Epilogue: Nessantico
ANOTHER 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 Hïrzg 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.