Epilogue
Gwyneth stepped out into the sunshine, Brea in her arms. Strolling across the terrace, she gazed out over the formal palace gardens to the woods spreading over the hills and into the distance. The trees were already changing to their warm, autumn colors, flashing red and gold in the morning sun. The breeze stirred her hair, tickled her cheeks. Everything reminded her of the joy of fresh air and sunlight.
Something landed with a splash beside her feet. A tiny bird dropping. Brea laughed with delight. Gwyneth turned her gaze upward to see a pair of wrens flying away from the palace roof.
“Even here,” she murmured. But she smiled as she said it. Her heart was singing, because today at last he was coming for her.
And there were still some things to be done before she left. “Come, my little queen,” she said into Brea’s hair. “Time for you to get ready for Daddy while I do my final duty.”
It wasn’t final, of course. Just the last of this half-year. Going back inside, she saw the maid sweeping out the parlor corners.
“You won’t forget to sweep and scrub the terrace, will you?” Gwyneth said a shade anxiously.
The maid ginned. “No, my lady. Have those little varmints been at it again?”
Gwyneth laughed. “Just one little varmint. But I know they’ll be back. Thanks, Maria. I know I’ll return to find everything just as we agreed.”
“We’ll miss you, my lady,” the maid mumbled, bending back to her work.
Gwyneth smiled with just a hint of sadness. She’d miss this life, too. In the last few months, she’d made a real difference here. And not just in the palace, where everything now seemed so much brighter with heavy curtains thrown back, doors and windows open wide wherever possible, giving access to Brea’s subjects as well as making the palace a far less oppressive place to live than in the bad old days of King Midas. The whole country seemed to have brightened with it. Trade had begun to flourish again. The harvest had been good. And unemployment was falling. No one now went hungry. Even the sick and destitute were cared for thanks to the sale of some of Midas’s excessive treasure. And a little extra wealth from Elohim.
Gwyneth was proud of what they’d achieved here. She and Elohim’s king, in the name of Queen Brea.
Giving her daughter into the willing care of her nurse, Gwyneth hurried to the council chamber. One more meeting, one more hour, and then
he
would be here. Excitement rose, as it still did whenever she thought of Ragnorak. She missed his embrace, his powerful, demanding loving. She missed his very presence. He’d been gone too long. Although this was, officially, their half-year above the ground, he’d had to spend the last week in Elohim attending to matters there and the parting had been hard on her.
The council were already gathered in the chamber and stood as she entered.
“Please, sit,” she said at once, and as they did, she looked round at all of the familiar faces with something approaching affection. Even for Wallace, who, now that he had left his constant fear behind, had proven to be an able administrator. These were the men chosen by the Parliament—Brea’s kingdom had taken the idea from Ragnorak’s—as a sort of conduit between itself and the monarch. Which meant, until Brea came of age, herself and Ragnorak. They were also, largely, the men who had first come to her in the aftermath of M