Page 92 of Hymn of Breath and Bone

“He’s here,” she repeated. “Home.”

“Your mate,” I said, pieces clicking into place. “This is where your mate died.”

Theia flinched, and Caspian glared at me. “Come away from the edge first, Theia. You can tell us all about him at home.”

For that’s what the keep had become to us, more than it had ever felt to me before meeting my mate. Without wings, the cliffs wouldn’t be comfortable for me, and though I knew he felt most at home on a ship, Caspian had certainly grown to love our new bedroom.

“Home.” Theia turned slowly, her empty eyes on me as, for the first time, she smiled a true smile. She closed her lids over the place her eyes should have been. “I’m going home.”

It happened so slowly, yet so quickly, as if time sped and slowed as I watched, powerless to intervene. Theia fell, her arms wide as if in supplication to the sky as she threw her body from the cliff and fell out of sight.

Caspian swore, diving for her as I ran to the edge.

He swore again, shouting her name.

But there was no splash. No sound of a body hitting the rocks. Just a veil of mist floating out across the sea as Theia, whose doomed love had started a war five centuries before, rejoined her mate, her home, at last.

Epilogue

It had taken ayear.

A year of meetings and conflicts and negotiations and patient teaching. But finally, it happened. The Silent Isles were thriving. The people were integrating. Trade with Nordhavn was flourishing. And for the first time, Caspian and I were not needed every moment of every dayfor some crisis or other.

And so, leaving Astraios and Sereia with strict instructions on how to reach us should some emergency arrive within the three weeks this voyage would take, we sailed from the Silent Isles for the first time in a year.

It had been so wonderful to be back on the open sea and breathing in the winter wind and waves that I thought Caspian might cry from the joy of it. He played his lyre each sunset, earning eye rolls from Zephyr as Ana and I clapped and encouraged him. Reuben taught me to make his famous stew, although I declined lessons on the gray mush. For the first time in a year, I felt truly free.

“Are you nervous?” Caspian asked as we neared our destination, the port of a new, unexplored town coming into view.

“I’m excited,” I corrected, bouncing on my heels next to him as we anticipated our arrival, ready to greet our hosts.

Making this trip happen had been something of a diplomatic headache, which made me all the more excited that we were finally here.

“Why? Are you nervous?”

“I’m always nervous taking you to new places,” Caspian sighed dramatically, earning a poke in the ribs from me. He retaliated with a smacking kiss that made the mixed siren and selkie crew jeer and laugh, but I didn’t care.

It turned out that selkies made damn fine sailors, as Caspian put it, and having control of both wind and sea on our voyage had meant that the trip, estimated as a ten-day passage north, took only five.

“Fair winds and following seas,” Caspian commented, as we weighed anchor and made port, the crew tying off the mooring as Zephyr readied the gangplank.

“Are you sure about this?” she asked, glancing between us. “It could be dangerous.”

“More dangerous than nearly dying to stop a five-centuries-long war between our peoples?” Caspian jested. “I think not.”

“He has a reputation, you know,” Ana said, looking nervously around at the port.

“So do I,” Caspian pointed out.

“And we’re not here for him,” I reminded them, smiling up at my mate as he wrapped a confident arm around my shoulders. My trunks were packed with enough medicine to get me safely back to the Isles if this didn’t work, but I hoped that the vial in my pocket would be my last.

If not, it would be fine. I’d learned to live with my illness. To view it as a part of me, but not what defined me. Caspian told me repeatedly that I could cough constantly for the rest of my life, and he would still love me, although he might begin sleeping with earplugs.

Regardless, it wouldn’t hurt to try, and I couldn’t deny the thrill of exploring a new land.

“Ready?” Caspian asked, holding out his hand.

I clapped it in mine, smiling up at him. My love and my mate, the male I had chosen and would choose a thousand times over if asked to do it all again.