Neve curled her hand against her chest, the thud of her heart, the rattle of her breath in and out of her lungs. Her mind swirled with thought and feeling, unchanged since she’d lost her soul, still fragile and heady and confusing. All the things that made her human.
Slowly, she turned back to the woods, to where the rest of them waited. Her equally soulless sister, held together by a knowledge of who she was and the deep love of the people she cared about, her newly human brother-in-law who could go through the world without being its Wolf. Raffe and Kayu and Fife and Lyra, all navigating how to live when magic might be at your fingertips, when you could be god or monster or human and still willing to burn it all down for those you loved.
Red waited at the border of what had been the Wilderwood. When Neve got close, she held out her hand.
Neve grasped it.
Epilogue
Raffe
He refilled Kayu’s wineglass without being asked. She didn’t look up from the papers crowding the desk—greetings in every language Raffe had ever seen written, all in calligraphy at varying levels of ornate—but she sighed in appreciation and took a long sip, nearly spilling some on the letter she was currently reading.
Raffe peered over her shoulder, taking his own sip from the neck of the bottle. “Who’s that one from?”
“The First Duke of Alpera.” Kayu pushed the letter away and sat back. A stack of blank paper sat next to her hand, along with a fresh pen and inkwell, but she didn’t reach for them. “He sends deepest condolences for our loss, says he has the highest hopes for my reign, and that he looks forward to speaking candidly about renegotiating grain prices.”
He took another drink, pulling a face. “I wouldn’t look forward to that, personally, but to each their own.”
“I do have one piece of good news.” Kayu sifted through letters until she found the one she was looking for—the paper less fine, the writing more economical and less flourishing. “Valdrek wrote back. He thinks official sovereignty sounds like the best idea for everyone still above where the Wilderwood used to be, since they’ve been governing themselves for so long anyway. Valdrek agreed to be my emissary in exchange for shipbuilding supplies, now that the fog has lifted and they can sail from there.” She beamed, then put the letter in one of her haphazard stacks that apparently signified concluded business. “One thing down! Approximately fourteen thousand to go!”
In the month since Neve came back—and then left again—Kayu had stepped almost seamlessly into her role as Valleyda’s queen. There’d been minor pushback, mostly from nobles who didn’t like the idea of their next queen being an outsider, but after a meeting of the council, all had agreed that the line of succession was clear. Since Neve died without an heir, the throne went to Kayu.
The funeral had been one of the strangest things Raffe had ever experienced, which was truly a feat. Funerals for Valleydan queens were strangely private affairs—the family prepared the body and stood vigil over the pyre alone. Nobles and subjects didn’t see any of it until the ashes were presented. He’d burned a thorny branch and one of Neve’s old gowns, attended by Kayu and Arick.
Usually, a priestess would attend the burning, too, but there were none in Valleyda. News of the High Priestess’s death had spread, though, apparently, it was being spun by the Order as self-inflicted. The few rumors Raffe had heard made it sound as though the Order had put all their trust in Kiri, curved their dying religion in her direction. Now that she was gone, faith was quietly fading. The Order and the Kings had long been something that most paid the barest homage to, and Raffe expected even that would be gone sooner rather than later. The world moving on, finding new gods.
Kayu had already preemptively canceled the prayer-taxes, a move that vexed Belvedere beyond belief. But, she argued, canceling them now would put them in the other monarchs’ favor, rather than having to wait for them to try to weasel out of the taxes on their own. She also made a point of telling Belvedere that she never had any intention of taking money under false pretenses, and they all knew the prayer-taxes were pointless.
So now she had to negotiate things like grain prices. Candidly, if the Duke of Alpera’s letter was to be believed. But Raffe thought she could do it.
And he could help, as her Consort.
It’d been prudent. That’s what he told himself, when he put the idea forward to the council. He’d wondered if they’d allow it—typically, a foreign-born inheriting queen would have to marry a Valleydan citizen—but the council agreed that Raffe would fulfill that role just fine. He’d lived in Valleyda for most of his life, and he was a convenient tie to Meducia, their greatest ally. A marriage between him and Kayu made sense, especially as they released Floriane from annexation.
He dropped a kiss on her forehead. She smiled.
“Here’s another one, from Elkyrath.” She tapped the letter on the table. “All they sent were condolences for Neve’s death.”
It still sounded so strange to say out loud. In the end, though, it’d been the easiest lie to tell. Neve had died, after all. And when she left the Keep, days after coming back to life, it’s what she’d told them to tell the nobles.
Raffe had woken early, that morning. Two days after everything happened, and all of them were still at the Keep—some of them because they didn’t know where else to go, some of them because they wanted to stay close to others.
That was why he’d stayed. To stay close to Neve. Things were different between them now, but he still wanted to make sure she was safe. That she was as well as she could be.
So when he was walking to the kitchen and heard her and Red talking quietly in the foyer, he’d followed their voices.
Neve was dressed for traveling. A long cloak, leggings, and a too-large tunic that she’d undoubtedly borrowed from Red, a pack slung over her shoulder.
“I need to,” she’d said, murmuring as if she didn’t want to wake anyone.
“I understand, really, I do.” Red’s tone and the look on her face made the statement a lie. “But why can’t you stay here, just for a little bit? Or let someone go with you—”
“No.” Neve shook her head. “I need to go alone, Red. I just… I just need some space. Away from here. Away from…”
“Everything?” Red’s voice edged to a break.
Raffe stepped forward then, not caring that he was interrupting, his immediate need for coffee upon waking forgotten. “You’re leaving?”
Neve sighed. Nodded, lips pressed to a thin line.
Clearly, she expected resistance, for Raffe to form a united front with Red. But instead, Raffe nodded. He’d probably do the same thing, if he’d been through what she had. The desire for space, for distance between herself and the place where her life had reached such a definitive closing point, made perfect sense to him.
He’d thought Red would rage at that, but instead she almost mirrored her sister’s stance, arms crossed, mouth tightly closed. Her eyes shone, and Raffe thought fleetingly that the past two days was the most he’d ever seen the Valedren sisters cry. “Please be careful,” she said quietly. “And please come back.”