EPILOGUE

[NOTE: AT THE END OF THE CHAPTER, DON'T REMOVE THE BOOK FROM YOUR LIBRARY JUST YET! THERE'S STILL A FINAL AUTHOR'S NOTE + GLOSSARY + CAST LIST COMING UP. SEE YOU ALL ON THE OTHER SIDE!]

[ONE MILLION YEARS LATER.]

SOLITUDE WAS A FITTING PUNISHMENT for a monster.

It keeps you stuck in a frozen eternity.

Always dying.

Never dead.

No one saw the crystal crown atop my head. No one saw the carpet of bleeding red staining my footsteps. No, those fools were too busy ringing empty prayers in the lonely streets, offering hymns to their gods.

False gods were worshipped with flowers.

Real gods demanded blood.

Fragrant smoke floated around my ankles, a sea of glittering incense and burnt ash.

The mirror was ancient.

Blood dripped down from those curled lashes, healing back the skin ever so slowly, rebuilding its flesh - the way it had done a hundred times before, a thousand times before that, a million times before even that. There was only vehement loathing, an aching hate in those indigo eyes as the reflection looked back through the thick smoke.

There was only hatred there.

The problem with reflections was that most of them told the truth.

Haze enveloped my senses and filled them up like fine wine. The screech of knives pierced my ears, the sound of it worming into my brain as I gathered my knives and chalked out the ritual on the freezing marble floor.

Crimson trickled down my hand. A metallic taste of it filled my mouth as the dark figure loomed closer to me.

The shade had appeared minutes ago, hungry for my blood.

"I want her gone. I want all of them gone."

The smoke shifted with a hiss. Embers of glowing red bored into my eyes, turning the blood in my veins turned to ice.

"You knew them?"

"Yes."

"What were they like?" the shade whispered, voice harsher than rusted nails scraping across a wall of iron.

A fallen smile tipped up the corners of my lips.

"They thought that they had won."

And around me, the world burned in a burst of sweet flame, coming alive in its own way.

The black silk wrapped around my body was ablaze.

Sweltering hot smoke stung my eyes, threatening to melt both skin and fabric. More blood dripped down to the marble tiles in a river of unending crimson, seeping out slowly across the floor.

"Your payment remains," the shade murmured, its voice a silent screech. "What do you have left to give me now?"

Nothing.

Nothing to lose, and everything to gain.

The moon was spilling cold white light over the ancient statues in the hall as the door opened with a rusty creak, revealing an immortal dressed in black leathers. The ground rumbled once, twice, thrice as he took one step after the other. In the darkness, his eyes were a bright, flickering blue - indigo flames dancing in them.

His shadow lengthened, night mist swirling around him. A gagged figure twisted and turned in his arms as they tightened around the figure - even as the prisoner tried to escape those bonds.

The satin burned away at last, leaving my bare body gleaming in the dim moonlight.

"There you are," my voice was a whisper robed in velvet. "It's been a long, long, time."

The man pushed midnight black hair out of his eyes, his fingers a stark ivory in the unforgiving darkness.

"What do you mean to do to her?" he asked quietly, his voice rippling like water through smoke.

"You know what I mean to do with her."

The god flung the figure onto the tiled floor, only quiet fury, fury and revenge shining in his gaze.

He turned over the stiff body with icy cold fingers, and the bound woman's eyes went wide. The chains of Ekrite holding her strained against the silk of her white robes, chafing the fabric and her skin, leaving a ghastly bruise behind. The scent of lilac soap and lilies lingered in the air around her, akin to a forgotten lover. Bracelets of pearl jangled at her wrist, and anklets of platinum gleamed in the dim light.

"Don't torture her too long. I find I no longer have a taste for such... activities."

I scraped her cheek with a pointed nail and smiled to myself as I watched a drop of blood bloom on her ivory skin.

"Have you ever tasted meat without salt?"

"No," the man's reply was a whisper.

"The salt seasons the meat. Flavors it. Without it, no matter how good the meat - it is useless."

The salt. That's what the fear is.

"You've done this before," he said.

"I failed. And I do not intend to repeat my failures, Deimos Everly."

Then I slashed the lethal dagger through Ambrosine's heart and watched her blood slowly pool around her feet.

And far above us, I heard a soft murmur, then a creak, and then a disturbing jangle as the immortal prisons burst open. Their guardian's life wisped out of her body as she slumped, her mouth open in the middle of a death promise to me.

