“Ouais.”
“You took it on blind faith and drove a van through a house to save him, a boy you’d never met. In turn, he saved us again and again. He’s earned our loyalty, mine especially.” I recalled galloping my horse through Fort Arcana’s minefield as Matthew directed me. I felt that same sense of vulnerability now, but that same determination to trust.
“I doan understand the connection you two have. Probably never will. But I also can’t forget when I saw him as a sosie. An evil double.”
Yes, but Jack had been out of his head with fever, down in the slavers’ mine. “I’ll never betray him.”
Jack pinned my gaze with his. “Then you’ll leave him to do it to you. Only one can win.”
52
The Empress
Three weeks later . . .
Circe lied.
Jack and I, along with our somber kids, stood at the shore of the Priestess’s majestic Port Edwin. I clutched an urn of her ashes and a dandelion crown in my shaking hands.
I’d felt the tingle of her trident icon just days after my birthday. Not half a year later, as she’d told me. Not a couple of months. Days.
When we arrived here after riding hard, her followers had admitted that she’d known during our last visit how little time she’d had left.
Using her powers that night had likely pushed her over the edge. That knowledge stabbed at me.
Just before the Priestess passed, with all her admirers around her, she’d murmured, “Sister almighty, we will meet again.”
We will, my sister. Aching, I spread Circe Rémire’s ashes over her mysterious queendom and tossed the dandelion crown into the depths. The sea took my tears in toll.
I swore the cresting waves waited an extra breath before crashing along the shore. . . .
53
The Empress
Year 36 N.D.
“How do I look?” Jack asked me as he straightened his tie. He’d finally learned to knot one out of necessity.
Tonight he was to receive another civic award at the town’s amphitheater. We’d had to do a lot of these ceremonies. People liked awards—made them remember bygone times—and they loved Jack.
“Like a million pre-Flash dollars,” I told him honestly. His rugged good looks just improved with each year.
“Heh. Didn’t take you for a flatterer.” Jack grinned that heart-stopping grin; it still made my cheeks flush.
Though we both had some age on us, I was wildly attracted to him. Judging by what had happened in our bed all afternoon, he felt the same.
“It’s not flattery if it’s the truth.”
“And you”—he looked me up and down—“jolie as a damned picture.”
I wore jeans, boots, and a dressy blouse and scarf, which was semiformal in this N.D. time. “I just wish the kids could be here tonight to see you up onstage.” Jack and I were empty nesters. I had invited them to this ceremony, but the post hadn’t reached them in time. They’d start filing in tomorrow.
“Me too. Miss ’em.”
Tee and his wife lived at Castle Lethe with their growing family. Clo had married as well and made her home at the old site of Aric’s satellite dish. We met their families halfway as much as possible, and they traveled to Haven a couple of times a year.
Kent, Hélène, and Karena and her fiancé were all traveling together, learning about life on the road. That fearless pack had already journeyed to the ruins of Fort Arcana and Sol’s Olympus, also pilgrimage sites, and for their next trip, they planned to find the Swords’ lair. We’d kept its location secret, our family’s bolt-hole.
The four wanted to see in person Kentarch’s Beast, the great Chariot’s ride, and they promised to return with Tee’s baby shower presents for the Arcana museum.
Tourists couldn’t get enough of the exhibits we’d displayed. I’d relinquished Lark’s letter, Aric’s scythe, and my ballet slippers, among other precious belongings. I would bequeath more mementos upon my death.
I swallowed—if I didn’t win the game . . .
Jack asked me, “Wrong that I kind of like my position?”
“Who wouldn’t like being governor of the Southeast?” He would be in all the history books, the leader of the world’s largest community—a place of hope, run on a tight leash. “What an accomplishment, Jack.”
We’d kept all the regions agrarian. Those who’d lived through an ash-laden hell couldn’t get enough of green fields.
Were there some pockets of resistance out there? Yes. A couple of years ago, those cannibals on the Eastern Seaboard had organized into a new gang—the Teeth. Their leader was, you guessed it, dubbed the Hierophant. Zero points for originality. They even occupied some of the same mines that Guthrie, the real Hierophant, had.
Jack gave his tie a last adjustment. “You know I couldn’t have done it without you.”
I placed my hands on his cheeks and met his gaze. “Yes. You could have.” I wasn’t giving him lip service. He had the patience I’d never mastered, and the people skills I’d left by the wayside. “I wish everyone from before could see you now.” All the folks who’d doubted him.
His shoulders straightened. “You’d keep me as a history podna?”
I grinned at him. “Happily.”
“My biggest accomplishment is holding on to you.” He clasped my hands and pressed a tender kiss on each palm. “Doan know how I got so lucky, me.”
Arm in arm, we turned toward the door. As we descended the stairs, my gaze took in the framed pictures on the wall. We had them of our children, my parents, and grandmother. Mel. Jack’s mom, Clotile, and his old buddies.
I’d finally been strong enough to hang the picture of Aric, Circe, Lark, and me from the night of the battle. . . .
When Jack and I exited the front door, horses nickered from the stables. Thanatos’s line had carried onward through Titan, to an entire stable for us and our kids.
In addition to the white roses that flourished at Haven, in honor of both Aric and Matthew, I’d planted yellow roses beside the front porch steps ten years ago in memory of Sol. I glanced down at his icon on my hand.
I’d received it with no way of knowing how he’d died, until a couriered letter had arrived from across the sea, informing me that Sol had suffered a heart attack in bed. Rumor held that the Sun God had been with several amantes, shining in delight all the way to the end.
I missed him, but grief didn’t feel appropriate. He’d lived his life exactly as he’d chosen. Wine, women, men, and song. I’d put markers for him, Circe, and Lark in the cemetery.
Only Matthew and I remained.
As long as I didn’t use my powers, I felt fine. I’d be fine. I trusted Matthew, even though I had never heard from him again.
As Jack and I often did, we stood side by side on the porch, his muscular arm looped around my shoulders as we surveyed Haven. He inhaled deeply, rubbing his chest with emotion. “We are home, Evie Deveaux.”
A distant memory whispered from the past: We are home, Evie Greene.