Bringer of Winter- a M/M/M Epic Fantasy Romance

Epilogue- At a Price

MIRON, GENERAL OF PRYN'S ARMIES—

My father was one of the greatest generals Pryn had ever known. He crushed nations in a fist of steel and built the current slave trade up to what it was now.

My grandfather was instrumental in bringing Pryn to its current glory, expanding her borders with oceans of the blood of Pryn's enemies.

My great-grandfather was cousin to the Gal Medhse. The blood of the righteous and the holy ran daily through my veins.

For generations, my family had served the Gal Medhse. Protected Pryn. Kept her safe and kept her culture and her soul alive.

I now prayed to every god I knew the name of and many I didn't even know to call on, that I hadn't been the man to end not only the family line of protectors of the realm, but Pryn herself.

"He is what?" Prince Aviv screamed down at the man who knelt on his knees before him, cowering and looking like he might wet himself.

I had thought Aviv was the answer to every question, every fear I had of the future of Pryn with that idiot man-child and his war-hungry father making the rules. I had thought, when he came to me over a year ago with his plan to take his father's crown rightfully back into his hands, that I would be among my ancestors as a protector of what Pryn held most dear. A great legend to pass on to the children I would have someday with my wife, the woman I had dreamt of since I was young enough to know of such things.

Since I had been saved from the woman who had torn me from my family and brought back to my father's people by the faceless, nameless man I wasn't ever even sure had been real. The man who had held me, broken, beaten, tortured, and bleeding, tightly to his chest, his body shaking nearly as much as mine was, his promises that he would ensure I never hurt again ringing brightly in my ears.

I now questioned every decision and move I had made for the last year.

He had promised me limited bloodshed, especially of my men, during the transition. I had lost hundreds. More had stood beside the Gal Medhse and his youngest son than Aviv had said would, and the battle had been costly on both sides.

He had promised me his siblings, the many children sired by the Gal Medhse, would be safe. They would be arrested and sent to live out the rest of their days peacefully in a palace prepared just for them. I had only just received word that "my orders" had been carried out and each of the Gal's progeny, from those older than me down to the children, had been killed. Only, they hadn't been my orders. My men had seemed confused when I had lost the strength in my legs and fallen back onto the desk behind me at their report.

Gods, with the Gal Medhse's grandchildren, that was nearly fifty people dead at the word of what I was coming to think was a madman.

He had promised me he would be different. He would stop the constant wars. Bring Pryn into a new era of prosperity and growth not of land but of the riches of its peoples.

He now looked as if he would cut the head off of the soldier who had brought the news that his brother— the one that he might have had a reason to have killed, for he had the right to the crown by order of his late father— had escaped.

Not only escaped— had flown from the city with a mere handful of Nibean warriors. On the backs of gryphons.

"Your highness, the breakouts in the—" the soldier began, but Prince Aviv took a step forward as if to strike him and the man cowered and quieted with a strangled yell.

"—Keeping an eye on a dying man, a woman, and a child was too difficult for you, you sire-less bastard?" Prince Aviv growled down at the man trembling before him. "You let a handful of barbarian slaves steal him out from under your nose?"