Ascended (War of the Covens 3)

Epilogue

Something New

Three years later

Caia shook her hands out, wishing her palms weren’t so sweaty. She exhaled and then did the breathing exercises Marion had taught her.

“Caia.” Lucien soothed, putting a hand on her shoulder. He stood behind her with Jaeden as they stared at the massive double doors to the courtroom at the Center. Despite all the other changes, the Center was still called the Center, but now by those who’d once been Daylights and Midnights alike. Those terms were one of the first laws she was going to insist upon—no use of Daylight or Midnight. It would be considered a racial slur. They were all the same now. She trembled.

“You can do this, Caia,” Jae encouraged.

Magnus’s words from this morning came back to her in a rush of comforting warmth.

“Your father would’ve been so proud of you, Caia.” He’d hugged her close, and she’d choked back the tears at the thought of Rafe, of the picture she had of the two of them she kept tucked under her pillow. Magnus pulled back, his eyes glittering suspiciously. “I know because I’m so proud, I can barely contain it sometimes.”

The people who loved her believed in her. I can do this. Caia pushed back her shoulders and threw open the doors. The high wall before them was covered with plaques with lists of names of the supernaturals who’d fought and died during the Great Battle for Concord, as it was now called. In the center was the largest plaque with Nikolai’s name scrawled across it in beautiful calligraphy. Below it, Caia had the inscription from Oscar Wilde’s tomb carved into the stone for Nikolai. It read:

And alien tears will fill for him

Pity’s long broken urn

For his mourners will be outcast men

And outcasts always mourn.

Caia smiled as she passed, knowing Nikolai would’ve loved it, an opinion shared by Reuben. She strode up the stairs and into the court, Lucien and Jae at her back, acting as her second and third in command. The benches of the court were empty but set up in the middle of the room was a huge round table. Seated in beautifully carved chairs that Lucien and his apprentice had worked on for months (each chair depicted a moment in the Great Battle for Concord) were ten supernaturals of influence and power: four magiks, two faeries, two vampyres, two lykans, and of course, Caia, their Chairwoman.

She strode to the largest chair at the northernmost point of the circle and Lucien pulled it out for her. She stepped between it and the table and lowered herself upon the comfortable cushion. Reuben, Saffron, and Alfred stared back at her among less familiar faces. Faces of people she knew she would come to know very well over the years as she led them in the new world.

It had been a grueling and exhaustive endeavor to bring them all together, among them three magiks and a faerie who’d once been Midnight. But after the battle, and months of hard work, Caia’s wishes had come true. The war had ended and in its place sprung something new. These people before her, their actions and decisions were only the beginning … for there was much work to be done.

She smiled in joy that this moment was finally here. “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the first meeting of the United Council of Supernaturals.”