Epilogue A Garden of Memory The light in Eden was ancient now, a soft, silvered luminescence that filtered through the boughs of trees that had seen generations pass. The air was a constant, gentle twilight, forever sweet with the scent of moon-lilies. At the garden’s heart, beneath the majestic Tree of Knowledge, was a single grave of pure white stone, entwined with softly glowing silver roses, bearing one word: Glasya. Benzosia, the Dowager Queen, stood before it, her hand

Chapter forty: Kur For a heartbeat, there was a violent, silent tearing—the sensation of a soul falling upward as the tether to the world of the living finally snapped. Dust was the first thing Benzosia felt—the dry, papery taste of it coating her tongue and clogging her throat. Then came the weight of the gown. It was a garment of bruised indigo, the silk heavy and cold against her skin, smelling faintly of frankincense and cedar. Pleated flounces coiled around her legs lik

Chapter Thirty-Nine: The Broken King, The Lost Princess The soil of Eden was never meant to taste the copper tang of celestial blood. Levistus clawed through the vibrant mosses and damp peat with his bare hands, his movements frantic and animalistic. He ignored the way the soil forced its way beneath his fingernails, the way the coarse earth tore at his cuticles until his own blood mingled with the dark loam. He dug with the desperation of a man trying to bury his own soul.