THE REFORGED TRILOGY: BOOK 3 — HAMMER OF TIME
Epilogue: Reforged
“Those who truly want change must be the first to make it.”
– Panna Sul (235 PA)
Aes was bright and golden in the sky of Illisem. Maeve stood with Xia and Gripper at the edge of the bright green grass. Without the dryads to tend it, the vast lawns of the royal court had become overgrown and wild in the last hundred years. It was time the Arcadians learned to care for their own homeworld again.
Wind rippled through the grass and hissed gently like waves against the shore. Broken glass towers rose up all around them, the shattered crystal ruins of the ancient White Kingdom that glittered in a dozen colors. Lorren and Hyra were training new glass-singers every day, but it would take a long time to repair the damage. Even Arcadian glass was not impervious to the years or the tenacious march of life. Vines and creepers grew over the broken city in delicate nets of green leaves and pale pink flowers. Blue and purple veilwings darted between the blossoms, ignoring the larger creatures entirely. Arcadia had belonged to the animals and insects for a century, after all, and these survivors of the White Kingdom feared nothing.
Duaal limped through the grass. After two surgeries, a new cloned liver, kidney and about ten feet of replacement intestines, the young mage was finally walking again. He came to stand beside Maeve in the green shade of the old willow tree. Like Gripper and Xia, Duaal was barefoot and dressed only in a simple white robe. He looked at Maeve.
“You know,” he said, “it’s a damned good thing you were at that Waygate instead of me, Maeve. All of time at my fingertips… The chance to have Tiberius back. I don’t know if I could have resisted that kind of temptation.”
“I did not. Not alone,” Maeve told him.
“Are you ready for this?” Duaal asked.
“Yes,” she answered. “I am. Are you?”
Duaal laughed in reply. Maeve turned to Xia and Gripper. They nodded.
Together, the four made their way slowly down the path. It was nearly invisible through the wild grass, little more than a scattering of weathered white stones jutting up from the emerald green like old bones. Wynerian and Orindell were huge, gleaming silver crescents in Illisem’s clear blue sky.
They passed silently under the glass ruins of the west gate. Only one of the pillars still stood, a swirling sculpture of Anslin saluting the brilliant golden sun. His spear was gone, but the guardian god faced outward, his remaining wing stretching out high even over Gripper’s head.
On the other side, Cavain’s statue had been destroyed. All that remained were a pair of melted, blackened lumps. An aspen tree had sprouted between the pieces, pale roots wrapped around the misshapen glass and pulling them inexorably down into the dirt. In another ten years, they would vanish entirely.
Maeve, Xia, Gripper and Duaal stepped through the gate.
They had rebuilt the birchwood thrones. The pale wood rose up from wild green grass, delicate and beautiful and scarred black in places where the Devourers had come too close to the trees. Lorren had done her best to plane the burnt spots from the wood, but there was no place in Arcadia not scarred by the fall.
Maeve made her way toward the twin thrones. The glass gallery surrounding the royal court was long gone, but the overgrown field was full of Arcadians. Thousands of them. Some were from Kaellisem, others from Titania’s army, but many more were from neither side of the brief and terrible Arcadian civil war. Just fairies happy to be home again.
Panna sat in the queen’s throne, Ballad seated by her side. She wore an Arcadian gown of flowing pale green and her golden hair hung in burnished curls around her shoulders. The glass crown on her brow was as bright as a star. There had been arguments about it, of course.
“I’m not a Cavainna!” Panna had said.
“Cavain was a warlord,” Maeve reminded her. “You know that. He wiped out the pyrads to build his empire. I killed even more dryads, nyads and aerads when I opened up the Tamlin Waygate. Titania tried to unmake trillions more. The Cavainna line had its chance and it is time for someone else to rule.”
Now Maeve swept her wing across her chest in salute to the new queen and king. Even on the throne, Ballad refused to abandon his black leather jacket. Duke Ferris stood behind his new monarchs, managing to look both astonished and disapproving.
Ballad stood and returned Maeve’s salute.
“Who stands for these three?” he asked in his Prian accent and Maeve thought she actually saw Duke Ferris flinch.
Maeve smirked to herself as she folded her wings back. “Queen Panna Sul and King Ballad Avadain, I am Vael Maeve Cavainna and I stand for my friends. They have fought through fire and darkness for life and light. They are brave and noble men and women.”
