32
Ilinca
I woke three days later in a bed considerably softer than the healer's camp cot I vaguely remembered, sunlight coming warm through unfamiliar windows, and understood, from the singular black stone visible beyond the glass, that I'd been carried the considerable distance back to Castle Ironmoor while I slept through the worst of the wolfsbane's lingering effects.
Kason sat in a chair beside the bed, asleep himself, exhaustion carved plain into features that had grown substantially thinner over six weeks of searching.
I watched him a long moment before I trusted my voice enough to speak, memorizing the particular relief of simply being able to watch him breathe, safe, present, real in a way I'd spent six weeks afraid I might never experience again.
"You look terrible," I said, my voice rough with disuse, and watched him wake instantly, the soldier's alertness of a man who'd trained himself never to sleep too deeply.
"You're awake." He was at my side before I'd finished the sentence, his hands finding mine with a gentleness that undid something tight in my chest. "How do you feel?"
"Considerably better than I did carving that final line, though that's admittedly a low bar." I managed something close to a smile, though the effort cost more than it should have. "Varak. Costin. Are they—"
"Both dead. The threat's ended, Ilinca. Permanently, as far as anyone can currently determine.
" He pressed a kiss to my knuckles, the same gesture he'd offered a lifetime ago in a lamplit archive wing.
"The Wardstone's mechanism held. Whatever the Hollow Curse was meant to unleash, your work sealed it completely. "
"Sela. The woman in the cell near mine—"
"Alive. Freed the same night you were, along with five others.
" Something gentled further in his expression, understanding exactly how much that particular relief mattered to me.
"She's been asking after you every day since.
Teodor's arranged for her to stay at Castle Ironmoor until she decides where she'd rather settle.
She told him she isn't in any hurry to leave people who actually came looking for her. "
Relief moved through me at that, considerable and overwhelming, though something else sat alongside it, unfinished business I understood needed addressing before I let myself fully rest in the safety of having survived.
"The Council," I said. "They still don't have a formal resolution. Whatever the Gathering decided about my status, about us—"
"That's handled too, or nearly so." He studied my face, something warm and certain settling behind his exhausted eyes.
"I've asked for a formal session, once you're strong enough to attend it.
I intend to make my claim plainly, before the full Council, with your voice weighing exactly as much as mine in every particular of it.
No more managed timing, Ilinca. No more decisions made around you instead of with you.
I promised you that once, badly, imperfectly.
I intend to keep it properly this time, for the rest of both our lives. "
The formal session convened a week later, once the healers had finally cleared me for it, in the same grand chamber where I'd first nearly lost control of my own wolf in front of thirty watching Voivodes.
I stood at Kason's side this time instead of alone, his hand steady in mine, and felt none of the fear that had gripped me the last time this room's full attention had settled on my face.
King Aurelian rose first, addressing the assembled Council with the specific gravity he brought to matters of genuine historical weight.
"Six weeks ago, this Council learned the truth of the Frostmark bloodline's survival.
Today, I ask this Council to formally recognize what that bloodline has already proven, through action considerably more eloquent than any words I could offer on her behalf — that Ilinca Hollow, last heir of the Frostmark line, has earned this kingdom's full protection, full recognition, and full gratitude for ending a threat two centuries in the making. "
Halmar rose next, and I felt my pulse climb despite myself, old instinct bracing for renewed hostility that, I found, no longer waited for me in his expression.
"I've spent considerable time reconsidering my earlier positions, Your Majesty.
A woman who rode into danger to warn a town that owed her nothing, who completed an ancient ritual while poisoned and dying rather than abandon it, has answered every question I once raised about her loyalty to this kingdom markedly more thoroughly than words alone ever could have.
I withdraw my earlier objections, formally and without reservation. "
Kason stepped forward then, and the chamber stilled the way it always did the instant his full attention commanded it.
"I claim Ilinca Hollow as my mate, before this full Council, before every Voivode currently gathered to witness it.
Not as a political convenience, not as a bloodline's restoration alone, though both of those things are true.
I claim her because I love her, plainly and completely, and because I intend to spend whatever remains of my life proving myself worthy of the trust she's given me at considerable cost to herself. "
I felt the words land in my chest with a warmth that had nothing left of six weeks' fear in it, and found, when I met his eyes, that I had no hesitation left at all in giving him the answer every part of me had already decided.
"I accept his claim," I said, clear and steady, my voice carrying across a chamber that had once terrified me into near-collapse and now, finally, felt like exactly where I belonged.
"Whatever this bloodline requires of me, whatever this kingdom asks, I intend to meet it standing beside him, not managed by him, not hidden from him, but genuinely, fully beside him, for as long as either of us draws breath. "
He kissed me then, in front of the full assembled Gathering, and I felt the bond complete itself in that exact moment — a warmth blooming at the join of my neck and shoulder, sharp and then settling into something permanent, marking me, at last, as fully and completely his.
The chamber erupted into sound, thirty Voivodes and their retainers rising as one, and somewhere beneath the noise I heard Yeva's delighted laughter, Teodor's low, satisfied approval, my father-in-all-but-blood's warm, relieved pride.
The pack witnessed it. Every single one of them, exactly the way the old stories had always promised, and I understood, standing in the center of that celebration with Kason's hand locked in mine and his mark warm against my skin, that six years of careful smallness had finally, completely given way to a life I intended to live loudly, fully, and entirely my own.