Page 152 of These Divided Shores
She lifted that hand, thumb trailing along his bottom lip. Her smile was soft and light, the innocent, worriless smile from his dreams.
He leaned into her laughter like foam rolling back into the breaking of a wave when she took his face in her hands and laid that smile on his lips.
Lu stood on the steps of the castle and stared out at New Deza. Some parts of the city still smoked, but if Lu hadn’t known there had been a battle, she could have dismissed them as steamboat trails. From this view, she couldn’t see the damage done to the buildings and streets. The city looked whole and normal under the clear blue sky.
If it could pretend, so could she.
The gates to the courtyard opened. As Lu’s eyes droppedto the movement, the illusion wavered. The courtyard was still in ruins, the grass slicked and trampled. Gray painted the wall in streaks of ash. The platform had been dismantled, but it sat in a pile of wood planks next to the broken pyre. Two long lines of raiders lined the path from the gate to the castle steps, watching, waiting, ready for attack.
The wounded were still inside the courtroom. The dead had been taken to steamboats in the harbor, to be sailed out to the sea.
As a small procession of defensors entered the courtyard, Lu half wished that the bodies were still here. That these soldiers could see what they had done, the cost of the nightmare they had followed. But they were beginning to realize it on their own—it was why they had surrendered at all. Because their king was dead, their future uncertain.
Around Lu, the raider Heads straightened. Lu smiled to see Cansu in her proper place now, alongside Nayeli, Nate, Rosalia, Kari, and three councilmembers who had been under house arrest in the castle. The only person missing was a representative from the Mecht syndicate, which had yet to piece itself together after the devastating loss of Ingvar. But Kari had sent word to them, offering assistance in cleansing themselves of Menesia and hoping for a show of forgiveness so they might all move forward, together.
Off to the side of the Grace Lorayan group, Ben stood with Gunnar and Vex, something of an Argridianrepresentation. Lu smiled to see Vex lean over to his cousin and whisper something that made Ben grin.
The type of happiness Vex showed when he was with Ben was different from all his other types of happiness. He looked utterly content.
The group of defensors—maybe three dozen of them, with more waiting out beyond the courtyard—stopped at the base of the steps. One stepped forward. His jacket was singed, a rip through one sleeve, but the markings on his uniform’s chest signified him as an officer.
Lu wanted to be glad to see the Argridian army in a beaten, shredded state. But she remembered how unhinged Tom had been before his death, driven to madness by Elazar’s doctrine and demands. She remembered the terror in Teo’s eyes.
She couldn’t be glad. She could only be present.
“King Benat.” The defensor officer bowed, addressing him in Argridian. The man hesitated, clearly torn about his purpose here.Surrender. Surrender to the Heretic Prince.
Lu sucked in a breath. They wouldn’t attack, would they? Not now, so soon—
Ben stepped forward, dropping down one of the stone steps. “My father’s goals changed Grace Loray in an unspeakable way—but he affected Argrid just as deeply, over decades of rule. I know most of you chose to follow him willingly. You believed in his vision for the world. You believed inhim, as you believe in our Pious God, and our Church.”
He paused. Were Lu the one speaking, she wasn’t sure she could be so calm. Ben’s hands spread before him in a welcoming, open gesture.
“There is beauty in our country,” Ben said. “In our faith, our cathedrals and hymns, in our stories and history and art. We have so much good in Argrid, and for too long we have focused only on the impure. I know many of you will expect Elazar’s vision to carry over into my reign—and I tell you now that this War on Raiders ends with my coronation.”
Ben turned and dropped to one knee, bowing before Kari, Nate, Rosalia, Cansu—the whole of the Grace Loray contingent.
“Argrid apologizes for what we have done to you,” Ben said in Grace Lorayan now, his eyes on the stones under his knees. “We cannot express our sorrow in words. But know, when we leave your shores, we will return only under banners of peace and friendship.”
He looked up, glancing at Lu with a smile.
Behind him, his army held. Many of them were slack-jawed. Whatever they had expected to happen, this had not been it.
Slowly, the officer sank to his knees, mirroring Ben. Another defensor followed. Another. It spread out in a fan, defensors lowering to their knees before Grace Loray.
Kari smiled. Lu felt a grin break on her own face too. She hadn’t seen her mother smile in so long, and there wasa glimmer in her eyes, a seed of happiness behind her grief.
“Thank you, King Benat,” Kari said. She motioned at the people around her, the start of a new Grace Loray. Again. “We are one nation, but we are many peoples, and all of us look forward to stepping into a new tomorrow as Argrid bridges theirs.”
Rosalia punched her fists into the air and bellowed a Grozdan war cry. Nate and Pierce joined her, screaming, and it spread—Cansu, the raiders who stood along the sides of the courtyard, Vex, even Kari, whose smile intensified.
The thunderous vibrations of cheering resonated in Lu’s chest. They shook free the remnants of the battle screams, filling her and the courtyard with possibility. With potential.
With a swelling promise of unity.
Epilogue
BENAT GALLEGO WASnineteen years old when he became the Eminence King of Argrid.
