A Court of Love and Devotion

Epilogue

ARIA

"Come on, Cat. I got you," Callum panted as he pulled his sister's arm over his shoulder and held her waist.

Catrin walked with great struggle, holding her bleeding rib. The female grunted with each step but her gaze was determined.

"I can see the top," Nyx announced. "We're almost there."

The peak of Ramiel entered Aria's vision. The sacred stone atop shining in the sunlight.

They were almost there.

After a week of fighting and killing their way back to each other, to Ramiel. They were almost there.

Aria had woken up a week ago without her cousins in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by other Illyrian warriors. Few of them had been female. Many of them had underestimated her.

"Do you think that because you're the daughter of two generals, you can call yourself a warrior," a brash male had told her as he stood between her and the entrance to the cave she'd chosen to sleep in for the night.

Aria had only smirked and gotten into position.

"Hand to hand combat?" the male scoffed. "Is that truly how you wish to die?"

Aria angled her head and waited for him to come at her.

The male cracked his knuckles and hurled himself at her. The arrogant ass was heavy, loud and ridiculously predictable. Aria ducked his first punch, using the momentum to throw a powerful hook right to his temple. The male lost his footing from the blow.

Aria then kicked him in the ribs, followed by a punch in the gut. Her opponent fell with a loud thump. She straddled him and grabbed a rock from the ground. Grunting, she used all her weight to stab the rock into his skull repeatedly until his body turned limp and lifeless.

She exhaled loudly as she stood.

"I am General Nesta's daughter," she'd told his corpse. "I am General Cassian's daughter. But first and foremost, I am Aria and I am who I choose to be. And I choose to become a Carynthian, so that is exactly what I will be by the end of the week."

It had taken her three days to find her cousins. Nyx and Callum had woken up in the same area. They'd found Catrin a day later.

The four of them were alone on the uppermost part of the mountain. No warriors behind them. Most who had dared to defy them or be in their way had been given a one way ticket to the afterlife.

Aria was up front, a few steps between her and the monolith. She stopped and turned around, reached Catrin and held her on her other side. Nyx had broken his ankle and made himself a makeshift cane with a stick as well as bandages with the clothes of the people he'd killed.

Aria grabbed him with her free arm and, together, the four cousins climbed the rest of the way to the top of Ramiel.

They gathered around the monolith, raised their hands and intertwined their fingers. Counting to three, they lowered their hands at the same time and touched the stone together.

They landed in Windhaven where their family was waiting. Pacing. Elia let out a sigh of relief and ran to her older sister. Aria opened her arms to welcome her.

Nyx and Catrin had been healed, she saw as they walked to their parents and embraced them.

Hazel and Sage joined their sisters and the four of them swayed as they held each other tightly.

When her sisters finally released her, Aria walked to her parents smiling down at her. She returned with a bright smile of her own and clasped her hands behind her back as she reached them.

She rolled her shoulders back and down and stood straight.

"Report, soldier," her father said.

"We all found each other and made it to the top of Ramiel, General. No casualties on my part. Nyx and Catrin were slightly injured but nothing too grave."

Her parents chuckled and looked at her with utter fondness. Her father took a step toward her, closing the distance between them. He grabbed her face and placed a firm kiss on her forehead.

"Good job," he murmured, voice thick. "My little Carynthian."

Aria's eyes burned when he released her. She turned to her mother whose eyes shone with so much love it took her breath away. Then she got into her arms, buried her face in the crook of her neck and held on for dear life.