she’d felt at Solatis’s side.
She didn’t doubt her purpose any longer, and yet the questions started to sneak into her thoughts, quiet but relentless: How do I put this world back together?
Where do I even start?
She heard footsteps moments later—almost as if in answer to these unasked questions.
She turned around and there they were, rushing to her side just as they had in the battle earlier.
Zev saw her first. He paused, looking around as though he thought her appearance might have been a prank of some sort. Then he was rushing toward her, wrapping her up, and squeezing her so tightly she thought she might actually burst.
She placed the crowns Solatis had given her on the ground so she could wrap her arms more completely around him. Tears streamed down her face, and for once he didn’t tease her about them—though he did lean back to wipe them away as he shook his head. “You look terrible,” he informed her.
She laughed through more tears. “Better than you, at least.”
Rhea and Silverfoot arrived soon after, the fox bounding ahead and leaping into Cas’s arms, licking the remaining tears from her face. His eyes shimmered with magic as he looked her over. Cas didn’t know how long that magic would last in this new world they were creating, but for now it was bright and clear enough that Rhea let out a relieved sigh at the vision the fox sent her.
She still took Cas’s hands and squeezed them, let her fingers travel along Cas’s arms and up to her face, feeling for herself that she was safe before she leaned in and pressed their foreheads together. She drew away nearly a full minute later, and only at the sound of Nessa’s excited squeal.
Nessa somehow managed to crush her more tightly than Zev had, pressing both more tears and more breath from her and making her somewhat relieved at Laurent’s more subdued greeting. The half-elf was right behind Nessa, and he was the one who eventually rescued Cas from the rib-threatening hug, pulling her away into a quick, light embrace before placing his hands on her shoulders and looking her over.
“Still in one piece, then?” he inquired.
“Still in one piece,” she assured him.
“Good.”
They shared a small smile, and as the others all gathered around her, their chatter solemn yet hopeful, Cas realized she already knew the answer to those questions that had tried to overwhelm her.
She would start at the same place she had started so many other seemingly impossible tasks—with her friends beside her.
Her friends, and her king.
She had just started to ask where that king was when she spotted him in the distance, and her words left her along with her thoughts. Her friends were still talking, still moving around her, but she wasn’t truly aware of anything they were saying or doing. No sound reached her aside from the restless fluttering of her own heart.
Elander’s eyes met hers, and he stopped. Stared. He was holding something in his hand. The shattered jewels on it caught a bit of the bright daylight, and even though she no longer felt its power, she knew what it was—the Heart of the Sun—and she knew he had been carrying it, searching for her since the moment she’d disappeared, and that he would have kept on searching until his last breath.
She managed a few steps, clumsy at first, before finding her footing and starting to walk, and then to run, sprinting so fast by the time she reached him that he only just managed to catch her and steady them both.
She’d thought she had no more tears left. She was wrong. They fell more rapidly than ever, overwhelming Elander’s attempts to brush and kiss them away. Eventually he stopped trying, and they simply melted together in a whirl of tears and laughter and kisses, neither of them able to fully breathe or speak for several moments.
Finally, he stilled with his face pressed against her hair, his arms locked tightly around her, and he managed to whisper a coherent sentence. “What happened? Where were you?”
She leaned away and studied him, unsure where to start, and still too breathless to speak anyway.
Her friends had drawn closer once more. Nessa had picked up the crowns and carried them along; Cas took one of them, offering it to Elander as she finally caught her breath.
“I was off collecting a belated wedding gift from the Goddess of the Sun,” she told him.
He took the crown, slowly turning it over and over, his fingers carefully tracing the twisting metal. And then he threw it aside so he could take her face in his hands and kiss her again.
They were lost to the rest of the world for several more minutes, until Zev loudly cleared his throat. “We have a few other things to do, I believe.”
Slowly, they pulled apart and followed the others as they made their way back toward the fortress and their allies who had gathered there, discussing those allies—and what the future held for them all—as they walked.
“No more Fading Sickness. No more gods meddling, creating such things… It can only lead to good things,” said Laurent.
“And magic, at least as we know it, will be gone eventually, as well,” added Cas.
“But not all at once?” Nessa asked.
Cas shook her head. “It will be a gradual disappearance as it’s used up, according to what Solatis told me. Which will make it easier to navigate, but the world is going to change—irreversibly. We’ll have a lot of work to do.”
She made a list of this work as they went, counting tasks off as she named them, tapping her fingers against her hand in that old, soothing rhythm of hers. Her step slowed as her thoughts raced. Her friends kept up their pace, pulling slightly ahead of her, but Elander stayed right by her side, listening intently even as her ordered listing gave way to less confident ramblings.
“We’ll need to establish some sort of relationship with the leaders of Alnor, to coax them more completely from the shadows of their fallen lands,” she said. “A more formal alliance with the southern empire as well, and perhaps more distant kingdoms…” She trailed off, thinking.
“And there’s also a palace in the mountains that needs building,” Elander reminded her.
Her thoughts grew still. She slowed to a stop and looked over at him, smiling—truly smiling—as a feeling of peace and promise overtook her, like the feeling that came from glimpsing the sun after weeks of rain.
The rest of her friends had stopped as well. Soon they were calling for her, eager to keep moving and get to work on all the plans and possibilities that lay before them.
