City in Ruins (23 page)

“He already calls to them,” I said.

The vines fell away, and Cadeyrn exhaled.
“Gabethian,” he breathed. “Because his mother was the woman who
triumphed over adversity. Because his mother is the Queen of the
Forest.”

I looked up at him. “Because his father is as
strong as steel. Because his father is as calm and as malevolent as
the ocean when he needs to be.”

There were no more words after that.

Wrong or not, we let our bodies say good-bye
for us.

Chapter 34

The sun had only just begun to rise, the dew
heavy on the ground when Reenah, Oran, and I climbed onto Lochlen’s
back. Medeisia, its forests and mountains, were calling to us. For
two weeks after Queen Isabella’s death, I’d met with the king’s
council, presided over by Arien and Cadeyrn. For two weeks, I was
the voice of the dragons and my gods. For two weeks, I begged for
change and for Medeisian leadership.

In the end, I won.

It was decided that Feras would continue to
rule in the place of a human king until my son could come of age.
Cadeyrn had recognized the child, signing the necessary paperwork
in front of an entire council of men and women proclaiming
Gabethian Torrance Bernhart as his heir, the son of a scribe and
the son of a future king.

My stomach was only slightly more round than it
had been before, but it didn’t matter. The forest and the gods had
shown me what my son was going to look like, and I was
proud.

The night before, I’d said good-bye to a
prince. Today, I flew toward my future.

Climbing onto Lochlen’s back, I offered Reenah
my hand and she took it.

“Don’t let me fall,” she begged.

I smiled back at her. “Only the wolf has to
worry about that.”

“Don’t remind me,” Oran muttered.

A few feet away, a green dragon sat on the
lawn, Maeve and Daegan on his back. I started to wave at them and
paused, my gaze falling to my wrists. The marks, the ones given to
me by the gods, were gone.

Lochlen’s golden head rose, his yellow-green
eyes catching mine. “When are you going to start having faith in
me?”

I chuckled. “When I start having faith in
myself.”

He winked. “Then you and I have a lot of nights
flying across the moon to learn.”

With that, he jumped into the air, his wings
flapping. Reenah squealed, but I laughed. I laughed, and I laughed,
one fist rising into the air.

Free. We were free.

Lochlen circled upward before diving over the
palace grounds. I saw Cadeyrn below in the practice field, his
sword clinking against his opponent.

Kings, dragons, forests, magic, knowledge, and
men.

Epilogue

Five years later …

The scribe school was flowing with
scholars, and I nodded at most of them as I made my way across the
lawn to the forest. Just within the shelter of the trees, there was
a cottage. It wasn’t a large cottage, only three rooms altogether,
but it was mine. And while Feras had insisted I stay in the
palace—as the mother of a king and a consort of dragons—I’d
refused. Gabethian needed the trees.
I
needed the trees.

Laughter filtered through the underbrush, and I
grinned as I ducked under the tree limbs to find Daegan and Maeve
sitting in the clearing just beyond my home. A heavenly scent
floated on the breeze from the cottage, and I knew that was
Reenah’s doing. As much as I’d tried to learn how to cook, it had
been hopeless. I was much better at foraging, riding a dragon’s
back, teaching a roomful of scholars, healing the sick, and
shooting a bow. Among other things.

A little boy with mahogany-colored hair and
green eyes stood just outside the back door, a hand on his hip, his
narrowed gaze on the man-dragon looming over him. A wooden sword
hung from each of their hands.

“You cheated!” Gabethian cried.

“I did not!” Lochlen replied, his tone full of
mock hurt.

I cocked a brow.

Gabethian sulked. “Yes, you are! I
can
tell
!”

Everyone froze. My gaze met Lochlen’s, and then
slid away.

Gabethian sniffed. “What? Did I do something
wrong?”

Reenah appeared in the back doorway, her body
leaning against the opening. “Sweetie, if I tell you something, can
you tell me if I’m lying?” she asked.

Gabethian nodded.

Reenah smiled. “My father was a woodcutter, and
my mother was a baker when I was a little girl. It’s where I
learned to cut wood and bake tasty molasses cookies.”

Gabethian frowned. “Your father was not a
woodcutter, and your mother was not a baker. But she did teach you
how to make molasses cookies.”

My gaze met Reenah’s, and she
nodded.

I clapped my hands. “Okay, well enough of that.
Lochlen, no more cheating, and anyone who wants to sup with us
tonight is welcome. Especially since I didn’t cook.”

What had started out as protests suddenly
turned into “yays”.

