Her younger sister lay upon Jeid's coppery scales, smiling softly, held in Laira's embrace. Blood and ash stained Issari's robes, and dragonfire had burned the hems and sleeves. If the fire had burned Issari's skin too, the stars had healed it. Indeed Issari's skin seemed to glow with inner light, as if the strands of starlight still filled her. Threads of light glowed around Issari's fingernails, between the lines of her palms, through the slits of her closed eyelids, and between her lips, as if the starlight filled her to the brim, aching to spill out.

"Laira," she whispered softly, and luminous wisps fled her lips like frost on a cold day. "I'm so glad I met you again. I love you, Laira. I always have." She opened her eyes—they shone like two stars—and caressed Laira's cheek. "My sister. I will always look after you. Always."

Laira frowned and squeezed Issari's hand. "I'll look after you. I'm your older sister. We're going to Requiem now, and we'll live together again. A new family. Tanin can live with us too if he likes." Her eyes dampened. "We'll build a little hut, and we'll spend our lives among the birches, in the shadow of Requiem's columns." Tears rolled down her cheeks to splash against Issari. "We'll finally have the life we always should have lived—together."

Though even as she spoke those words, Laira knew they were a lie.

Life is not like that, she thought. Tragedies and hardships fill life, and one can always fight against them, always hope to defeat them, but victory leaves one changed. Triumph, after so much pain and heartache, leaves one broken, scarred, sometimes too hurt to ever feel peace. Perhaps peace earned with blood and tears is forever stained.

Thus were they hurt. Laira had saved Requiem, but not without sacrificing her magic; she could live in the hall among the columns, but she could nevermore fly above them as a dragon. Sena had overcome an army of demons, only to find that the true demons lurked within him, even in the peace of Requiem's forest, and those demons of the soul had overcome him. Issari had defeated their father, but she too was changed, soaked with starlight, burning up in Laira's arms. Three children of starlight and of evil. Three children too hurt, too haunted, too broken. They had found victory but Laira knew that they would never find peace.

War leaves us all dead, some dead underground and others dead inside. Some remain upon the killing fields. Others forever carry those ashes inside them.