Page 16

16

E pilogue

~ Cleo, Three Weeks Later ~

The wind off the eastern cliffs smelled like salt and sunlight and summer.

I stood on the balcony of The Spire’s highest tower, looking out across the sea of clouds as the first rays of dawn lit the world in gold. The Spire had more scars now—burned stone, fractured runes—but it still stood. And so did we.

Behind me, Devin was naked in our bed, pretending to be asleep.

He never slept deeply, not really. Not with the Rift’s echoes always whispering at the back of his mind. But he liked to lie in bed after sunrise, sheets tangled around his hips, watching me through half-lidded eyes like a dragon guarding treasure.

He called it peace.

I called it heaven.

I turned to lean on the balustrade. My fingers glowed faintly in the morning light. Starfire hummed under my skin, quiet but alive. Since the Rift, it was never fully still anymore. But it didn’t frighten me. I’d learned to live with it.

Like I’d learned to live with him.

“I can feel you brooding,” Devin appeared from behind the curtain of a stone archway, barefoot, shirtless, a cup of tea in one hand and a book in the other. Void take me, he was gorgeous. Sexy.

I grinned. “I thought you were asleep.”

He kissed the side of my neck. “You thought wrong .”

His arms slid around me from behind, warm and familiar. I leaned into his chest and let the quiet settle around us. Just for a moment. I was contemplating in which position I wanted to take his cock when the knock came.

Soft. Hesitant. Unfamiliar. A woman’s voice. “Excuse me? Prince Kassio said I’d find Cleo up here?”

Devin stiffened behind me. I turned.

The woman standing in the doorway was dressed in road-worn leathers and travel-stained boots. Her cloak was faded blue, pinned with an old, chipped brooch in the shape of a crescent star. Her hair was golden brown and braided over one shoulder, streaked with silver at the temples. She looked like someone who had run for most of her life—and learned to survive by watching everything .

But it was her eyes that made my breath catch.

They were mine .

She opened her mouth and whispered, “Cleo.”

My knees gave out. My magic sang in recognition. My cells ignited with sacred knowledge. “Mother.” I barely made it to her before the tears overtook me.

We collapsed into each other—mother and daughter—clinging, crying, laughing and apologizing all at once. She smelled like wildflowers and wind and the kind of love I’d dreamed about in broken dreams and half-remembered lullabies.

“I had to leave you,” she whispered into my hair. “They were hunting me. The dark mages, the fae… anyone who knew your father’s bloodline. I took you to the city. The chaos there would hide your light until it was safe.”

I pulled back, blinking tears. “You knew what I was.”

“I knew,” she said softly, cupping my cheek. “Your father… he bound your blood. Locked it away until you met the one who could awaken it.”

She looked over my shoulder. Straight at Devin. “I’m guessing that was you.” Her lips trembled. “Your father had the sight. He said you’d be claimed by a Death Mage with blue hair.”

I turned to see Devin standing there, quiet and wide-eyed. And for once in his life, he looked completely lost.

She stepped forward and pulled him into a hug. “You saved her. Just like her father hoped you would.”

I caught her hand, partially because I needed the contact. Mostly to save my poor husband. “Do you know where he is? My father? Is he still alive?”

She looked away. “He vanished when you were a baby. Said he had to find the key to closing the the Void forever. He said I would know you were safe… when the light called the shadow and the world didn't end.”

My throat tightened. “So… maybe he’s still alive?”

She smiled. “Starborn never die easy.”

I led her into the room, where Devin poured her tea like it was his duty now, and asked if she’d stay. Attend the prince Kassio’s coronation. Be part of our life in at The Spire.

She looked between us, at the gentle touch of Devin’s hand on my hip, and said yes.

Not because she needed refuge. But because, for the first time, she wasn’t running anymore.

We walked her to her new rooms—small but warm, overlooking the tower’s southern gardens, where the moonflowers bloomed even in the dark. My mother touched everything like it was sacred: the bed’s carved posts, the hearth, the stained glass in the far window that cast rainbows onto the walls.

She turned to me at the threshold. “He’s a good one,” she said quietly. “That man of yours.”

I smiled. “I know.”

She leaned in and kissed my forehead. “And thank you… for letting me come back.”

The magic in me stirred.

No lies.

Even now, with the gift of Nova’s Requiem still glowing beneath my skin—always pulsing, always listening —I felt no deceit in her. Not a flicker. She had run, yes. But not out of weakness. Out of love.

I kissed her cheek. “Rest. We’ll have years to catch up.”

And then I left her there—safe, for the first time in two decades.

I didn’t make it halfway down the corridor before arms wrapped around my waist and spun me gently around.

Devin.

His eyes were blazing, pupils wide, hunger and wonder and disbelief all fighting for room on his face. “I won’t let her take you away from me. I can’t.”

“I’m yours. Always.”

He laughed softly, burying his face in the curve of my neck. “She’s staying?”

“She’s staying.”

His arms tightened. “I don’t think I deserve you.”

I pulled back just enough to look into his eyes. “You’re an idiot.”

“I’m your idiot,” he said.

And then his hands framed my face, and his voice dropped, raw and quiet.

“I love you.”

It wasn’t rushed or poetic. It was simple. Pure.

“I love you more than breath. More than fate. More than the magic that tried to keep us apart. I will love you in shadow and in fire, in silence and in war. You are my truth, Cleo. My light. My end.”

My heart stuttered.

“Your end?” I said, pretending to frown. “Not your beginning?”

“Both,” he said. “Everything.”

I reached up and tangled my fingers in his hair. “I love you, Devin Grimm. I always have. Even when I said I’d rather marry an orc than kiss you.”

He grinned, wicked and beautiful. “I’ve been waiting for you to take that back.”

“Make me.”

He kissed me. The kind of kiss that rewrote worlds.

It was heat and hunger, promise and possession. It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t careful. It was the collision of two souls that had already fused once—and would do it again, a thousand times, in love and in war and in wonder.

He carried me to our bedchamber, lifted my skirts, and thrust his cock deep. I wrapped my arms around his neck and held on. Enjoyed the ride. The pleasure. The hard, fast thrusts of his hips, the bunching muscles that held me exactly where he wanted me.

He swallowed my scream with a kiss and filled me with his seed. When we broke apart, breathless and dazed, I touched his cheek and whispered, “I take it back. You are far superior to an orc.”