Nothing had ever been more uncertain. Not as far back as any storykeeper could remember. Yet, for the first time in so long, Magnus was looking to the future. He smiled.
“I should have known you’d be late, barbarian,” a beautiful voice purred.
Magnus grinned. He turned from the twilight mountains to take in a more glorious sight. His hellcat stalked him from behind a towering pillar of the Golden Gate.
“Only because it occurred to me that you’ve never seen the stars by gegatu, kandiri.”
Nadine slinked around him and turned her back to the mountain to stare up at his face. The last remnants of sunset illuminated her beauty in a way that made Magnus wonder how he’d ever waited to claim her.
“Oh? So you mean you were thinking only of my pleasure?”
Magnus’s grin deepened. “Only ever of your pleasure.”
“Then I’ll forgive you. You’d better make it worth my while.”
Magnus chuckled. His stomach fluttered when he noticed the boots and long pants she was wearing under her tunic. She was prepared. Just as she’d said she would be. Still, knowing it and seeing it were different things.
“Are you sure you’re ready for all I have to give you, woman?”
Nadine tilted her head back and seemed to consider. “That depends. You still haven’t told me exactly where we’re going.”
Magnus ran the backs of his fingers along the side of her soft cheek and pressed his thumb into the cleft of her chin. Her lips parted, and her eyes slid shut as he pulled her forward for a kiss. It would not be their last tonight. When they broke away, he whistled loud into the air and was satisfied to hear Yrsa’s answering call.
His hand slid down her arm to take her fingers in his. “It’s time for the after, kandiri.”
Epilogue
When the Mountain Falls
It never mattered how close or far Sigvard landed his gegatu, they scattered like mice when they saw him descending from the crystal Ebronian sky. The Mushar had given him dispensation to come and go by wyvern-back within the city. Apparently, saving the life of an Emperor came with many privileges.
His mount touched down on the stone lawn outside the training barracks of Lapour’s special forces. Sigvard was working loose the fastenings of his saddle even before they were on solid ground. The beast batted his head irritably toward the men racing back to the barracks, likely in fear of becoming the serpent’s next meal.
“Quiet,” Sigvard muttered to his mount, who hissed and hopped from one foot to the other as though the lawn burned his clawed toes. Sigvard could empathize, yet Lapour was where he’d chosen to spend his time. He’d foregone every chance to patrol the mountain with his clansman in favor of being right here, where he’d dedicated himself to serving his Salig in a way no one else could.
Sigvard jumped from his mount’s back and winced at the shock of pain that spiked through his hip when he landed. Straightening, he adjusted the lancet at his belt, then whistled and motioned for the beast to fly back to the sand cave the gegatu had made a den of. His gegatu knew he wouldn’t be back for several hours, at least. Sigvard never stopped training before the sun went down.
But he wasn’t here to train. Not today.
He shifted his Ebronian clothes and set his sandals toward the barracks. The soldiers training there were not new recruits. These were grown men who’d been specifically selected from the infantry for higher service. They didn’t stare at Sigvard with their mouths agape, despite his red hair and freckled skin. There’d been plenty of that at the start, though far less than he’d received elsewhere in this sunbaked city. But now Sigvard was a fixture here like any of them. He met the occasional nod of greeting with tips of his chin.
The outer court doors were pulled open, revealing the courtyard at the center of the massive barracks. It was here the masters trained their students, not with standard drills which were performed outside on the lawn, but with special arts reserved only for the most skilled. Sigvard searched the three levels of balconies overlooking the courtyard. The yard was in a way a theater, not only for other students who learned passively from another man’s lesson, but also for veteran officers who observed the training from lofty perches.
Steel clanged on steel. The rhythmic chanting of commands filled the courtyard as one master or another barked out instructions. Dozens of shirtless Ebronians worked in the dusty heat that Sigvard was only just becoming accustomed to. His skin had finally stopped scorching each day. He’d suffered more than one night of fever and chills for the poisonous shine that itself beat down like a cruel taskmaster.
Sigvard’s gaze locked upon the man he’d been searching for. The Ebronian stood with his hands gripping the banister, his turban-clad head dipped low between his shoulders as he watched a pair of the barrack’s finest students battle it out as though this were a deathmatch, and the reward, a kingdom. Sigvard narrowed his eyes on the man and tried to imagine what fate he had planned for the winner.
The Dokiri found the stairs and ascended his way to the first-floor balcony, then wound his way through the milling spectators. His quarry stood with two men at his back. Arms crossed over their chests as they, too, watched the scene below. Bodyguards? Sigvard had his doubts. He raised his chin and cleared his throat.
“I thought you’d be with the Mushar while my brother tells him what happened under the mountain.”
At the sound of his voice, the other man raised a brow and turned his head slowly toward Sigvard. “I will hear it all the same, young sky-rider. And today I make important decisions of my own.”
Azeem. A man who at once intrigued and unnerved Sigvard. The Ebronian muttered a command in his language to the men at his back. They dispersed, taking those who stood nearby with them with a scoop of their outstretched arms. Sigvard watched them go before approaching for what was now to be a private conversation.
“Choosing your next spy?” Sigvard asked of the man he knew to be the Mushar’s head of intelligence.
Azeem pinned him with a grin. “Do you ask because you want to volunteer?”
Sigvard’s mouth flattened. He hadn’t fully grasped what a spy was when he’d first come to Ebron. But as much of an interest as he’d taken in this mysterious man, Azeem had seemed to take an equal interest in Sigvard. It was a fact that made Sigvard even more uneasy. “No.”
Azeem snorted. “Good. You’d make a terrible spy with all those scars.”
Sigvard supposed his red hair, white skin, and unusual mount wouldn’t help matters besides. “Aren’t you going to ask me what happened?”
“Aren’t you going to tell me?”
Sigvard considered before answering. “The mission failed.”
“Of course it did, or else why would you be here?”
“You knew it would.”
Azeem’s brows went up in what appeared to be genuine surprise. “Oh? And why do you say that?”
Sigvard stared him down. “Because you’ve been making plans for its failure since the day they left.”
Azeem sighed as though he were disappointed with that answer. “I always plan for failure, sky-rider. Those who don’t chase victory on an eternal horizon.”