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    EPILOGUE


    <h2 style="text-transform: uppercase">LANA & THYS</h2>


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    “So, what’ll you do?” Thys asked, his voice barely more than a hushed whisper in the pitch-black darkness where the torches couldn’t reach.


    “I have to see,” Lana answered, creeping low. A knot had formed in her gut for the last couple of days while they approached her target. They made it to the window without alerting anyone of their presence, despite the thin layer of snow on the ground. Winter was upon them.


    Peeking through the opening, careful not to get too close for fear of her hot breath misting the glass, Lana peered inside.


    A family. Three children, a boy and two girls, and their mother and father. The children were playing quietly by themselves while their parents conversed with an older woman, who was seated in a rocking chair.


    It was her. Mia.


    Thys gave her a questioning look, and she nodded. When he held up a knife, Lana gave it a long look, then sighed and shook her head. It’d been a long time since the night Mia was sent to assassinate her family. So much had happened since then, so many lives lost.


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    The pyromancers were crushed as an organization and banished from Eldsprak. The few who’d allied themselves to the resistance were allowed to remain and would be crucial in the effort to rebuild the country.


    And here Mia was, the woman who’d occupied her thoughts for so long. Vengeance had gnawed constantly at the back of her mind and now it was within reach.


    Looking in at her now, an old woman surrounded by her family, Lana was finally able to quash that.


    “No,” she said.


    “No?”


    “There’s no point.” She turned and left.


    Once out of view of the houses, Thys spoke up, his tone conversational. “So, what now?”


    Lana pursed her lips, wracking her mind for an answer. She found none. Settling down was unappealing.


    Leadership was not for her, and most fleeing monsters and mages were already dealt with. The Wayfarers and Slayers had gone back to their own worlds, and the rhinn were spreading out across Maydian, integrating into towns and cities.


    “I’m not sure.”


    “The new rhinn leadership asked me to return to Rhinerien and hunt the remaining priests of Wyndemir. Then, the rhinn are going to start exploring other worlds. How about you join me?”


    A mysterious old man had shown up to teach the rhinn travelers how to open gateways between Maydian and Rhinerien before disappearing again. It took several mages working together, but travel between the two worlds was now possible.


    Lana and Thys exchanged a grin. “Priests, you say?”


    “Priests.”


    “There is one thing we have to settle here first.”


    “What’s that?” Thys asked.


    She conjured a dagger of white light. “You still owe me a rematch!”


    Thys laughed as he drew his short sword.