The Half King

Epilogue

The slain beauty had not heard the girl’s prayer.

In body and in mind, she was no more sentient than the carriage that bore her. All around, motion vibrated the carriage walls and trembled the plush velvet cushion upon which she rested. Her veil had been pulled back, baring her legendary face to anyone fortunate enough to catch a glimpse of her through the carriage windows. As the horses trotted onward, wheels rumbled, hooves clopped, and axles squeaked.

The slain beauty did not hear those sounds, either.

Nor did she see the point of light when it appeared above her or feel its heat as the tiny point multiplied into a miniature star that bathed her in its glow. She was oblivious to her blood thinning and warming inside her veins and equally ignorant of her organs mending and her damaged flesh weaving together.

She did not sense the babe stirring to life within her womb. Her first sensation came as her heart squeezed into a rhythmic beat. But true awareness didn’t dawn until a moment later, when she drew a great, heaving breath that rent the silence, and she opened her eyes.

The slain beauty had not heard the girl’s prayer.

But the goddess had.

And in a rare twist of fate, her merciful and vengeful sides were both listening that day, the perfect balance of darkness and light to grant a prayer so double-edged as justice, for there could be no change without battle, no battle without pain.

Though the girl didn’t know it, she had prayed for catastrophe.

Tomorrow, she would have it.

The love doesn’t end here…