Page 51 of Storm of Stars (Pride of Praxis #2)

Bex

Fifteen Years Later

My fingers brushed the cool stone in front of me, tracing the etched date like a familiar scar. I let my hand linger, grounding myself as best I could whenever I came here. Then, slowly, I laid the bouquet at the base of the headstone. Wildflowers, his favorite.

“Hey, Jax,” I whispered, my voice soft, barely more than a breath.

After the fall of Praxis, the world changed.

It wasn’t instant. Nothing that deep-rooted ever is.

But the moment their walls crumbled and their lies were exposed, something real began to take hold.

Resources stopped being handed out like prizes.

Healthcare was no longer a privilege, it became a right.

And when the system finally opened its doors to everyone, Jax walked through them.

The diagnosis had come too early. The care had come too late. But even so, despite the years of neglect, the ignored symptoms, the way the system once deemed him not worth saving, he lived.

Eleven more years.

Eleven beautiful , miraculous, hard-won years.

Years where he laughed. Sang. Sat at the kitchen table every morning with a cup of too-hot tea and a crooked grin. Years filled with stories, stargazing, telling stories in the dark. Years where he truly lived , no longer just surviving in the shadow of a broken system.

And when he finally passed, it wasn’t because Praxis let him slip through the cracks. It was because his body was ready. He was at peace. Surrounded by us. His family. His hand wrapped in mine, the sun low and golden in the sky.

Still… sometimes I wonder.

If we’d toppled Praxis earlier… If we’d won more trials sooner… Maybe he could’ve had more than sixteen years on this Earth. Maybe he could’ve had twenty. Maybe he could still be here with me now.

Praxis has been a distant memory for fifteen years, but its corruption… it still lingers. Still claims lives. It probably always will. You can’t undo a century of destruction overnight. Healing takes time. Justice takes time.

But I’ve learned I can’t live in the what-ifs anymore.

Every single year I got to spend with Jax was a gift. A miracle Praxis never meant for us to have. And I won’t taint his memory by drowning it in bitterness.

I smiled as I looked down at the flowers, vibrant against the grey stone.

“I miss you so much. Thank you for holding on,” I said. “For staying as long as you could. I hope you’re still watching the stars somewhere.”

And in the breeze that whispered through the grass, I almost heard him say, I always am.

“Jaxson is unruly as ever, taking after his uncle,” I said with a soft laugh, brushing a bit of moss from the top of the stone. “I swear he gets more like you every single day. I wish you could have met him. You would’ve adored him.”

Just as the words left my mouth, a familiar shriek pierced the stillness.

“Momma!”

I turned just in time to catch the blur of motion that was my four-year-old, as he barreled into my arms with full-force enthusiasm. I laughed, steadying myself as I wrapped him up in a hug.

“Hey there, sprout,” I murmured, smiling at my wild, bright-eyed boy.

“Jaxson Kade! Momma said to stay over here!” came the exasperated call from a little ways off.

My oldest approached with the kind of composed exasperation only an older sibling could master.

Her brown eyes were a mirror of Briar’s, shimmering with intelligence and calm.

Her dark brown curls bounced with each step, and her face was peppered with the freckles I used to count on one of her father’s noses.

At eight, she already walked like someone older than her years, steady, graceful, and sharp-eyed.

“Come on over, you two,” I said, reaching out and pulling her close while settling both kids on my lap. Their warmth against me made the air feel a little less heavy. “Come say hi to your uncle.”

“Hi, Uncle Jax,” Fenly Lark said, lifting a hand to wave at the stone with a knowing, gentle smile.

“Hi!” Jaxson echoed brightly, bouncing a little where he sat.

“Do you think he can hear us?” She asked, her voice soft.

“Oh, I know he can,” I replied, smoothing a hand through her curls.

“Really?” Jaxson twisted around in my arms to look up at me with wide, earnest eyes.

“Absolutely,” I said with certainty.

“Okay.” He slid off my lap, kneeling solemnly before the headstone. “Psst, Uncle Jax… can you tell Dada Ezra that he should let me have ice cream tonight?”

A bright, bubbling laugh escaped me just as I heard the steady crunch of approaching footsteps.

“You don’t need to bribe your uncle to get ice cream, kiddo,” Ezra said warmly, sweeping Jaxson up into his arms with ease. Jaxson shrieked in playful protest, kicking his feet as Ezra hoisted him into the air. “I told you all you needed to do was clean your room.”

Ezra looked... older, yes, but time had only sharpened what made him captivating.

His salt-and-pepper hair suited him so well, giving him a kind of steady presence.

The creases around his eyes were more defined now, but they only made his smiles warmer, richer.

I still remembered the first time I saw him, lit up on that stage, like an unobtainable mystery but this version of him, the father, the partner. This version was even more beautiful.

“He’s right, you know,” Zaffir said, strolling up with that casual swagger he never lost. He leaned down conspiratorially toward Jaxson, who was now hanging upside down in Ezra’s arms. “You can just ask me. You know I can’t say no to you.”

His fiery red hair had softened into something more burnished now, a deeper copper threaded with strands of silver at the temples.

His golden eyes, still as vivid as ever, had taken on a tender quality I didn’t know I’d fallen in love with until long after we’d begun.

Time had sanded away his sharp edges, but left behind the most brilliant shine.

“What your father is trying to say,” Ezra added, shooting a faux-annoyed glance at Zaffir, “is that you can have ice cream when you finish cleaning your room.”

“But Dada, no fair!” Jaxson pouted, dramatically flopping his head back.

“Yeah, Dada,” Zaffir echoed with a matching pout. “No fair.”