Panna rose, too, and came to stand beside her king. She looked nervous. “Have they stood vigil through a day and night?”
“They have, You Majesties,” Maeve answered. “They have made themselves ready.”
“Well, that makes three of us,” Ballad muttered. Duke Ferris spluttered and the new king raised his voice. “Stand forward, Duaal Sinnay, Anandrou Gripper and Xia.”
All three approached the thrones and then sank to one knee. Duaal winked at the Arcadian rulers. Panna blushed, but touched her hand to Duaal’s shoulder. This was usually done with a wingtip, but Panna had her scars, too, and used what she had. She moved down the line, brushing trembling fingertips to Xia and Gripper’s bowed necks.
“In ten thousand years, we have knighted only our own people,” Ballad said, his accented voice ringing out across the crowd. “It is long past due. These three have proven that one does not need wings to reach great heights! For all you have done, for all you have given, rise now as knights of Arcadia. It is our greatest and deepest honor to have you.”
A musical cheer rose from the crowd. Grinning, Duaal was the first to stand and raise his hands to the assembled Arcadians. The fairies roared. Xia and Gripper more slowly followed suit, but there were shy smiles on both of their faces, too. Gripper hugged Maeve.
“I’m a knight,” he said dumbly. “Just like you, Glass! I… I need a new name now!”
Maeve laughed and embraced her awe-struck friend, but Panna wasn’t done yet. The young queen waited a moment and then spoke again.
“Maeve, will you please help Sir Anthem?” she asked.
Maeve nodded and flew to where Anthem waited in the shifting shade of a rippling blue tent. Titania stood between Anthem and Logan. Both men held laser and spear ready. The renegade queen was dressed in a simple, somber gray dress with illonium manacles around her wrists and ankles. Her violet eyes never left Anthem’s face.
“It is time,” Maeve said simply.
Anthem nodded. He took Titania by the arm and guided her to a spot before the thrones. Maeve and Logan walked behind the pair, watchful and cautious.
Titania stood before Ballad and Panna, head bowed. The king’s eyes were Prian-hard and he held his own spear tightly.
“Kneel,” he said.
Titania did as Ballad commanded, her chains clattering. Logan’s Talon-9 remained trained on her, and so did the point of Anthem’s spear.
“It wasn’t easy to extradite you from the Alliance,” Panna told Titania. “You’ve committed a great many crimes against the Central World Alliance. But I managed to convince the Lyceum that your transgressions against the White Kingdom predated their charges and we had the right to try and punish you.”
“Yes,” Titania agreed.
Ballad spoke in a voice full of tightly controlled violence. “I’m in favor of executing you for everything you’ve done, princess. It’s the least you deserve for the lives you’ve taken and destroyed.”
On her knees before the thrones, Titania closed her violet eyes. “All I have done, I did for love.”
“I know,” Ballad said. “And in her last act as queen, Maeve interceded on your behalf. She didn’t want her last order or our first to be yet another death. Stand, Titania.”
Maeve and Logan stepped back. The Prian holstered his gun as Titania rose, finally looking up at Panna and Ballad with confusion in her twilight eyes. The crowd waited in hushed apprehension.
“What’s done is done. Despite your best efforts, we can’t undo the harm you’ve done,” Ballad said. “So you will spend the rest of your life in service to the galaxy you tried to destroy. You will begin by helping the Nnyth rebuild their Tower and, if possible, mending the Waygate they sundered to keep from you. And then you will return to the White Kingdom and serve in the rebuilding here. This is your sentence.”
Titania’s glorious violet eyes were full of tears. “What? But I…”
“Sir Anthem,” Ballad said.
The knight saluted. If the sudden rise of his one-time subordinate bothered Anthem, it didn’t show.
“Yes, my king?” he asked.
“Titania is powerful and dangerous. She will require a close eye. At all times and for the rest of her days, you will watch over her. If she strays from her sentence, if the princess ever brings harm instead of help, Sir Anthem, kill her.”
“It’s a difficult task, we know,” Panna said. She held out the key to Titania’s chains. “But you have shown your strength, Sir Anthem, and Ballad assures me that you are equal to all we ask.”
“I… Thank you, Your Majesties,” Anthem answered in a thick, choked voice.