• • • • •

Edwina Tremayne's eyes were shining like the sun.

A lord of thunder and a lord of seas stood at her side, deep in talk. Up and down and up their conversation went, washing over my ears - a pleasant, dimmed nonsense. I stood under that great oak, watching them whisper, whisper lies and secrets and tales of the great past.

Some nights she danced with an ocean flowing out of her eyes. Deep, deep green - gentle enough to save you yet powerful enough to drown you.

Her eyes were fixed on something as her ears perked up.

"Did you hear that?" the Queen Regnant of Endollon whispered.

They hadn't.

Another time, another place. A million years ago. A million lifetimes ago.

When she had seen something they hadn't, and it had taken her all her might to try to get them to listen to her. Today was but the same, and yet everything was different.

"That candle," she said quietly, her cheeks fast losing colour. "That candle lies." They turned to look, as did I.

The candle cast shadows instead of light.

And behind us, the sun slowly drowned in the sea of clouds, sinking inch by painful inch, its light fading into nothing as the skies swallowed it whole. I kept my head up high, eyes fixed on the sinking light - a dark speck flying in the distance.

The vulture, it came at last. For the very last time.

This was going to end.

"Something is wrong," her voice was alert, soft, yet bristling with danger like a cut glass.

A black owl flew past the window, its sound a death rattle.

Edwina Tremayne turned on her heel, opening the door to look out into the corridor. The two gods behind her looked around suspiciously, unaware of the fact that I was watching them. That my eyes were tracking their every move, their every step - that I was starved of revenge for too long - and I now yearned for a taste of it.

Thud - thud - thud.

Edwina Tremayne clambered up the stairs to follow it, tracking the echo ringing in the corridors, the ominous sound trickling into my veins.

Thud - thud - thud.

A sound we all knew only too well.

Her feet echoed on the floorboards and rattled up the stairs, clicking on the floor. Her eyes were wide, her face was pale.

She knew it was me.

Thud - thud - thud.

Could feel it in her blood.

Thud - thud - thud.

Could smell it in the air.

Thud - thud - thud.

The banquet hall was quiet. The silence cloaked it like a heavy blanket, ominous and pulsing thick, settling into her senses like stifling despair. The windows were closed even as the evening light spilled over the floor.

In the center of the table was that crown of glass.

Broken - into three pieces.

Three.

The number after two.

The number before four.

The number of gods in the Triarchy of Endollon.

There were not many things in the world that could scare the Queen Regnant of Endollon.

But this was.

She made a noise of surprise, before turning around to look in the empty room. Her eyes fell on the window of the chamber in which they had been sitting a few moments ago.

Then she turned back to look at the table.

She nearly screamed.

Thud - thud - thud.

There were thirteen dead gods seated on the chairs.

One - dead Uranus - slowly shifted his head silently and bored his lifeless eyes right into hers. Beside him was the undead Aurea, cracks and splinters opening around her skin as she looked at the young queen. Then Cosmo. And Titania. Her mother and father sat there too, like haunted ghosts that had roamed the halls, looking for peace. Thanatos, eyes crackling with fire that could have burned the world down. Apollo. Justaline. Celestina. Favian. Aeneas. Lunette.

And behind them, the undead vulture sat on my shoulder, a smile blooming on both our lips.

She saw it.

Saw the destruction that would soon follow, saw the blood that would run down the steps and into their hearts, saw the war that returned back home with a hungry heart and even hungrier eyes.

Thirteen undead gods.

Free of their wicked guardian, free of their earthly bonds, free of their values.

And bound to my very wishes.

'Declare it, out loud. Promise that you will never execute, sentence to death, or kill a god without good reason,' Cosmo had warned, voice heavy with ancient wisdom.

'I will see you, yes, I will see in my next life, and exact in flesh and blood the revenge you bestow on me like a burnished crown,' Celestina had promised, eyes gleaming like wildfire in the dark.

'One day, Edwina. One day - you will see. The throne is mine. Remember that. The moment you set a foot on it, remember... your days will be numbered,' I had whispered to her all those centuries ago, across time and space and fear and blood.

And that day was finally here.

In the end, history always repeats itself.

Even in defeat, Edwina Valmont Tremayne smiled at me with unconquerable eyes.

"The game was never over," I whispered to her, my voice a caress of endless silk. "The game was never, never over."

It had just begun.

FINIS.