Dust to Dust | ✓

Epilogue

It was several years before Aiko was ready to return to Crocea. Not because she missed the city or the palace, or because she had resolved to return to her place as ruler. None of those things matter anymore. She was never fit to be Queen of Niveus—for most of her life, she had been discarded and grew up untrained, ignorant of what her job must be to tip the scales in Ameris's favor. Ultimately, she had done nothing but destroy her people, and they were better off without her.

Instead, she returned for the little grave she had dug beside the roots of the ash-covered tree, where Mae slept soundly beneath the earth. Despite his foul attitude, he was her best friend for most of her life, the only one who understood her broken mind. Perhaps he understood Cinere as well.

He was also the one that ultimately led her to Felix, the lonely assassin who changed her life and the world. She didn't believe that was a coincidence, knowing how sly and calculating that demon cat could be.

"Don't tell Ameris," she said as she knelt by the grave, "but I'm a married woman now, Mae. He always said no man would marry someone like me, and that my bloodline should die with me. Remember that? Oh, Ameris, he was the life of the party." She gave a laugh, twisting the ring around her finger—her wedding ring now, the one Felix gave her. It was a simple gold band, nothing extravagant or fancy as she would have received from a royal suitor, but it fit her finger perfectly, still warm with the ghost of his touch. The sight of it brought a giddy smile to her face. "I guess you could say Felix is just as crazy as I am."

They seldom stayed in one place since he recovered from his brush with death in the world between worlds. She had seen Furvus from the slums where Felix used to work to the richest manors from afar—where he also used to work. She had even seen the grave of his master, a place he said he had never shown to anyone else. After the death of Dinah, the crown had been passed to the late King's nephew, a boy who was only fifteen. Despite his young age, he seemed less murderous and deranged than Dinah and had already begun to clean up her foul touch—including the removal of the many assassin guilds. Felix and Aiko watched from afar as many of his former colleagues were hauled off to face their sentences. They left Furvus soon after to avoid his capture, but Aiko felt satisfied knowing justice was served and Dinah's rule was being scrubbed clean.

Without a royal family and a capital city, Niveus was in chaos for some time. However, order was established as the nobles came together in a desperate attempt to create peace. She didn't know how long it would last, but she hoped her father's kingdom wouldn't fall to ruin. Even so, she washed her hands of it. Her parents wouldn't want her to suffer their burden—that much had become clear to her.

Zehra had taken them to see many other places in the world—the ocean being Aiko's favorite. Such a vast, mysterious body, housing countless deadly secrets and hidden beauties. Not to mention the surface sparkled beneath the sunlight like thousands of tiny jewels, and the waves crashed mightily against the shore. Or perhaps her favorite part was that the ocean was where Felix proposed, where he slipped that ring onto her finger and promised to be by her side forevermore.

She sighed wistfully as she placed a flower over the cat's forgotten grave. If she wished, she could spend an eternity spilling their adventures to Mae's ghost, certainly lurking somewhere nearby though she couldn't see him. "I miss you, my friend, but I hope you know that I'm not lonely anymore. I think you would be proud."

A flicker of white fur appeared within the scarred trunk of the old tree. When she lifted her head, however, it was gone. She smiled. "Rest well, Mae. From ashes, you were born, but it is the dust that you must return to."

Lithe footsteps behind her alerted her to his presence before he spoke, parting the overgrown garden with that cautious gait he had never put aside despite leaving his assassin's work behind long ago.

"There you are," Felix said, his voice rising with that hint of a smile. "You ran off so quickly." He knelt beside her, his midnight blue cloak fluttering at the edges of her vision. The hand he extended to her was cool metal, elegantly crafted to be both functional and fashionable. Sunlight glittered across polished silver and platinum fingers. It barely creaked when it moved, and the joints flexed with almost perfect precision as if it were a real hand of flesh and bone. It was a wonder what clockwork, blacksmithing, and a touch of Pure magic could do. It was her surprise gift to him upon his recovery, though he had hardly been shocked at all.

"Shall we go?" he asked.

Slipping off her signet ring, she placed it carefully in the dirt, an offering before the tree and the grave of her beloved cat and friend. Satisfied, she took Felix's hand and let him pull her to her feet. "Yes." She smiled. "Let's go home."

I'll save my thoughts for the end note but AHHHH I can't believe it's over ;-;