Page 152 of The Sundered Realms

The demons stopped advancing.

In fact, they were backing away.

“With the realms’ magic renewed, its presence makes being here painful for the bigger ones,” Vhannor said quietly.

But they weren’t defeated, or destroyed, and the sudden calm on this battlefield was ominous, not peaceful.

Drained as she was, Liris still felt the unease of leaving an enemy at large, as the demon with that horrible rictus of a grin still grinned even as it retreated.

Leaving, for now. But that was too confident a look for Liris’ comfort, even if she wasn’t sure the demon knew what it conveyed.

But to her, it looked like another strike would be coming, and they didn’t know from where.

“They think it’s only a matter of time for them now, don’t they?” Liris murmured, her lips barely moving.

She kept her pen on her spell pad and didn’t look away as the last demon vanished from sight.

“We’ll stop them,” Vhannor said confidently. “I have faith.”

Not today. They weren’t prepared, and neither were the demons.

But Liris and Vhannor would be.

Then she did look away, because she felt his burning gaze on her, and her breath caught at the force of it just before he gathered her in his arms and crushed her to him. He kissed her so fiercely that Liris, still lightheaded after the spell, after the relief that she’d done it, that they’d lived, lost her balance.

To her surprise, Vhannor didn’t catch her, just tumbled down after her. They both blinked at each other for a moment, and then Liris was laughing and he was kissing her again and maybe they’d get through this after all.

There was still work to do. So, so much.

But they were here to do it.

And they’d do it together.

That, she could celebrate without reservation.

Epilogue

Home.

Eventually, they had to rejoin their comrades. Vhannor assured Liris this was temporary.

In a way, she hoped it wasn’t, because she’d never seen him so open among other people. She thought that might be good for him, though it was clearly unnerving the Special Operations casters.

Cleanup protocols were underway, injuries treated. Liris knew that if she sat down again everything would catch up to her all at once, but there wasn’t much at this stage she could help with. She hadn’t trained on what to do after a demon incursion.

Fortunately, the casters present didn’t seem to hold that against her—if Liris had stopped to think about it, she’d have assumed her display of power would get their backs up, but instead many of them nodded acknowledgement, called easygoing demands she demonstrate parts later.

What a wonder, for people to know what she could do and be able to appreciate it and not want her to stop doing it.

Liris made her way over to Shry, lingering on the edges like she was. “Your timing is amazing.”

Shry grinned faintly. “I know.”

“How do you not look more tired?” Liris demanded.

She shrugged. “Killing demons is a rush. Eventually my body will realize the fun is over and I’ll fall over. Wanted to run something by Vhannor first, but on second thought telling you is better.”

That got Liris’ attention, along with amazement she still had attention span left to get. “Oh?”

---