Total pages in book: 161
Estimated words: 162269 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 811(@200wpm)___ 649(@250wpm)___ 541(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 162269 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 811(@200wpm)___ 649(@250wpm)___ 541(@300wpm)
She crouched, knees together, legs to the side, and murmured, “Let us get you to the castle.”
“I-I-m not l-l-leaving him,” the woman called Moira declared. “N-not yet. He never left me. Not ever. Not ever. So I need to stay with him.” There came a sniffle before she finished, “For a while.”
“All right, love,” Silence said soothingly. “Then we’ll all stay for a while.”
She received no response to that, but Mars heard a sob come, stifled against Faunus’s throat.
Faunus dropped to his arse on the rock and Saturn shifted with him. They arranged the woman so she was somehow seated in both their laps, with their arms all about each other.
The men stared into the abyss.
The woman kept her face tucked into their bodies.
And Silence rose to stand behind them.
Mars joined her, pulling his mantle from his shoulders, wrapping it around hers, this before taking his wife in his arms.
Elena and Cassius came up on his right side.
Aramus and Ha-Lah to their right.
True and Farah to Silence’s left.
Serena and Chu to their left.
Lahn, Tor, Apollo and Frey gathered around.
Jorie came to stand behind his sister.
The lieutenants walked (or limped) to join them.
Cassius gave Mac and Hera a look.
Mac, one side of his face bloodied and scraped, that side of his leathers jagged and torn, gave Cassius a shrug.
Gnomes pushed to the front.
Pixies drifted.
Sprites zinged.
Zees walked forward boldly, as was their wont, and sat at the edge of the mouth, feet dangling.
If Mars was correct, there were five Airenzian highwaymen amongst them.
The angmostros carrying risen gods shifted from the cliffs then slunk under the sea and swam away.
“Bloody hell, Aramus,” he heard a man say. “What the fuck happened here?”
“I’ll tell you later, Magnus,” Aramus muttered.
Mars sighed.
In the horizon, the sun was journeying to The Mystics.
Mars heard Faunus’s murmured words floating up to him, and he knew Silence did too with the way her hold on him strengthened.
“How do I live in a world without him?”
“You do it knowing he refused for there to be a world without you,” Saturn replied.
Mars closed his eyes.
He opened them when Silvanus shouted, “He will always be remembered!”
“He will always be remembered!” the Zees cried.
“To Our Brother Golden Hair!” Silvanus yelled.
“To Our Brother Golden Hair!” the rest of them bellowed.
And it was then, Elena put her fingers to her lips, floated them out, her lips pursed like she was blowing a kiss.
And a rainbow shot out of the Mouth of Triton shafting all the way into forever.
154
The Aftermath
The People of Mar-el
Nautilus
MAR-EL
It was solemn when true night fell, the heralds rode, the call of victory proclaimed, and the citizens of Nautilus who had survived the Battle of the Beasts came out of hiding and made their way to the Great Beach.
Over time, it would become known great sacrifices had been made of the rulers of Triton to save them from the fall of the dark times.
But many felt it was Queen Ha-Lah who had to do the worst.
For even after the demons were dispatched, their venom continued to infect the ones it had touched, and they wandered, imprisoned by their own minds, mindlessly harming themselves…and others.
All the kings and all the kings’ men rounded them up and gathered them on the beach.
And the fire of the dragons kept them there.
And the people understood why the decision was made that their ash would not mingle with the sand of shore.
They understood why it was decided they’d nurture the beasts of the sea.
And thus, the people of Nautilus watched as their queen, their Ha-Lah stood beside her husband and the other rulers atop a cliff to the south, and she raised her arms.
To a great gasp from her onlookers, she then caused the tidal that swept the poor, lost souls to peace in the depths of the sea.
But Ha-Lah did not feel peace in the doing.
She turned and collapsed in her king’s arms.
It was after they were all gone, when slowly, the peoples made their way, under the blanket of night sky and stars, to the sand.
Those who lived deeper into the rocks, hearing as word swept swiftly across the land, journeyed to Nautilus and walked the empty streets, gravitating toward the gathering, joining their brethren and sistren on the beach.
Wood was brought to build fires.
And the people of Mar-el sat about them on their shore, their eyes to the sea.
No one knew who first started the hum of mourning.
But all joined in, gazing into the waters, contemplating what was lost, what was gained, their fortune that they were still living, and their vows to continue to do it and do that well.
The hum rose up the cliffs to the rulers, who stayed amongst them, watching.
It rose up farther, to the heavens.
There wasn’t a great amount of surprise when, well out to sea, the mighty beasts broke the waves.