All rights to Kiera Cass. This book is designed to make story edits that largely follow the original plot. So even in the edited parts, it is often largely Cass's writing.

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Author's note: I'm glad you guys aren't upset anymore :). Final chapter then the epilogue and It's done!

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(edit)

CHAPTER 37

A FEW HOURS LATER light flooded into the room. I wish I kept the gun closer to me.

"Who's there I called." As my eyes adjusted I made out a guard. But was he friend or foe?

(cass)

The guard looked down the hall, acknowledging an approaching figure. August stepped into the light, followed closely by Gavril. Though his suit was practically destroyed, his pin—which I now realized looked an awful lot like a North Star—still hung proudly on his bloody lapel.

No wonder the Northern rebels knew so much. They had people everywhere.

"It's over, America. We got them," August confirmed.

(edit)

"Guard bring the king to his room and send the medic up." I registered that they were talking about Maxon, that was all the confirmation I needed to be sure his father was dead.

"Make sure America gets checked up in the infirmary." Maxon ordered.

"NO. Maxon I'm staying with you. I-"

"My love. I will be fine, but the doctor is going to need space to work. Get checked up, check on who you can, then come up." He held my hand and looked into my eyes. He was so sure, so I nodded.

Now that I was out, looking at the destruction, thoughts of everyone came rushing back. Who made it to the safe rooms? Kriss? Elise? Celeste? The Queen? My Maids? The kids? There were currently over a hundred people whose lives were Schrodinger.

As I walked toward the exit I remembered something I used to over hear my father say on occasion. I stopped shoulder to shoulder with August, quietly stating. "Let the North Star guide you safely home." We turned our heads and locked eyes. He was searching for how much I knew. I didn't answer him, he would learn in time. But for now, it was enough to make one thing clear: the Northern Rebels were our new allies.

I was rushed past a mass of people in the infirmary to the back. Too fast for me to catch any faces. "There are people who are really injured. You should take care of them first."

The nurse came over to me. "It shouldn't take more than a couple minutes to clean up your cuts."

Cuts? The nurse put something cold on me that stung. I yanked my arm away then looked down at a large gash. When did I get that? I gave her back my arm and she cleaned it up, then cleaned some cut marks on my legs.

I thanked her then left the back, surveying the room for familiar faces.

(cass)

Tuesday was in a bed, holding on to Emmica as they cried quietly. I recognized a few of the maids, but only vaguely.

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I saw Elise and went over to her. "Elise are you okay?"

She nodded. "I cut my hand using the switch to open the room, it was jammed. Kriss, and Celeste, and all the rest of us are fine but….Natalie died." I sat down next to her. "I saw her body when I was leaving the safe room, she was shot three times." I hugged Elise, not able to believe it.

Tuesday and Emmica came over and Tuesday explained. "Sh-he brought us to a safe room. But the inside trigger wouldn't work. So she said she would go to another safe room and sealed us in. I guess she didn't make it. We're only alive because of her." I hugged them too.

Natalie was really dead, but I have to save my tears for now. Many people died and I need to get through the day before I break.

I looked up and saw Lucy getting her foot wrapped, Aspen by her side, his arm in a sling. I checked on them both and they were okay.

"How did the rest of the battle go?" I asked Aspen, desperate for any more information.

(cass)

"Oh Mer, We should have had rebels training us. They fight differently. They knew what to do. I recognized August and Georgia in the Great Room. They had backup outside the palace walls. Once they realized something was wrong, well, they already have a talent for getting into the palace quickly. I don't know where they got the artillery from, but we'd all be gone without them."

(edit)

I smiled at him and left him with Lucy. As I walked away they were sitting heads pressed together whispering how much they love each other.

At least one thing worked out. The Italians got the rebels weapons and they were able to help.

I looked over the infirmary one last time. Not a single one of the garden gremlins was in here. That is either very good or very bad. I ran down the stairs as fast as I could go, jumping over steps to get there faster. There were no little kids in the hallway and it was silent. No No No.

