Page 179 of House of Embers
Kerrigan glanced around at her estate. The house that she had loved and hated in equal measure for how she had been discarded but that now felt like home. She couldn’t imagine doing it anywhere else.
“Yes.”
***
After dinner, Kerrigan reclaimed her father’s ashes and went with Fordham back outside. They walked down the forest road in silence, watching the horizon turn to a shocking view of pinks and golds and violet. Only before they came to the town of Lillington did their feet finally slow.
She had been wondering where she would like to scatter his ashes, and nowhere felt exactly correct. Her father loved Waisley, but it had dark times for him as well. The forest had always been his home, but the world had rejected him. Where could she do it?
It hadn’t been her suggestion that had won out.
It had been Anya’s.
“Thank you for allowing me to do this as well,” Anya said, her hands clasped across her stomach. “I know that my time with your father was…”
Kerrigan held up a hand. “You don’t have to explain.”
Anya stepped forward and put her hand in Kerrigan’s. “I want to.”
Kerrigan looked to Fordham and then nodded.
“I loved him, as a young woman with everything I had in my heart, but it became clear that his love for me was transactional. I was a prize that he had won. The woman he had brought up from nothing. We were young. We were stupid. I chose Lorian.” She choked.
“I know,” Kerrigan said.
“When Lorian died, I thought I would never find joy again. I felt that I had deserved that and then…Kivrin.” Anya’s voice broke on his name. She choked on her words as tears marred her brown cheeks. “Kivrin put light back into my world.”
“He did,” Kerrigan agreed with a sniff. “You put light back in his.”
“And we are worse for his loss.”
Kerrigan nodded in agreement.
Anya rubbed at her cheeks. “I may not deserve the honor you are giving me, but I am grateful. I never thought I would return to Lillington, and I treasure every moment I had with Kivrin before his death.”
“I’m glad you’re here,” Kerrigan said honestly.
Then they linked arms and continued into Anya’s hometown.
Together, they met what family she had left in the town, the people here who had known Kerrigan as a child, who remembered last Geivhrea when Kerrigan and Fordham had been named king and queen of the village. There were significantly morechildren roaming around the roads, as if that blessing at the winter holiday had proven incredibly fruitful.
And then once she saw her people, who had intermingled seamlessly with the House of Shadows folks, they continued down the road. Here was the turnoff to Rosemont, the capital. This was the start of the House of Cruse. The crossroads for her people. And the home that she would keep. That her father had always kept.
From here, she could see Corsica Forest and the town and Waisley beyond. From here, she could see it all—just like her dad would have wanted.
Kerrigan opened the urn and let the wind catch her father’s ashes. Let him rest among his lands. Let him reign among his people. Let him rest where he had once ruled.
“Goodbye,” she whispered. “Goodbye, Father.”
Chapter Sixty-Five
The Wedding
“My work here is done,” Parris said as he did up the last button on the back of her dress.
Thankfully, Parris’s shop had been unharmed in Artisan Village in all the chaos with the Red Masks. And he had gladly agreed to make her wedding dress. He’d wanted months, and Kerrigan had laughed in his face. No way was she waiting that long.
“Thank you, friend.”
