A Thousand Year Obsession ✔

Epilogue

Epilogue

I stood before the ashes of my old home.

The keep was gone. All that remained were piles of dusty rubble and crumbled sections of burnt walls. My heart throbbed as my eyes roamed over the debris, my throat burning with unshed tears. Sally stood at my left, her chestnut locks fluttering over her shoulders in the breeze. Percy stood at my right, his lips drawn, his eyes hard. The forests stretched unhindered in a semicircle to one side of us, the open wildflower fields to the other.

I began to move slowly towards the wreckage, but neither of them tried to stop me. Kneeling beneath the broken archway, I dipped my fingers down into the ashes, exhaling softly as I stood and watched as the wind slowly filtered the ashes from my fingers.

"How is that I always tend to lose the things most dear to me?" I whispered.

There was no response, but I could hear rubble shifting as someone approached. Then a soft hand slipped through mine, but I didn't turn to look as he stepped up to my side.

"You haven't lost us." Percy murmured.

A single tear slipped from my eye and I caught it on my thumb, but I only stared down at it with a bitter grief.

"If you stare any harder you're going to set it on fire." Percy chuckled.

My head tipped up at him, my eyes catching on his. My gut tugged and my heart skipped a beat, my breath catching in my throat. We stared at each other like that for a long time, then I swiftly pulled him towards me, curling my arms around his torso as his lips brushed down over my own. He smiled, and though tears salted our tongues, we held each other tighter than ever, our bodies alight with a sizzling electricity.

"Are you sure about this?" I pulled back just enough to breathe the words over his lips. His brilliant green eyes searched mine, twinkling like hidden emeralds.

"I've never been surer of anything in my life." He smiled. "But are you sure?"

I closed my eyes, breathing in the cold, clean air. It smelled of pine and flowers and grass. It smelled of memories.

My eyes slid back open and I gazed out over the debris, over the flowers, over the trees, over the horizon.

I nodded, the ghost of a smile touching my lips. "I've never been surer of anything in my life."

We turned around together, hand in hand, to face our new beginning.

But then I squinted towards the edge of the trees, my hand slipping from Percy's to shade my eyes from the sun.

"Someone's coming towards us . . . "

Percy frowned, his head turning to where a speck of a rider moved swiftly across the wildflower fields. Sally whirled around, her nose scrunching as she narrowed her eyes.

"It looks like . . ."

Charlie gasped from where she stood by the horses, drawing her curved sword quick as lightning.

"Derek." She breathed.

Juliette emerged from within the cluster of horses, her eyes widening as she followed the path of the rider. Eliza peered over her shoulder.

"It can't be." She whispered.

The rider gradually came into full view, the sun glinting off the ruffled strands of his honey brown hair, his sky blue eyes shimmering like the air just before rain.

Sally shrieked and jumped back, spinning around herself in search of a weapon. Percy reached for my hand, but I just stepped past all of them, through the remnants of my childhood home towards the distant rider. Charlie stepped after me, her sword raised, but I held out a hand.