"Hello!" I yelled. "Is there anyone here?!" I banged on Lyla's door. "It's America." After a moment her door creaked open and she looked around. I pulled her into a tight hug. Before calling out more "It's America. It's safe now. You can come out." Lyla echoed my sentiments and slowly doors started to creak open.

I pulled them all into hugs so relieved to see them.

"As soon as the alarm went off we hid." Edger explained. "Forchenetly with the ceremony going on upstairs we were all ordered to stay down here."

I exhaled a bit and we started a headcount. "I'm only counting 23." Noehe noted. Lyla, Edger, and I all agreed.

"Who's missing. Look around kids." We instructed.

"Where's Rebecca?" Roba asked. Lyla checked her room, she wasn't here.

"Does anyone know where Rebecca is?" Edger called.

None of the kids answered, but I saw Nikkey look to the ground. I knew they shared a room so she would have just seen her.

"Nikkey?" I prompted.

"I'm not sure, but she mentioned wanting to go to the queen when the attack was over." The little girl confessed. "I don't think she would have wanted me to tell you…"

"You did the right thing telling us. We need to make sure everyone is safe." I assured her. "Keep them down here for the rest of the day, the castle is a mess. I am going to go look for Rebecca."

If I was a seven year old, where would I go to look for the queen...I don't even know if the queen is alive. I went up to the queen's room and asked if she was there. The guard nodded and let me in. The queen's alive.

The first thing that caught my eye was the small body with auburn hair clinched onto the queen. She only could have been a few minutes ahead of me, yet it looks like she had been there for hours.

I turned to a guard and instructed, "Let Edger, Lyla, and Noehe know Rebecca is alright and with the queen." He left and I turned myself to the queen.

"Your Majesty." I curtsied, before coming closer. "Hi Rebecca. You know you really shouldn't run away without telling us where you are going. You gave us quite the fright."

"I'm sorry." She said smalley. "I just needed to know the queen was okay."

"Oh I'm not the queen anymore." Amberly looked at me, her eyes shining with tears in them. But she wasn't sad she wasn't queen, she was broken her husband died.

"What should I call you then?" Rebecca asked.

"hummm...How about mom?"

"But...you're not my mom." the sadness of that fact ressinating.

"But I can be. If you want me too." I could hear the desperation in the queen's voice. She had fallen in love with Rebecca and didn't want to have to let her go.

Rebecca pounced on her, hugging her tightly. "Yes please. Yes."

The queen pulled Rebecca in tight and kissed her head. They hugged each other tightly for a moment before the queen turned to me "How's my son?"

"He was with me earlier. He was shot in the leg but it wasn't lethal." I looked at the ground. It felt like a part of me was reaching out to Maxon, begging to be whole, but couldn't find him.

The queen smiled lightly at me, "I know about his medical condition, I meant his heart."

I knew as his mother she probably could see Maxon was hurting. "I'm going to marry him." I answered. A lightness spread across her face making her look years younger. "We figured it out. I'm going to marry him." My voice was a loud whisper full of more relief than I knew I had. I looked into Amberly's eyes and was met with love, so I added, " ...mom". She pulled me into a hug. Cradled there with Rebecca and Amberly, I knew I now had three families. My birth family, the kids from the garden, and Maxon's family.

I left the two of them talking about the best animals and went to Maxon's room. The guards bowed to me, then informed me I still wasn't allowed in. So I sat by the door, counting the seconds without him, each one pained.

Finally the door opened and the doctor came out, "He's been asking for you." I rushed into his room and pulled the chair I always worked in up next to his bed. Maxon's leg was suspended from the ceiling in a cast.

I grabbed his hand. And he joked, "You haven't changed your mind in the last hour have you?"

"Not a chance. I am yours forever."

"Come here." he moved the covers and I climbed in next to him, kissing him gently.

"I'll have to talk to the advisors soon. I'd like you with me."

"Of course. What about?"

(cass)

"Mind you, it's a bit rough, but I think you'll still like it. Open the drawer here," he instructed. "It should be on the top."