Thick clouds had stretched across the sky, but Cas could still feel the sunlight through them, warmer than it had felt in a very long time.
“That palace could take awhile,” she told Elander. “We should hurry and get started.”
He nodded, smiling back as he took her hand, and together they walked on toward everything after.
Epilogue
Eighteen Months Later
Cas stood on a balcony overlooking the mountains she and Elander now called home, inhaling the crisp, dewy scent of early morning.
Eighteen months had passed since their final battle with the gods—almost to the day—and the air was finally beginning to feel less heavy, easier to breathe. She had stopped bracing herself for disaster around every corner. She slept through the night more often than not, and though the days were still hard, filled with the endless tasks and challenges that came with ruling, she rose each morning with a renewed spirit, eager and grateful for a chance to work toward an increasingly brighter future.
She was living each of her days now, rather than simply surviving them—and so were her friends.
Rhea and Zev had taken up residence in Ciridan, working as her official representatives to help rebuild that city that had stood as a hub of politics and commerce for so long.
Laurent had gone to Moreth, along with a small army, to finish washing away the last of Sarith’s filth. Months after he’d arrived there, as things had started to settle down, he’d sent word to Cas, asking her to send a consul on her behalf—an ambassador who would be familiar with her rule, who could help strengthen the ties between her kingdom and the elven realm.
He didn’t name anyone in particular.
He simply described the ideal candidate so blatantly that anyone who had spent more than five minutes with Nessa would have known who he was talking about.
Nessa—who had been staying with Cas until this point—agreed to go before she’d even finished reading Laurent’s letter.
I’ll be back in a few weeks, Nessa had promised.
Cas had sent her along with her blessing. A few weeks turned into six months, then a year, and Cas happily assumed it was a permanent arrangement at this point.
Meanwhile, the construction of Cas and Elander’s home had gone on, and now it was nearing completion. A forever home in the mountains, as planned—one closer to the Kingdom of Alnor, which was useful as they attempted to reestablish ties with that kingdom along with the rest of the empire.
Her and her friends’ paths had diverged over these past months, and would continue to twist and turn throughout their lives, but she wasn’t worried. It was as the Goddess of the Moon had said: We’ll take different paths now, but that doesn’t change the roads we’ve already walked together.
And they would always find their way back to one another, she was certain. That was happening soon, in fact—because her friends would be honored guests at her official coronation taking place in the coming week, and they were all scheduled to arrive at some point this very day.
The thought of seeing them all again made her feel like bouncing. She wandered inside, trying to settle her excitement. It wouldn’t be just her friends attending the ceremony, but countless officials from across the empires; she probably needed to make an attempt at maintaining a dignified and royal appearance.
She walked the halls of her palace, breathing in the scent of wood and other fresh building materials. These halls were far from the extravagant ones she’d once walked in Ciridan; the dwelling had been built for comfort. Not grand and imposing, but cozy, warm, and welcoming.
Without really thinking about it, she ended up in her office. She sat at her desk for the next hour, restlessly leafing through the notes she’d made for the upcoming ceremony until a servant interrupted, presenting her with the crowns Solatis had given her, informing her that they were newly polished and ready.
As she studied those crowns, her thoughts shifted—as they so often had over the past months—toward what it would truly mean to have them officially placed upon her and Elander’s heads. To the rule they would be fully embracing, and to all the rulers who had worn crowns before them…
And then to one ruler in particular.
Her heart clenched. She managed a polite thank you before dismissing the servant. Then she rose from her desk, hesitantly crossing to the smaller room attached to her office—a space used mainly for storage.
In the center of this space was an ornate trunk. It was battered and broken in places, its painted wood chipped and its gilded latches tarnished, but it was still beautiful. It had been discovered among the wreckage of the Ciridan Palace; one of the former head servants had recovered it and made certain it found its way into Cas’s possession.
It had come from Varen’s room.
Within the trunk, Cas had found a bundle of letters. According to the servant who delivered it, these letters were more than a decade old, penned by Varen with the expectation that his father would see them delivered to his sister, wherever she was.
They’d never been sent to her.
Their father had kept them, hiding them away, letting Varen believe he’d been sending them all along. When Varen discovered the truth, the fight that had commenced had apparently been the talk of the palace for weeks.
He’d burned some of the letters in his rage.
But not all.
No less than a dozen remained, buried in this trunk along with other childhood heirlooms—a stuffed tiger, a few dog-eared storybooks, crumpled drawings with both their names signed to them.
Cas hadn’t been able to bring herself to read any of the letters for months after she received them.
But curiosity had eventually gotten the better of her, and she’d been reading them one at a time. Rationing them, both for the sake of her heart and because she didn’t like the idea of finishing.
As long as she still had letters to read, it almost felt as if he was still here and able to talk to her.
Today was one of those days when she found herself wishing desperately that he was still physically here, regardless of all the complicated thoughts and feelings that would come with it. That he could have sat across from her desk and offered her counsel about the days to come. That they might have faced those days together, even, supporting and leaning on one another.
The longing for such things made her reach for the tarnished latch of the trunk. Her hands shook slightly, but she managed to get it open and dig through the contents until she had pulled one of the yellowed letters free. Heart pounding, she unfolded it and began to read rambling words, penned in the slightly-messy scrawl of a young boy still learning to write with confidence.
