Page 294 of Mother of Death and Dawn

The words disappeared in his kiss. Slow, thorough, tender.

We would build a new house, I decided. A little bigger, though not by much. A huge garden. A sizable library. A warm fireplace.

I told Max this, between kisses, and he hummed his approval.

Then he stopped and pulled away, just enough to look into my face, his expression going suddenly pensive. I traced the lines between his features.

I love youdid not say enough.

I love youdid not say,thank you for being my home.

I love youdid not say,thank you for being my future.

But all at once, I felt those things, so overwhelming that I couldn’t speak. And the only thing I could think to choke out were those words, “I love you,” even though there was so much they left unsaid.

He gave me a long stare, brow knitted, thumb thoughtfully tracing the curve of my lip.

“It’s a strange feeling,” he said, at last. “To look forward to so much.”

It was. So odd, to minds so unpracticed in such things. But now it surrounded us, so bright it couldn’t be ignored, and maybe, just maybe, we were healing enough to let it in.

It was hard not to, when Max swept me up in his arms again, when he kissed me and smiled against my mouth, when he laid me down in the garden where two broken souls had met and built a home in each other.

Hope.

EPILOGUE

It ends with two souls who create a future together.

* * *

MAX

The years go down easy. Tisaanah and I build a beautiful little house—bigger than a cottage, this time—in the center of a sprawling garden, and within it, we build a life.

At first, every day is long and arduous. We are so busy that we don’t even know what to do with ourselves. Transitioning power to the senate and to Sesri is a long and terrifying process. Establishing the school takes longer than I ever would have anticipated—years, even, before we’re able to accept our first batch of students. In parallel, Tisaanah throws herself into the work of establishing the guild. It’s everything that she had wished the Orders had been, and she is brilliant at it. Our work perfectly complements each other.

We blink, and five years pass. Three classes of students fill the halls of my former family home. The west wing is the school. The east wing becomes the Aran headquarters of the guild. I spend every day in that house, teaching. It takes a couple of years, but I no longer see bloodstains when I walk down the hall.

The Alliance thrives, and while the road to becoming an established nation is long and challenging, they’re determined to succeed—even if, Tisaanah often says half-jokingly, that determination is driven solely by spite for the Threllian Lords. We spend a lot of time there those first few years, so Tisaanah can help weather the storms. It is important to her, too, to establish a strong guild presence in the Threllian continent. The guild, she emphasizes, is not an Aran organization—but a global one.

I love watching her work. I know that she has spent so much of her life feeling as if she was too much and not enough of everything. But I love that every time I look at her, I find something new, like light refracting through a thousand different shades of glass.

We blink, and another year passes. Our daughter is born. Our son comes two years later.

I’ve fought monsters and faced death and survived imprisonment, and yet, the single most terrifying moment of my life was the day I held my daughter for the first time. I had never loved so deeply nor feared so intensely. She has amber-green eyes, like the sun through the leaves. Every so often she looks at me and I remember a nightmare I had, a long time ago, and I need to count my breaths until the moment passes.

This, you see, is the thing they don’t tell you about the happy endings.

And, make no mistake, our ending is very happy. But Tisaanah and I—the past has left its marks on us. The first few years, it was like my body didn’t know how to react to peace. I walked around with my muscles perpetually tensed, as if, at any moment, something would jump from the shadows and rip my new life away from me.Surely, I had thought,this feeling is going to pass eventually.

But then one year goes by, and two, and five, and seven, and still, that lingering fear remains. Once I watched for swords and magic and Lightning Dust—now I watch for trees that are too tall and rocks that are too sharp and dinner knives left unattended. I am forever conscious of all the ways the world can take something precious away.

One day, I have an epiphany.

Tisaanah and I lie in bed with tiny limbs of sleeping children splayed out over us. It had been a long week, one particularly fraught with my anxieties. Tisaanah had barely dozed off, her lashes fluttering slightly. Our son had tucked himself in her arms and our daughter nestled into mine, snoring like a middle-aged farmer and yet still utterly charming. It’s an almost absurdly perfect moment—the kind of life I never thought I would have.

And there, in this perfect moment, I have a grand realization:

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