Page 76 of The Sundered Blade

“Longing for justice does not make you a monster,” Kyrion said. “But justice is not always about death. It is also about restoration, both for these lands and for the many people who have suffered under this tyrant’s rule. Including you.”

In that moment, such a thing seemed impossible, but Vaniell nodded and gripped Kyrion’s shoulder in return. “I am sorry,” he said. “I know it will never be enough, but I never dreamed…”

“Today you have donenothingto be ashamed of,” Kyrion said fiercely. “Do you understand?”

With a sweep of his arm, he tugged Vaniell into a sudden embrace—as strong as it was swift. An act of forgiveness. Of respect. Perhaps even… of brotherhood.

And when he released him again, it was with a light of warning in his gray eyes. “I will hear no one speak against the worthiness of the future King of Garimore,” he warned sternly. “Not even you.”

“If he’s going to be the king,” Leisa chimed in, “we’d best be about saving something for him to be kingof.”

And at that, Kyrion turned to his wife, eyes aglow once more as he stalked towards her and swept her into his arms, holding her tightly and bowing his head against her shoulder.

“I will help you save whatever you wish,” he murmured into her hair, “after I am certain that this is not a dream and you are still alive.”

“Of course I’m alive,” she said gently, wrapping her arms around him in turn. “What else would I be?”

Her husband jerked back to stare at her. “Of course?” He demanded incredulously. “When you did whatever it was that took you from your cell, I couldn’tfeelyou anymore! You were simply gone from my mind! I’ve spent the last day caught between mourning and hope, afraid to believe, afraid to find out that you were gone.”

She sucked in a quick breath, and her eyes filled with remorse. “Kyrion, I had no idea. I’m so sorry, my love.”

“Did you truly walk between worlds?” He seemed torn between terror and wonder at the possibility, but Leisa’s face lit up with joy.

“I did! My uncle suggested it was possible, but I never knew… I was just so desperate to save them. I was trying to use my mirror, and then… It just happened. It’s incredible, Kyrion. I can’t wait to tell you what it was like!”

“But what if you’d been unable to come back?” he insisted. “I am begging you to at least tell me before you attempt anything so dangerous again.”

Leisa shook her head. “I don’t know how, but I could still sense our bond, even there. It’s how I pulled myself back, and how I knew where I needed to be.”

“Even so…”

From somewhere beyond the walls, a terrible groan and a crash reverberated through the room.

The dragon. Imperial troops at the gates… Even after Modrevin’s death, the destruction he’d set in motion was not yet at an end—the battle for Garimore had barely begun.

There was still an empire to defeat and a kingdom to save. And if Vaniell was lucky, a woman who would someday forgive him for what he had done.

“I suppose we’d best go and see what’s still standing,” Vaniell said, and turned his back resolutely on the scene behind them.

Then, without a single backward glance, he moved towards the door, together with Leisa and Kyrion, leaving the past behind as he walked shoulder to shoulder with the friends and family he had chosen.

And as the sound of their footsteps died away, the doors swung shut, leaving the room empty but for a flickering lamp, a dagger, and a forgotten, blood-soaked corpse.

CHAPTER20

Live wisely… live well…

Those words continued to echo through Karreya’s mind as she knelt on the stones, with blood on her hands and the sounds of battle and chaos filling her ears.

From beyond the broken palace gates came the sound of screams. The roar of fires. The tread of heavy boots. Inci had said there were battle mages, so that meant even greater chaos. Boundary mages could use the forces of fire and war to unleash havoc—toppling buildings or opening pits in the ground. Mind mages could send their enemies running in terror from apparitions that existed only in their imagination, only to have the brutally efficient imperial troops slaughter them from behind as they ran.

The city of Hanselm would be utterly devastated if she did not move. Warn them. Help them withstand the onslaught.

Rising from the ground, she turned away from the lifeless form at her feet and looked at Senaya.

Karreya had seen her aunt as many things—simple seller of herbs, reluctant mirror mage, anguished mother, and now perhaps simply a grieving woman. One who had returned to save her daughter and been asked to save an empire instead.

It was deeply unfair, Karreya realized suddenly, to ask so much of her. Unfair to expect someone else to take up the task she was so hesitant to accept for herself. Senaya deserved the chance to live in peace. Know her daughter. Watch her grandchildren grow. And she could have it, if only Karreya was willing to lay aside her own fears and embrace her destiny.

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