Epilogue

In the end, Mirri couldn’t put the fire out.

That wasn’t surprising. I didn’t know anyone who’d ever tried to extinguish burning Faith before. The flames didn’t die because we figured something out or did something clever. They burned until there was nothing left to consume. When the last of my Faith guttered out, the fire went with it.

Somehow, I lived.

I don’t know if it was because I was born a mortal, or because so much of my Faith had already been given away - invested in others, spread too thin to take everything with it. Whatever the reason, when I woke up, I was still there. Breathing. Happy to be alive.

It took weeks to bury the dead.

Our little graveyard with three infant Bloodchildren, three dragons, and three undead creatures swelled to hold thousands. Humans. Orcs. Wargs. Bloodchildren. Trolls. Elementals. We marked every single one. No mass pits. No forgotten names.

We carved them into stone.

Every village bore those names in its walls, etched deep so they wouldn’t fade. If memory failed, the stone wouldn’t.

During the battle, Vel, Thae, Clo, Moss, Nim, and Tansy had all somehow ascended. Urzan-Brek’s Faith, wild and unchecked, had found new vessels - and with it finally anchored again, the world slowly began to settle. Tempers cooled. The edge of **** that had been everywhere dulled back into something survivable.

But each of my girls had changed.

Vel changed the least. She still looked like herself - just refined, sharpened, perfect. Every movement carried weight. Confidence. Authority. She stood taller somehow, even when she wasn’t trying. She was the god of coordinated **** now - the pack leader - and it showed. When she looked at a battlefield, she didn’t see chaos. She saw structure. Flow. A plan waiting to be executed.

Thae changed the most. The draconic traits she’d been born returned. Her face had lengthened into something unmistakably draconic. Her tail had lengthened. She was leaner, built for motion and precision, every line of her body honed toward efficiency. Her wings grew longer, stronger, supported by a frame that had reshaped itself to carry them. She was terrifying to look at - and impossible to look away from. She was the god of calculated destruction. The perfect kill made flesh.

Clo never got her ear back. The scar tissue where it had been twisted along the side of her head, red and raw, but it didn’t impact her hearing. She was fast - even standing still, she seemed to hum, like she was always on the verge of motion. And when she moved, she left echoes behind her, after-images that lingered in the air like ghosts. She was still beautiful, in her own way. Still my daughter. But now she was something else, too - something sharper. The joy of the hunt given form.

Moss… grew. Not fat. Not soft. Dense. Broad. Powerful. Her curves stretched over muscle that felt like stone when you touched it. Her mouth widened - unnaturally so - until it could split across her face, open wider than anything should. I wasn’t sure there was anything left in the world she couldn’t eat. Stone. Steel. Wood. Myrddin. It didn’t matter. And she never seemed worse for it. She the devourer of carnage, the god of hunger.

It made me wonder about Nahl - Mother Hunger. What happened when two gods shared the same domain? Did one swallow the other? Or did they coexist, circling each other forever?

Nim grew, too. Taller. Broader. He broke seven feet and was inhumanly muscled. His hair thickened into a dark mane that framed his face and ran down his neck. He looked like something out of myth now - something immovable. And that’s exactly what he was. The bulwark against carnage. The one who would not fall. And despite all of that… he was still a gentle giant. Still steady. Still someone I trusted without hesitation.

Tansy… Tansy was a problem. She’d grown two more arms. Two more eyes. There was no blind spot left on her body - nothing that could sneak up on her, nothing she couldn’t react to. She moved like a storm given direction, fast and violent and impossible to pin down. She was stronger, quicker to anger, and already the most difficult of my children before all of this. Now she was **** without restraint. And I was going to have my hands full.

Even in the demesne, we hadn’t been spared. A handful of goblins died when the Myrddin found their way in - tore through whatever boundary we thought was keeping us safe.

But the children held. They’d worked as a team - coordinated, protected each other, and faced down unimaginable horrors. They managed to defeat them. It was an extraordinary feat for Torvek - fifteen and on the edge of manhood. It bordered on impossible for Tib and Lilae who were nine.

I was proud of each and every one of them.

Elarion went back to Caelwynne, to his family, but he visited often.

Torvek stayed. He couldn’t bring himself to leave - not after everything. Not after we became his family.

Aurelion… apologized. For everything. The ****. Attacking me. Twice. All of it. He was still a dick, but at least now he was a dick who knew when he’d crossed a line.

Solenna apologized too. Nyssira had fooled her - fooled a lot of people. We’re still unraveling exactly how deep her plot went, how long she’d been laying the groundwork to become god of everything.

I buried Nyssira beneath the keep. Deep. Sealed her in a chamber built specifically to hold her. I’m still working on a way to cut her off from the Faith she stole - to stem it safely, let it form something new instead of letting it rot in her hands.

Jackob, somehow, became a hero. He saved Nomin. Saved Graveholt. The Council granted him awards of valor and he immediately tried to turn that into courting Nomin, much to her chagrin.

Crowhurst admitted I wasn’t a threat. I was awarded quarters in the arcane tower for service given. I make a point of staying there at least once a month, just to piss him off.

The queen of Arvellia eventually came around. She formally granted me the lands between the northern foothills of the Worldspine and the White Horse River - everything covered under the Treaty of Briarcreek.

I promptly gave it all to the goblins. In perpetuity. After all, it had always been theirs.

Dunfield had been imprisoned in the aftermath of Urzan-Brek’s ****. The flood of uncontrolled Faith had driven him past reason, and in that madness, he’d slaughtered innocents.

When the ferals ascended and the world steadied, he came back to himself. Clear-eyed. Sane. And horrified.

No one **** him to stay in prison, but he refused to leave. He chose the cell. Chose the silence. Chose to sit with what he’d done rather than pretend it hadn’t happened. It wasn’t a sentence handed down. It was one he gave himself.

I eventually learned that Iolite was a girl. Up until that point, I hadn’t even known elementals had genders. Reproduction, identity - any of it. It hadn’t occurred to me to ask, and when it finally came up, I handled it about as gracefully as you’d expect.

I was mortified.

I apologized. A lot. Probably more than necessary.

She didn’t get it. Not the embarrassment, not the fuss. As far as she was concerned, there wasn’t anything to be embarrassed about - especially since she’d assumed I was a girl too. Apparently my voice was “high and squeaky,” which, in her mind, made it obvious.

That… didn’t help. But none of it actually mattered. Not to her, and eventually not to me either. We were still friends.

Grams stepped down as shaman and poured herself entirely into being a grandmother.

She didn’t do anything halfway.

The children - every last one of them, mortal and divine - were smothered in affection. Kisses pressed to cheeks whether they wanted them or not. Cookies or strips of jerky snuck into pockets. Arms that pulled them in close and didn’t let go until they squirmed free or gave up trying.

Mirri filled the void she left and became shaman of the five villages the same way Grams always had - steady, present, caring, impossible to ignore. The Matrons didn’t really have a choice in the matter. Even if they’d wanted to push back, Mirri had already won over everyone who mattered.

Only Morghinna objected. The others shut it down quickly and without much fuss, and not long after, even she stepped aside. A new Matron was chosen, and just like that, things moved forward.

Elise joined us not long after, becoming my fourth girlfriend… and a month later, she was pregnant.

As was Ashlara.

All of my girls made amazing mothers. It didn’t matter whose child it was - they love them the same.

And me? I was just some miserable guy from another world that somehow found a family, a purpose, and joy.

I was home.