I pulled out the drawer in his bedside table, noticing a pile of typed papers right away. I gave Maxon a questioning look, but he just nodded toward the writing.

I started reading the document, trying to process what it said. I got to the end of the first paragraph and then reread it, sure I was mistaken.

"Are you . . . you're going to dissolve the castes?" I asked, looking up to Maxon.

"That's the plan," he answered, smiling. "This will take a long time to do, but I think it will work. You see," he said, turning the pages of the vast file and pointing to a paragraph. "I want to start from the bottom. I'm planning on eliminating the Eight label first. There's a lot of construction we need to do; and I feel like, with a little bit of work, the Eights could be absorbed into the Sevens. After that, it gets tricky. There's got to be a way to get rid of the stigmas that come along with the numbers, but that's my goal."

I was awestruck. I'd only ever known a world in which I wore my caste like a piece of clothing. And here I was, holding something saying that those invisible lines we'd drawn between people could finally be erased.

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Maxon's hand touched mine. "I want you to know that this is all your doing. Since the day you called me into the hallway and told me about being hungry, I've been working on this. I had a quieter way than declaring to the entire country the castes were corrupt to achieve the exact same goal. Of all the things I wanted to do for my country, this would have never crossed my mind if I hadn't known you. We'll be amazing running this country together."

I thought of the kids who would have a chance at a real life; and my maids who deserve better; and my little brother who just wanted to play ball; and all the young girls treated like objects; and all the lost potential of people who could do amazing things if they weren't limited. This means everything.

(cass)

"There's something else," Maxon said as I continued to take in the words in front of me. Then suddenly, on top of the papers, Maxon slid over an open box with a ring resting in it, shining in the light cascading through his windows.

(edit)

"I got it made right after the night in the safe room. As soon as I knew you wanted me too, I was determined to choose you." I looked up to him, not saying anything, as I was still too stunned to speak. It really was always me. "Do you like it?"

It was simple, but elegant. A thin web of thin gold vines crawled up, forming the circle of the ring, holding at the top two gems—one green, one purple—that kissed at the crown of it. I knew the purple one was my birthstone, so the green one must be his. There we were, two little spots of light growing together, inseparable.

I blinked back tears, "I love it." I whispered before turning to him more confidently. "It was never about the ring though. It's about the man. I'd marry you for nothing."

"I love you." he whispered back. I kissed him as he slid the ring onto my finger. We didn't need any more words. We had already professed our love a thousand times. Now we just needed to be together. For the rest of our lives.

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(To be clear the engagement ring design was Cass's there was other things changed in that paragraph. That kind of thing happens a lot but I felt like that was particularly unclear.)

The queen didn't die in mine, but I couldn't kill her it would be too heartbreaking for Rebecca. How do you like that Rebecca was adopted?

Note: As promised why I changed the King's death. Well, you have probably guessed some of it. I wanted America and Maxon to have the conversation about their fathers, I wanted the queen to stay alive so she could adopt Rebecca (I could not put that poor girl through anything else), and I didn't want Maxon to see his mother die. But there is a bit more than that. For all the other faults the king has, he does love his family. He just can't express it and is a horrible person who doesn't deserve such loving people in his life. But at the end of "The Queen", a young Amberly determines that she would take a bullet for Clarkson if it ever came down to it. I felt it was poetic that he would too. That with all his other terribleness he did love her as much as she loved him. And the only right thing he ever did was sacrificing his life for hers. That doesn't redeem him, the world is better without him, but it does end it with a reassurance that we don't understand the King.

But I'll say it again: Being Complicated Doesn't Make You Redeemable. Only a true effort to change and improved actions does. He could not do that. Sure his last action was a step in the right direction, but it wasn't a change, it was just something he couldn't express.

Thanks for reading. As always please comment! We just have the epilogue then we are putting this story to rest. So ask all your last questions right now so I can answer them in author's notes! I'll try to answer questions in the comment section after the last chapter is posted so don't be discouraged if you're late or have ones later!