25. Thalia
TWENTY-FIVE
THALIA
T halia adjusted to life in the Mountain Kingdom with the ease of slipping on a glove. Her father, having healed heart and soul, no longer yearned for the life he and his departed wife forged back in the village. He spoke of it fondly, but was, by all means, a man renewed.
Lucien retained his honor once he’d bent the knee. He and the king came to a consensus that for his war crimes, he would pay penance by banishment. But once banished, the king would not seek out him or his comrades.
The dragon shifter was more than content to accept the agreement.
The kingdom came together after the bloody fray and flourished with Pyralis being sentenced to an eternity in the gallows in a far-off land for treason.
It all felt like a dream to Thalia. She had Sorcha, who had forgiven the king instantly –and had since the skirmish accepted Nerin’s courtship. She had her father, who was given his own wing of the castle, and, of course, she had her king.
Falling in love with the man that was Drake had been easy for the former village witch. Had she met him in her town, she would have been besotted with him as effortlessly as the rising of the moon. It was all the royal business that had thrown them off, which included a potentially cataclysmic war and a stirring of unrest.
But all of that had been remedied by Thalia herself. She was finally able to take into account the magnificence of her abilities. She followed her instincts as one followed the pace of their breath. She became one with nature, the source of all sustainment, and fell into the sweet embrace of spell work.
She told Drake, as the wedding was being planned, that she wanted to use her gift to help the people. To rebuild homes, to enrich the soil, to alleviate the turmoil of distorted mental faculties with a simple touch.
The king admired her ambition.
“That is certainly something a queen can do,” he said, one night after dinner before the wedding. “But you must know your limits. Abide by them, and the world is yours.”
Drake had a way of filling her confidence to the brim and overflowing. He also was skilled at pleasing her in bed. She felt powerful, gorgeous, and supremely desired.
She was no longer a village girl with a gardening aptitude. She was a Creation Sorceress, one of the first to have arrived in the Mountain Kingdom for decades.
She was also going to be crowned as queen of said kingdom. Everything was happening at the speed of a gallop, but Thalia was taking it all in spectacular stride.
They made love constantly. Thalia was perplexed by how much energy the king exuded, and how much she had truly been missing.
“That is because you were not with the right man,” he said indulgently in the cool air the night before the coronation. “Plus, I’m a king and a shifter. My hunger for you is bottomless.”
Thalia felt like her true self had been awakened. Losing her mother had destroyed her heart, mostly because it had destroyed her father’s. But she could feel it, mending itself, like vines reaching upward toward a bright hopeful horizon.
“As is my love,” she replied, kissing him deeply.
“I can’t wait for you to become my queen,” he muttered between kisses.
“And Creation Sorceress ,” she teased him, raking her fingers down his back. “You must not forget that.”
“Forgive me. I must make it up to you, darling. Please state your terms.”
Thalia smirked. She had never felt more safe, and thus, more playful.
“I think you know the keys to my chamber?” she cooed.
“Indeed, I do.”
The king lowered his head between Thalia’s legs as he had and would on many long, rapturous nights.
The wedding, coronation, and pronouncement as Creation Sorceress was a three-part, lavish, and over-the-top event. The entire kingdom was invited, but only members of the royal brigade and family would be welcomed into a post-celebratory festival within the dining hall of the castle.
“Gods, you are stunning ,” Sorcha crooned.
Thalia was thankful for her friend during the tailoring and subsequent dressing of her three costume fittings. The wedding and coronation were both traditional attire, consisting of an under-tunic, smock, and a flowing gown sown with a captivating red tapestry of ancient dragons in an intricate crimson over lush hues. It was fitted at her waist with a long cincture decorated with tassels that flickered in rose gold.
Her silk hazel hair was braided in two long lengths and held together with red ribbon, as was the aristocratic manner. The most sublimely vivid roses adorned her headdress as an earthy garland. It was a tradition to have a symbol of nature blended into the coronation when the woman wedding the king was the indelible Creation Sorceress.
Sorcha was preening over her as the kingdom came alive. The witch could hear a stream of voices snickering, hollering, applauding, and murmuring. Fear crept up in her mind, the reality of what she had consented to hitting her like a tsunami.
