Chapter 43
forty-three
Nesrina ties things up.
One week before their wedding, and two weeks after Kas officially proposed, they finally visited the temple after Nes asked if they might have the ceremony there like his grandparents. Kas said it was far too decrepit, prompting an adventure to prove his point. It turned out, he was wrong.
“Huh,” Kas commented, looking flabbergasted as he stared at the marble structure in the woods. “It appears Hevva got here first.”
Nes tried not to laugh, failed, and he “taught her a lesson” by taking her on the stone, atop a blanket she’d woven from chaos.
“This isn’t a temple,” she announced, walking a circle around the columns after they fucked on the floor. “It’s a gazebo.”
“How do you know?”
“There are no runes, nothing to indicate it was ever used to honor the gods. My old point still stands: no temples in Selwas, the gods were likely never here to begin with.”
Kas wasn’t sure he agreed, but there were no markings on the stones. “An earthshaper could’ve smoothed out runes ages ago. We don’t know.”
“It’s possible,” she relented.
“So, you can’t say definitively that it wasn’t a temple.”
“I strongly believe it’s a garden feature,” Nesrina concluded with a smile, before spinning away and running off toward home. “And we’re getting married here!”
“It’s a temple, because I’ve worshiped you on the floor,” he called out, following along.
“Ican’t believe it’s over.” Kas exhaled, releasing Ehmet from an embrace in the foyer of Stormhill.
There was one day until their wedding, and she and Kas greeted the first guests to arrive, the king and queen. Nes’s mama was expected the next morning.
“It’s nice to see you too,” Hevva scoffed at her brother, catching Nes’s eye with a look of incredulity upon her face.
Laughing, Nes greeted the rulers with hugs of her own. Ehmet’s was an odd one, as they held hands with their arms outstretched, staring at each other for a long while.
Her heart raced, and a spiral of excitement swirled behind her ribs as she took in their similarities.
Their noses bumped out in the same way, and their cheeks were identical.
Their hair was the same texture and thickness, but his was darker like Papa’s.
He’d gotten all of Papa’s height, too, but then again, her mama was tiny.
And their eyes were the same. Same color, same angle, same everything.
The tension snapped, and they grinned, shaking their heads in matching motions before Ehmet wrapped her in a warm embrace.
“Sister,” he murmured.
“Brother,” she replied.
Tears sparkled in Ehmet’s eyes, and a fat drop rolled down her cheek.
“That’s enough. Please,” Hevva begged. “I don’t mean to be rude, but I miss my babies. You two have all the time in the world for this reunion after we find them and after we’ve all caught up.”
“Please?” Kas asked Nes and the king with a gentler tone and a partial pout.
In agreement, they procured two bottles of wine, which Hevva uncorked with her magic before they’d even made it onto the back patio.
Sitting at a table while the twins played in the grass with Vites and Enoth, Nes scratched Lellin behind the ears, and Hevva regaled them with the tale of Rihan and Nekash.
“I discovered them in a well-fortified, previously abandoned boathouse outside the city.”
“You were alone?” Kas checked, looking between Ehmet and his sister.
“No. She had a cadre of guards,” Ehmet confirmed.
“Yes, but I discovered them.” With an eyeroll, Hevva continued. “The runes proved what we thought to be true—do you understand what I’m saying?”
“Yes, Hev. We get it,” Kas said, and Nes smacked him on the thigh.
“Let her tell her story!”
“Yes, thank you. Unfortunately, the beach sand blew in, hard and fast. Wrecked the runes.” She shrugged, saucily. “The evidence was all lost when it whooshed out to the sea.”
“A windstorm?” Kas asked, smirking.
Ehmet was grinning, and Hevva said, “Something like that. No one asked, and we didn’t share. If it ever got out”—she shrugged—“no one believes fae blood magic is real, anyway.”
They laughed, sipping their drinks and watching the twins toss magically woven sticks to the dogs. Nes was overcome with gratitude and a profound sense of comfort, like everything was in its proper place as the sun set on the far side of the house, casting them in cool evening shadow.
“He’s really gone?” Nesrina checked.
With lips pressed tight, Ehmet nodded. “The guard’s been put to death. A trial was deemed unnecessary after he confessed to his part in aiding my brother.” Ehmet choked up a bit on the word brother, and Hevva slipped a hand around to his back, comforting him.
Nekash, stripped of his title, was put to trial within two weeks of Hevva’s arrival in Serkath.
He was found guilty in a day, in spite of his refusal to answer questions around his motives.
It was obvious Nekash craved power, influence, and the hedonistic lift the Crown could provide.
