The Sweetest Dark

Epilogue

So now you know the beginning of her story, and the ending of mine. The end of my mortal time with her, at least.

But I’m not really gone. I’ll never really leave her. How could I? She had been carved from the mud of the world just for me. I had fallen from the stars for her.

I told you before: Once a drákon holds your eyes and touches your flesh, you belong to them. And, believe me, when that happens, you’re glad for it. You lay your heart at their feet and hope for their favor, knowing its true worth.

Our time together had been so short. Every turn of the planet, every hour and minute and second, I had loved her and celebrated her. And I considered myself blessed, even unto death, to have known her smile. The rapture of Eleanore.

Blessed to offer myself up for her.

Lora-of-the-moon. She’ll fly my way again. I know it.

I dwell high above her now, back with my first family. The path of my dragon’s earthly life shines before me like a skein of glittering crimson thread. It crisscrosses the mortal plane, tracing its way from the Atlantic, where she took her first breath, east to Europe, where she will take her last. Armand’s thread glitters, too, plaited through hers.

The war will entangle them even more. The war will do its best to snip both threads short.

It is a thing of gore and violence. War cannot abide magic of any sort, much less a magic as brilliant as theirs.

I’ll be the star above them both, watching. Singing.

I’d waited for her nearly all my life. I can wait a while longer, until she turns her ear up to the night skies, ready to hear my ballad once more.