Stone Sacrifice ✔️Chronicles of Grey BOOK ONE [COMPLETED]

Epilogue

"It is good to see them happy. Your parents would be proud."

I smiled at Jovian's words as I watched the people in the court yard. Laughing with their children and eating their fill.

It was the only place that still looked beautiful — here inside the castle gates. So I had them opened for all to enter with a great feast of food set out. It would not heal the people of course, but it was a start, and for the first time, I saw hope on these faces and only thought it good instead of foolish. I had a lot of work ahead of me, but for now, I enjoyed the celebration.

But there were the few who glanced at me with fear as I passed. Jovian told me it was because of what I'd done, coming back to life and all that. And those who had witnessed Marqis' death avoided me with wary looks in the corner of their eyes. But though I wished they did not look at me that way, it was fine that they did. I would prove my good reign with time and all would be well.

"How did you know?" I asked Jovian, turning to face him after nodding a return to one who bowed as I passed.

He knew what I was talking about. "I didn't know, but something your father said a long time ago... I suspected the Stone would be quite angry indeed with you being killed as you were."

"You speak of the Grey Stone as if it has feelings." As I spoke, I felt the Stone in my fingers as I my bare hand into the pocket of my golden robe. The Grey Stone block had not been the Stone itself, but an extension of it. The Stone had been found in the rubble, tiny, grey, and perfectly round on every side like a pearl. It had not completely distroyed itself, only distroyed it's casing... and its link to Marqis.

Jovian chuckled. "You cannot think something so powerful as the Grey Stone does not have some sort of intelligence, Miera."

I frowned. "It does?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Does it?"

I nearly rolled my eyes but stopped myself just in time. In the meantime, I stood straighter, at the reminder that I was queen and I had to do that now.

But Jovian's question was simple, and my mind went to the voice I'd heard from the Bloodstone, which was now silent and dull in the back of my mind, making it difficult to believe it had ever been so powerful.

Hard to believe that it had caused so much rage in me. So much bloodlust. I had not been myself as I had killed those people and the moment the magic of the Bloodstone left me, I'd been horrified at what I had done to the knights. I had killed them, and relished in their deaths.

It terrified me.

Yes. Yes it did have intelligence. Perhaps they all did.

As if knowing where my thoughts had gone, Jovian spoke more quietly. "That was not like you, after you woke from the dead, I mean. You killed those men without thought, I saw you weild the Bloodstone as if it were something... something else. Terrifying."

My other hand slipped into my pocket and curled around the Bloodstone as he spoke, clenching it tightly, though my voice was casual on my reply. "Marqis had just killed me. I was angry."

"No..." His voice was careful. "You were something more."

I said nothing, though I obviously knew that he was correct. Kill him! it had shouted into my mind. Two words whispered even as it shouted, blood thirsty and filled with as much rage as I had on my own. I wondered how much of that last fight had truly been me, and knew that most of it had not been.

It didn't matter now. Marqis was dead and there were no other Beoworth's under him. The Black Stone has been recovered and handled carefully, wrapped and locked away in my own chambers so it could not be used or bound ever again.