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Epilogue

Yari

Yari shivered inside the creaking hull and pulled her shawl snug around her shoulders.

Over a month had passed since they’d escaped Mariit on a stolen ship.

They were racing through choppy waters into the eye of a storm.

A violent wave crashed into the hull, turning Yari’s stomach.

She vomited into the bucket beside her bed.

“That’s disgusting,” snapped the young man with whom Yari had been sharing her cabin.

He was one of Datu Kulaw’s sword-trained serving boys.

Before they attacked the palace, he had sung Imeria’s praises to whoever would listen.

The Gatdulas had never cared for a nobody like him.

Yari left the cabin, hauling the bucket with her.

She climbed the ladder to the main deck and tipped the bucket over the railing, spilling its contents into the Untulu Sea.

She didn’t regret throwing her lot in with the Kulaws.

While Imeria hadn’t thought of Yari as more than a tool she could sharpen for her own gain, at least she had learned her name.

That was more than Yari could say for Hara Duja.

She set the bucket on the deck and leaned against the railing.

The fresh air whipped her hair from her face and cleared her head.

She drew in a deep breath, the scent of brine filling her nostrils.

The water stretched for miles, with no land in sight.

Angry shouts echoed from down in the hull.

Vikal and Datu Gulod were arguing again.

Vikal wanted to rendezvous with the Kulaws’ allies in the south.

Gulod kept telling him that the war for Maynara was already lost.

Yari didn’t care where they went.

Her sole request was that they dock somewhere where Hara Laya could not chop off her head.

She headed to the bow of the ship, where Luntok’s remains lay beneath a threadbare tarp.

Vikal had insisted on taking the dead boy with them when they’d escaped from the Black Salt Cliffs.

With Imeria gone, no one dared touch Luntok.

But several weeks had passed since that awful wedding.

Surely, the bow should be tainted with the sickly-sweet smell of decaying flesh at this point.

Curiosity got the better of Yari.

She leaned over Luntok.

Gingerly, she peeled the tarp back from his face.

Luntok’s body remained intact, with no sign of rot.

With his eyes closed, he looked like he was sleeping.

She pulled the tarp lower, her hand brushing against his wrist.

Luntok’s eyes shot open.

Yari screamed.

Footsteps thundered across the deck as dozens more joined Yari on the bow.

Luntok’s skin emanated an unearthly glow.

He rose to his feet.

Yellow threads of life snaked up his arms and legs before winding themselves like a silken noose around his neck.

He threw his head back with a howl, and his torso arched up toward the sky.

Light exploded from his body, and Yari squeezed her eyes shut.

Luntok’s screams went quiet.

A deathly silence swept over the ship.

Cautiously, Yari raised her head.

A dark figure hovered above her, casting its shadow across the warped boards that lined the deck.

In Luntok’s place stood a raptor, twice as tall as any man.

It possessed a beak that could snap through Yari’s spine as if it were nothing but a twig, and sharp talons that could pierce through thick layers of armored skin.

It flexed its wings, which spanned the entire width of the ship.

Yari gazed up at the raptor, her mouth open in disbelief.

Its?—no, his ?—glorious plume rippled in the sea breeze.

Soft thuds echoed in the air as the Kulaw men fell to their knees.

“My lord,” Yari whispered, and held out her hand.

The raptor leaned forward and let her caress his feathered cheek.

A shiver crept down Yari’s spine when she realized what she had witnessed.

When Imeria healed her son on the cliffs, she had not merely stitched together his wounds.

She did far more than breathe life into his shattered bones.

No, Imeria had breached the realm of possibility.

For a brief time, she had become mightier than any Gatdula, as powerful as Mulayri himself.

“My lord,” Yari said again, folding her body at the raptor’s taloned feet.

And so Yari understood what it meant to kneel before greatness.

For the Luntok they knew back in Maynara was gone.

Standing before them was a god .