I snorted. “Dangerous duo,” I muttered, just as Thorne dropped down beside me and Fenly promptly shifted into his lap like she belonged there, which, of course, she did.

Thorne wrapped his arms around her with practiced ease. His beard was fuller now, his strong build more weathered, but his presence, steady, grounding, and full of humor, was exactly the same. He wore time like he wore everything, with ease. Fenly curled into him like he was her personal fortress.

A soft hand settled on my shoulder and I turned to find Briar sinking down on my other side.

She pressed her cheek against mine, her breath warm as she sighed.

Her once dark brown hair was now streaked with glints of silver, and her eyes, still that endless brown, held decades of love in their depths.

She was radiant in the way that only someone loved and loving can be.

And somehow, I found myself more in love with them all now than I was even yesterday.

“Hey, Ma?” Fenly asked from Thorne’s arms.

“Yeah, sweetie?” Briar responded, her voice low and melodic.

“Can you sing to us?”

I turned and smiled at her, my heart swelling.

Thanks to Briar, music was as much a part of our home as laughter or breath.

Our children had grown up in a house filled with melodies, songs at sunrise, lullabies at dusk.

Just as Briar’s father had sung to her, she now sang to them, passing that legacy on like a thread of light through all our lives.

Briar nodded and began to hum, the first few notes delicate and familiar. The kids leaned into us, and for a moment, there was only the music, the wind, and the feeling of family stitched together by time, memory, and love.

“I walk the path where the wild things grow,

Where the pine trees whisper and the rivers flow,

With each step, I feel the earth ‘neath my feet,

In the woods, I find my heart's steady beat.”

Briar’s voice wrapped around us like sunlight filtered through leaves.

That soft, familiar melody stirred something in my chest, the same way it had that night in the Wilds.

The night she found me when I was bleeding and scared, and she sang this song as if it could hold us together. Maybe it had. Maybe it still did.

“In the woods I am, and the woods are me,

A part of the leaves and the sky so free.

The wind in my hair, the sun on my skin,

In the woods I’m where wild things begin.”

I joined in, my voice instinctively finding hers. Years of ‘singing lessons’ with her, of harmonizing in kitchens and fields and bedrooms, of lullabies hummed in the quiet hush of bedtime, it had carved a rhythm into us. One that still beat strong.

Fenly's voice came next. Clear, innocent, and achingly sweet. She sang with her whole heart. I looked at her and saw everything we’d fought for, everything we nearly lost. Her brown eyes sparkled with the same fierce light I saw in myself. That same softness that came from strength.

“No walls to bind me, no roads to pave,

Just ancient roots and a soul to save.”

Fenly nestled herself between Thorne’s arms as she sang.

He held her like she was made of something precious.

He looked at her the way he used to look at me after a trial.

With awe, and a little disbelief that we were still standing.

He was the one who reminded me that joy was just as strong as armor.

That hope wasn’t naive, it was necessary.

He taught me to laugh, when I wanted to cry.

“I dance with the shadows, I sing with the rain,

In the woods, I’m free from sorrow and pain.”

I looked at Briar then, her voice still rising and falling like waves.

Her hair had streaks of white now, her freckles deeper from years under open skies.

And still, she was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

Every line on her face held our story. Every laugh, every fight, every kiss that reminded us that we had survived.

She saved me when I didn’t think I was worth saving.

She taught me to fight for myself, not just for others.

“So let the world turn, let the seasons fly,

I’ll stay where the mountains kiss the sky.”

Ezra stepped closer, Jaxson bouncing in his arms, giggling as Ezra spun him gently.

His salt-and-pepper hair was tousled, his posture still strong.

He taught me that we were more than the labels placed on us.

That I didn’t have to be perfect to be loved.

That who we were becoming was just as important as who we’d been.

For I walk the path where wild things grow,

And in the woods, I’ve found my soul.”

Zaffir’s gaze found mine, and for a moment, everything else faded.

His golden eyes caught the light just right, still burning with that quiet fire I first saw the day we met.

But now, there was something deeper behind them.

Time. Trust. Truth. He taught me how to loosen my grip on certainty, how to surrender to the unknown without losing myself.

How to evolve, to stay curious, to never settle for the world as it is just because it's familiar. With him, I learned that growth is not a destination, it’s a choice you make every single day.

“With moss as my carpet and stars as my guide,

I walk with the moon always at my side.”

We were older now. Time had wrapped itself around us slowly, like ivy creeping up old stone, softening the cracks without erasing them.

The sharp edges we once carried, carved by fear, by control, by the constant, bone-deep need to survive, hadn’t disappeared.

They still existed in the quiet moments, in the shadows of our memories, in the way we sometimes startled at loud noises or held our breath at bad news. But they didn’t cut like they used to.

Those edges had dulled with every year that passed, softened by laughter, by healing, by love.

But still, on some days, they flared. Old pain doesn’t vanish.

It waits. It pulses beneath the skin like a phantom limb, reminding us of who we were and how far we’d come.

A sound, a smell, a moment too much like the past could bring it back.

We carried our scars in invisible places. We always would.

And yet, we were not broken. Just weathered. Smoothed by time, bonded by shared history.

But the love between us? It only deepened.

Rooted. Like the Wilds themselves. Built from a thousand moments, battles and belly laughs, late nights and long silences, grief and grace, holding on and letting go.

And through it all, we remained. Still singing.

Still choosing each other. Still standing.

I looked at each of them—my Wildguard. My loves. My life.

And I felt it, deep in my bones. This was what we bled for. This was what we built.

This was everything.

“No need for a map, no need to know ? —

I’m home in the place where the wild things grow.”