The disgraced former prince was living out the rest of his days below-ground in the palace dungeon, where he could stare lecherously at blocks of heartstone and iron bars, for all anyone cared.
Nes’s heart ached for Ehmet having to face such betrayal.
“Are you looking forward to seeing your mum tomorrow?” Kas asked as they climbed the stairs to bed, early, having left Hevva, Ehmet, and the twins outside for family time.
“Very much. I can’t wait to tell her about Ehme—”
“Nes, what?! You can’t do that. You promised.”
“I did no such thing.”
“Nesrina . . .” Kas opened the door to his room—their room—seeing as she hadn’t slept in the Tarisden Suite since she’d been kidnapped three weeks before.
“I never promised anything. She’s my mother. She probably already knows.”
“But the kingdom.”
“She’s my mother, Kas. She won’t say a word. I’m positive.”
“Check with Ehmet first, at least?”
“I will, in the morning before Mama arrives.”
“Thank you.”
“Thank you.”
“For what?” he asked, unbuttoning her dress with little flicks of air magic as she dealt with his jacket.
“For the lesson we’re about to have.” She pushed down his trousers.
“Oh?”
“Yes. It’s the night before our wedding, Kas. Tonight’s going to be twice as long as usual, to make sure we’re ready for our big day.”
Rumbling with laughter that filled her chest with happiness, he slipped her paisley dress to the floor and lifted her by the hips.
When she wrapped her legs around his waist, he repositioned his palms under her arse.
Spinning, Kas pressed Nesrina’s back to the wall, and she gasped as her center slicked against his abdomen.
“For our first lesson . . .” He began, before abruptly dropping her down a few inches.
Her panicked squeal turned to a whimper when the head of his cock touched against her. “Like this?” she asked.
Kas guided himself to her entrance and nodded.
“Oh my gods.” Nes gasped as he drove in, fucking up into her while her back slid up and down the wall. “Oh my gods.”
“It’s good?” he asked, mostly a grunt.
“Yes. Full marks. Fantastic work.”
Kas laughed, then kissed her on the crown of her head, breathing hot against her as they came apart, together.
Their wedding day dawned bright, and Nes’s mama arrived as she and Ehmet rounded the front of Stormhill.
Hevva and Kas had taken the twins to the creek.
As much as she loved swimming, Nesrina refused to join them on the day of her handfasting.
She was freshly bathed, smelling of flowers and citrus, and had no interest in wrecking her hair that Kas had so expertly dried.
Ehmet asked her to walk instead, so they did, looping the manor until they spotted a carriage crawling up the long drive.
“You’re certain it’s fine if I tell her?” Nes double-checked.
“Yes. I’d like to give her Hothan’s pension and feel odd doing that if she doesn’t know why. If you don’t tell Tamla, I will.”
“No. I don’t want you to.”
He boomed with laughter, and she grinned, shocked that she’d been contrary to the king. But he was her brother, and when it came down to it, aristocrats and commoners truly were a mixed bag.
Outgrowing her homegrown distaste for nobles and going on to become one would’ve shocked Papa. But Nes was confident he’d have come around; in fact, seeing as he’d fathered the king, maybe he wouldn’t have minded at all.
Mama hadn’t even questioned her engagement; she’d been thrilled Nes was marrying for love.
And Nes herself had no regrets, but also no illusions that the road ahead would be smooth.
Still, she’d made headway in shifting her mindset, just like Kas made strides with his.
Taryan and Thanin would figure out how to work together and potentially critique the hereditary structure of inheritance in Selwas at some point in the near future. All would be well.
“Oh, my goodness!” Mama shrieked when she opened her carriage door and came face to face with the king.
“Mrs. Kiappa,” he rumbled, extending a massive hand to help her down.
“Your Highness.” As she dipped her chin at him, her tower of gray curls bobbled, and they swayed precariously when she swung her head toward her daughter. “Nesrina!”
“Mama, it’s so great to see you.” Nes rushed forward, and the two of them met in a warm embrace as Ehmet closed up the carriage and pointed the coachman around back.
“Where is he? Where’s your handsome duke?”
Face heating as Ehmet laughed, Nes explained he was out at the creek with his sister and the twins.
“I guess that will have to come next. I can’t wait to meet him. Your papa always spoke so highly of him. ‘That young Kahoth boy, he’s sharp, but our Nesrina’d give him a run for his money.’”
Nes blinked. “You’re teasing me.”
“I’m not,” Mama swore earnestly. “He wrote to your duke for years. You didn’t know?”
With a huff, Nesrina tossed her hands in the air. “No, I didn’t know. Not until recently and obviously not all of it!”