“Yes,” Mars answered.

“Faith,” she breathed.

Dragons floated down to the stone all about them and Silence broke away from him to approach the trio holding onto each other at the edge of the mouth.

She crouched, knees together, legs to the side, and murmured, “Let us get you to the castle.”

“I-I-m not l-l-leaving him,” the woman called Moira declared. “N-not yet. He never left me. Not ever. Not ever. So I need to stay with him.” There came a sniffle before she finished, “For a while.”

“All right, love,” Silence said soothingly. “Then we’ll all stay for a while.”

She received no response to that, but Mars heard a sob come, stifled against Faunus’s throat.

Faunus dropped to his arse on the rock and Saturn shifted with him. They arranged the woman so she was somehow seated in both their laps, with their arms all about each other.

The men stared into the abyss.

The woman kept her face tucked into their bodies.

And Silence rose to stand behind them.

Mars joined her, pulling his mantle from his shoulders, wrapping it around hers, this before taking his wife in his arms.

Elena and Cassius came up on his right side.

Aramus and Ha-Lah to their right.

True and Farah to Silence’s left.

Serena and Chu to their left.

Lahn, Tor, Apollo and Frey gathered around.

Jorie came to stand behind his sister.

The lieutenants walked (or limped) to join them.

Cassius gave Mac and Hera a look.

Mac, one side of his face bloodied and scraped, that side of his leathers jagged and torn, gave Cassius a shrug.

Gnomes pushed to the front.

Pixies drifted.

Sprites zinged.

Zees walked forward boldly, as was their wont, and sat at the edge of the mouth, feet dangling.

If Mars was correct, there were five Airenzian highwaymen amongst them.

The angmostros carrying risen gods shifted from the cliffs then slunk under the sea and swam away.

“Bloody hell, Aramus,” he heard a man say. “What the fuck happened here?”

“I’ll tell you later, Magnus,” Aramus muttered.

Mars sighed.

In the horizon, the sun was journeying to The Mystics.

Mars heard Faunus’s murmured words floating up to him, and he knew Silence did too with the way her hold on him strengthened.

“How do I live in a world without him?”

“You do it knowing he refused for there to be a world without you,” Saturn replied.

Mars closed his eyes.

He opened them when Silvanus shouted, “He will always be remembered!”

“He will always be remembered!” the Zees cried.

“To Our Brother Golden Hair!” Silvanus yelled.

“To Our Brother Golden Hair!” the rest of them bellowed.

And it was then, Elena put her fingers to her lips, floated them out, her lips pursed like she was blowing a kiss.

And a rainbow shot out of the Mouth of Triton shafting all the way into forever.

154

The Aftermath

The People of Mar-el

Nautilus

MAR-EL