A Magic of Dawn

Epilogue: Nessantico

A NOTHER KRALJIKI SAT on the Sun Throne, bathed in its golden light-yet another relative of the great Kraljica Marguerite. The Holdings were unified once again, with the new Kraljiki also holding the title of Hirzg of Firenzcia. A new Archigos sat on the throne in the Archigos’ Temple, where Archigi had sat for centuries, but this was an altered Faith and a weakened Faith, and many who walked Nessantico’s streets were no longer believers.

In the far west, across the Strettosei, there was a new Tecuhtli, with a young Nahual beside him.

A child who had become a powerful young man had become little more than a child again. And the White Stone had vanished once more, perhaps to return or perhaps gone to oblivion entirely.

Nessantico-the city, the woman-didn’t care. Such movements didn’t trouble her. The story was not done. There would be more strife, more conflicts. Thrones would pass. Victory and defeat, the rival twins of war, would contend against each other with new players.

She didn’t care. The story was not done because the story never ends. It could not.

The people moving in her streets had been born and would die to be replaced by others. The Sun Throne would feel the weight of dozens of future Kralji yet unborn, and they would be good leaders or bad, but in time they would all-no matter how good, no matter how bad-eventually pass from the long, endless tale.

But she never would. She had been in the tale from the beginning. The tale was hers, and it would not end until she ended, and she…

She was deathless.

Her fortunes had risen again. From a shattered kingdom, a new and stronger one would arise. The face that the A’Sele reflected back to her would change. Perhaps even one day the line of the Kralji itself would vanish. Perhaps.

But not her. Never her.

She would continue. Nessantico would stride into that long future: living, breathing, eternal, the central character of the land’s story. Her face would be rewritten, her old lines stripped away to be replaced by new ones. She would age; she would be renewed, again and again.

The tale would not end.

That tale could not end until she herself was gone.

And that, she told herself, could never happen.