“That sounds like many people,” she muttered.
Sorcha nodded, her sea-blue eyes unwavering in luminosity.
“The entire kingdom is here, dear. They haven’t seen a Creation Sorceress in ages. Likely, not even within their lifetimes.”
The hands that clutch the bouquet of wildflowers that were plucked from along the distant mountainside began to shake. Sorcha noticed and tipped Thalia’s chin up to meet her gaze.
“Honey,” she implored. “I know it may seem a trifle unnerving to be granted such a role. But the role is yours, and you have proven time and time again that it is your fate . Not only as Creation Sorceress but as queen.”
Thalia smiled sweetly.
“You always know the words that I need,” she sighed.
“That is what I do,” Sorcha said, stepping forward to plant a kiss on the future queen’s cheek. “And this is all for the people. All of the beauty of your life that awaits, rests behind these stone walls.”
The ceremony began with the sound of a trumpet resounding over the hills and gliding over the mountains. Thalia and Drake rode in a horse-drawn carriage separately, waving and greeting the farmers and townspeople. Sorcha, as the maid of honor, provided Thalia with encouragement along the ride on the warm, sunny afternoon.
When they returned to the castle, Drake waited for them in the grand hall. The doors were parted for the first time Thalia had seen since she'd arrived in the Mountain Kingdom, with a long scarlet runner leading the bride to the altar. She walked to the tune of strumming harps with Sorcha carrying the train of the splendid gown behind her.
The grand hall was ornamented with ancient paintings of ancestral dragon kings and queens, alongside dazzling cathedral windows and high gothic ceilings. Only the royal family, staff, war council members, and close companions were permitted indoors. Drake stood in front of an altar cast in iron and smeared with dragon’s blood.
He wore his customary attire sown in opulent claret and fine golden hues. The king was draped in silk and wore a cloak strapped to his shoulders, mirroring the diffusion of iridescent dragon scales.
The king had never appeared so tranquil to Thalia. He held her as the clergyman went through the rituals, which consisted of breaking off a piece of stone from an antiquated mountainside and fusing one of the roses swathed around Thalia’s head into it. It symbolized their union as one earth element. Hardness and softness, a dragon, and his Queen Creation Sorceress.
The process required the application of her abilities, so Thalia did as she was taught. She moved her hand with great embellishment, pinning the stem of the rose to the rock Drake held in his hand. She permeated the rock with a soft glowing green light, causing the spectators to gasp in marveling wonder.
The stone was then taken by the clergyman, and would later be planted near the mountainside, cultivated by their commitment to one another through leadership and love.
Thalia could feel Drake’s eyes on her for the entire ceremony. It made her feel like she could sprout wings herself.
“You are ethereal,” he whispered into her ear as they sauntered to their thrones. “I feel as if I am walking in a dream.”
Her face blushed rosy pink. It wouldn’t be the last time.
Drake stood before his throne made of dark glossy, black iron and a crimson-red cushioning. Thalia did as he had told her and went to her knees before him.
He held a velvet black box. The clergyman came and opened it. Thalia could see it glistening from the flood of light flowing in from the tall, glass windows.
“Good Thalia Hafeld of thy Silverkeep,” the clergyman pronounced. “You are hereby crowned, the Great Queen of the Dragon Mountain Kingdom, and Creation Sorceress of the realm. Grant us the gift of your serenity and Elysian touch.”
Thalia gasped aloud as the crown rose into the air and hovered over her head. Its band was a smooth, gleaming gold, bejeweled in orange and red dragon stone up into the arch. At the crest of the cap was a coal black emblem of dragon mid-roar.
When it was placed on her head, Thalia felt a solace dance through her bones. She stood with grace and tangled her fingers with her king’s.
“Your new queen!”
The crowd erupted. Birds tittered, and fireflies hummed. Thalia knew she was precisely where she needed to be.
Her father stood with glassy eyes. He looked a decade younger. She had finally mended his broken heart.
“And onward we go,” Drake said, smiling with elation.
They walked, hand in hand, into the great beyond and their lush and burgeoning life.
The End