Everyone filed into the cottage except for
Gabethian. He’d just had a birthday, and even though he kept
telling me he didn’t need naps anymore, I always caught him yawning
in the afternoons. Part of it was his obsession with his wooden
sword.

“Mom, I don’t like knowing when other people
are lying,” he said suddenly. He tapped the ground with the end of
his sword, his lips turned down.

Sighing, I fell to my knees before him. “I
know. And while I don’t know how it feels, I’m going to help you
figure it out, okay? And I promise to always be as honest as I can.
You didn’t get this from your mother, but—”

“You got it from your father,” a voice
interrupted.

I froze, my hands clutching my son’s shoulders.
I didn’t have to turn around to know who’d spoken.

“Mom,” Gabethian said, squirming, “there’s a
man behind you.”

I swallowed hard. “I know,” I whispered. “It’s
your father.”

Gabethian quit moving, his wide eyes finding
the man behind me.

“He’s big!” Gabethian hissed.

I chuckled, the laugh escaping before I could
hold it back. “Yes, he is.”

Squirming free, Gabethian walked up to the man,
his green gaze searching. “Do you like to play with swords?” He
held up his wooden weapon.

Standing, I turned to find myself face-to-face
with Prince Cadeyrn. He didn’t look any different than the last
time I’d seen him. Harder and more traveled, maybe. But mostly he
looked the same.

“Aean Brirg,” he whispered.

Those words were enough to bring me home. I
didn’t know if he’d come to stay or if he’d only come to visit his
son, but it was enough. I’d heard rumors that his marriage with
Catriona had ended, that her father had agreed to an annulment
after she’d come forward about her affair with Gryphon. She was
pregnant with her second child, and this one belonged to my
brother. As for Sadeemia, King Freemont still lay in a coma, the
illness something no mage had been able to figure out, the malady
an ongoing study in magery. It left the country under Arien’s rule.
Cadeyrn commanded its army, but he’d begun passing down those
duties to Madden, his time split between Sadeemia, Henderonia, and
New Hope.

I glanced down at Gabethian. “Run inside,” I
told him with a wink, “before Daegan eats all of the cookies. I’ll
be along in a minute.”

Throwing a quick glance at his father’s face,
Gabethian scurried away.

Cadeyrn’s gaze followed him before he peered
down at me, his eyes searching my face. “Take me into the forest,
Aean Brirg,” he said suddenly.

I stared. “Why?”

“Because,” he answered, “I need to find
myself.”

That was the thing about forests. You could
walk for days and never find your way out. Or you would walk for
hours and discover what you never thought you’d lost.

Either way, the forest tended to keep the
people that came to it.

We’d had a great adventure, Prince Cadeyrn and
me. We’d lost people we loved dearly, and we’d found friendship in
grief. I’d look back at that part of my life one day, and I’d tell
a room full of scholars about the country I’d saved, about the
prince I’d fallen in love with, and about the dragon I
rode.

Maybe I’d even tell them about the
prophecy.

Better yet, maybe I’d write one of my
own.

My story had started with words.

During it, I’d learned what words really meant
and how life was really lived. Life wasn’t perfect. Stories never
quite ended the way they were supposed to.

But let’s be honest. If stories ended the way
we thought they should, we’d never keep reading.

Taking Cadeyrn’s hand, I tugged him into the
forest, my family’s laughter chasing us into the trees.

About the Author

R.K. Ryals is the author of
emotional and gripping young adult and new adult paranormal
romance, contemporary romance, and fantasy. With a strong passion
for charity and literacy, she works as a full time writer
encouraging people to "share the love of reading one book at a
time." An avid animal lover and self-proclaimed coffee-holic, R.K.
Ryals was born in Jackson, Mississippi and makes her home in the
Southern U.S. with her husband, her three daughters, a rescue dog
named Oscar the Grouch, a bullmastiff named Keisel, and a coffee
pot she honestly couldn't live without. Should she ever become the
owner of a fire-breathing dragon (tame of course), her life would
be complete.
Visit her at
www.authorrkryals.com or subscribe to R.K. Ryals'
Newsletter

Other works available:

The Redemption Series

Redemption

Ransom

Retribution

Revelation

The Acropolis Series

The Acropolis

The Labyrinth

Deliverance

The Thorne Trilogy

Cursed

Possessed

Dancing with the Devil

The Scribes of Medeisia
Series

Mark of the Mage

Tempest

Fist of the Furor

City in Ruins

The Singing River

Retaliation Bridge (Coming soon)

The Story of Awkward

An Introvert’s Tale (Coming 2016)

In the Land of Tea and Ravens

Hawthorne & Heathcliff