Epilogue

Ania's fate made known.

Black.

The color that absorbed all light, never letting a speck of life back out. The color people associate with death. The lack and acquisition of everything that ever mattered and then hiding them.

Black.

It was everywhere. I was surrounded by blackness. I didn’t know how large or how small the hole they had thrown me into was, but I could tell that there was any way for me to get out.

Not that I would have the strength to.

I pulled the scraps of cloth�"all that was left of my clothing�"around me, trying to cover the bleeding gashes across my back with something, desperate to not get whatever it was that made the bottom of this pit so slick in the raw wounds. I coughed, my entire body wracked with spasms. I couldn’t see, but I could feel the flecks of blood on my lips. Everything hurt…

After I had woken up from the initial wave of blackness, I found myself being dragged into an underground cavern where the only light was the occasional torch. I was brought before someone who I assumed was the leader of this outpost. He said something in Joconan. I couldn’t understand everything, but I think he said “Prince” somewhere in there. For some reason I thought of Skaught.

After a few minutes, he gestured for me to be taken away, and I was pulled into a dark cave were they started.

That night, when they threw me into the deep cave that was to be my home for the next eight years, bloody and weak, I looked around, salty tears stinging the cuts on my face, desperate for some kind of light.

There wasn’t any.

I was terrified. I didn’t know what to do. I started saying the Knight’s Pledge, over and over in the common tongue and in Geschyichti, just because it was something familiar. I thought about my families, and my friends. I was so scared. It was a hundred times worse than the day I had come to the Compound.

When I thought of that day, I thought of Randen. My beloved Randen. How he must be hurting. For a while I forgot about the stinging pain that engulfed me, sobbing for my love’s broken heart. I wrapped my arms around myself, as if I were trying to hold the pain in.

I felt something dig into my wrist. Holding it up, I was stunned to realize that, miraculously, my bracelet was still there, still whole. On instinct, I whispered, “Illumiera.” A gentle glow came from my little ruby, once again shattered�"in harmony with Randen’s own heart�"but still with me. It gave off a gentle, but steadily growing brighter, light, starting red, but, as it passed through the prisms of the rubies, quickly breaking into every color imaginable.

I felt around my neck, somehow pleased to find that the leather thong that had held Skaught’s ring had broken and fallen away. My mother’s ring was still there, and glowing with a light of its own.

Looking around, I saw something that gave me hope. There was a small hole in one of the corners of the pit’s ceiling. Going over to it, I realized that it was too high for me to reach except with the very tips of my fingers, but through it I could see the night sky. I wasn’t as deep as I thought.

There was a fierce wind blowing, cooling my fingers on contact. I saw storm clouds boiling across the sky, and for a moment a portion of it was cleared so I could see the stars. It was there, right above me.

The Guardian Angel.

I made a makeshift bed out of the rags that covered the floor right underneath that opening. That constellation reminded me of my love, and it gave me hope.

Hope can sometimes be a fickle thing.

But other times, it is the strongest thing in the world.

Author's Note

I think I have the chronology wrong - I need to change the gap of time between when the guardian angel shows up. Otherwise, it's just thrown in there willy-nilly.