He unlocked the chains and took Titania’s hand, though he still held his spear close and ready. The knight and the princess took to the sky and soared toward the ruins of the imperial city. Maeve saw silver streaking both of their cheeks as they flew close enough that their wingtips brushed.
“Logan,” Ballad said.
The Prian had been watching Anthem and Titania, too, but now he turned to face the Arcadian king and knelt. Ballad laughed and gestured for Logan to rise.
“No, don’t you dare,” he said. “Without you and Maeve, none of us would be here. You’ve saved us all, my friend. The only reason we haven’t knighted you, too, is that the Alliance doesn’t want their bounty hunters to swear allegiance to some other government.”
“So that will just have to wait until the White Kingdom joins the CWA,” Panna finished. “But I don’t think that will take long. With the Waygates out on Prianus and Axis, travel and trade between our worlds will be a lot easier… Once we train up some more people to use them.”
“Until they unearth more Waygates on the other coreworlds, Prianus will be second only to Axis in importance,” Ballad added, smirking at Logan. “Our black-sky little planet is about to become a major player on the galactic stage. Who could ever have guessed?”
Logan nodded, but still said nothing. Maeve stood silently beside him. Panna lifted her chin and smiled at them both.
“Logan, you were born under the name Centra, but you’ve said yourself that man died years ago on Prianus with an Emberguard’s sword through his heart,” Panna said in a stately, measured voice. “And so you took the name Coldhand for the hunter you became. But that is no longer who you are. You have saved more lives than you ever hunted.”
Maeve turned to Logan and took his hands in hers. Glass and warm, slightly sweat-damp skin. Her heart pounded inside her and she could barely speak.
“Will you take one final name, enarri?” she asked him. “Will you accept mine? Will you be my husband?”
Logan’s pale eyes widened and he pulled her close.
“Yes,” he answered. “With all my heart.”
Ballad shouted a cheer and Panna raised her hands to address the throng of Arcadians.
“Then by the power given to me by Maeve herself, I name you Logan Cavainna, and welcome you to the House of Cavain. The first human ever to join an Arcadian house!” Panna called triumphantly. “My teacher, Xen, always said that we were all of one people. We are all descended from the Devourers, those that the Nnyth call the First. But that is only blood that binds us. Here today, with this first marriage of Arcadian and human, we choose to be a single people. Maeve, Logan, seal the bond between your hearts and our people.”
Maeve pulled Logan’s face down and kissed him, to the tidal roar of Arcadia’s song.
Hours later, Aes had set and the rebuilding glass city glowed with colorful light. The feasting and celebration would continue late into the night. Duke Ferris had arranged most of it, but both Panna and Ballad had added their own touches and heavy Lyran hunt metal could be heard thumping loudly through the air.
Maeve and Logan Cavainna walked slowly together through the empty city streets and stopped in the middle of a cracked, grassy plaza. There were Waygates set all around the edge. Even now, they swirled with shifting, slumbering blue light. Logan’s glass hand was cold against Maeve’s skin.
“Xia offered to replace them both,” he said. “The hand and my heart. When she was redprinting Duaal’s new liver. I could get them replaced easily.”
“But you would not,” Maeve answered with a smile. She knew better. “They are a part of you now. Like your new name.”
“Gripper thinks it’s silly. If I needed a new last name, he told me, I should have chosen something more descriptive. He’s in favor of Hunter, of course.”
“Naturally,” Maeve said. She laughed and the soft sound echoed through the empty plaza. “I wonder what name he will choose for himself.”
Logan shrugged. “I’m not sure. He and Xia are working with his redprint. They’re hoping to create more Arborans. Xia and Gripper may actually have children together after all.”
Maeve smiled again. She and Logan stood together in the center of the broken old tiles and overgrown statues, holding one another and looking up into the darkened sky. The stars of the galactic core were a gossamer silver bridal train overhead. Beyond them, there was the endless darkness.
“The Devourers are still out there,” Logan said. “Dhozo and his people were just one engineering team. The rest of their fleets are somewhere in the universe. They’re hungry and now they know we’re here.”
“They may come back someday,” Maeve agreed. “This galaxy is their home.”
“It’s our home, too.”
“Yes. Scarred though it is,” Maeve said, placing her hand over Logan’s mechanical heart. “It is ours. We will always love it, and we will always fight for it.”
