Chapter 64
SAPHIRA
The black hallways passed me in a blur as I ran barefoot down them, each peal of the bells in the town making me run faster, and my silk slippers flapped in my hand as I held my dress up, because tripping and falling down the stairs was not going to make me arrive any sooner.
I was late.
I blamed Beliana and Thalina for making me cry with their kind words when they had been helping me dress, and their sweet blessing of fortune and happiness. My mascara had run and I had looked like a ghoul, and we’d had to fix my face.
I had gone without the mascara in the end, settling for a soft kohl around my eyes that brought out the blue and a hint of colour on my lips, and when I had looked at myself in the mirror, I had lost more time.
Kaeleron wasn’t going to know what had hit him.
I neatened the soft waves of my silver-white hair as I reached the ground floor and slowed to a more ladylike walk towards the arched wooden doors of the great hall.
Noise coming from outside drew my gaze there, and I stilled when I saw the people gathered at the gates of the castle.
I was already late. What was a few more minutes?
I’m sure Kaeleron wasn’t pacing the dais, his shadows snapping at everyone who dared to breathe near him.
He totally was.
I could feel him more clearly now that Lucia had completed our bond in her own way, could practically feel every clipped stride he took as he waited very impatiently for me to make my appearance.
Well, he had waited five hundred and sixty something years for me.
He could wait a few minutes more.
I hopped towards the castle entrance as I held the back of one slipper and pulled it onto my left foot, wrangling it into place before following it with the other, and then quickly smoothed my strapless gown.
“Queen Saphira,” a female called the moment I reached the threshold of the castle.
A cheer went up. My hands went up with it.
“Um, not quite queen yet. But… I hate seeing you all stuck outside the gates and I wanted to let you know that there’ll be a party in the glade later and of course you’re all invited.
I’d love to see you all there. And maybe…
” I tiptoed, trying to find some familiar faces, and struggling to hide my disappointment when I couldn’t see the people I had wanted to among the crowd.
Maybe they were working. “Maybe you could all come and wait in the garden and we can get straight to the feast once this part is done, because that smell of roasting pork is driving me crazy.”
Laughter rang around me.
I smiled and regally curtseyed, and then turned and went back inside, my heart feeling a little lighter as I heard them all filing into the castle, past the walls that had probably looked impassable to most of them, but were now open to them thanks to me.
I wanted everyone here for this.
Not just the highborn.
I was sure it wasn’t the done thing and that coronations were reserved for the highborn or ranking officers of the court, and the family of course, but the Shadow Court I had fallen in love with was beyond those walls.
Deep in the heart of that town.
Maybe in a little blacksmith’s forge.
Gods, Kaeleron had looked rather delicious when I had found him there yesterday, working on something for me.
He had refused to let me see it.
I had been too engrossed in the sight of his honed body covered in that fine sheen of sweat from the heat and the hard work, and a sprinkling of ash from the fires, to care that he was denying me.
He had been too engrossed in the way I had pounced on him to finish his work and had instead whisked me away to work on me instead.
I blew out my breath as I approached the doors, shaking my hands to make them steadier. My markings came out. They had a bad habit of showing up whenever I was nervous, and each time I felt the goddess who had given them to me, who had heard my wish and answered it.
I reached through the earth to her in return, letting her know I would be fine now.
My fairytale was about to get a happy ending.
When I nodded, the guards opened the doors for me, the heavy thud as they parted and the creak as they swung open hushing the room on the other side.
I squared my shoulders and took my first step towards my future.
All eyes landed on me as I entered the great hall, and I found the faces I had been looking for in the crowd as I glanced to my left and right.
Seated among the highborn were those dearest to me.
Naerwyn, the pretty buxom baker, smiled at me like I was sure my mother would have if she had been here.
Near her, the minotaur I had befriended, but had never quite understood his name in the ten times he had given it to me, stood with his hands on the shoulders of a smaller minotaur, this one with longer lashes and shorter horns.
His daughter I presumed, and his grandchild stood beside her.
To my right, Fierel stood with a delicate fae female.
Behind him, Tan’ith and the other royal necromancers were drawing curious glances.
Half the pews were filled with faces from the town, and it warmed my heart and eased all my fears as I saw them, as they all smiled at me, and murmured their wishes to me, offering me fortune and happiness.
I had those two things in spades already.
I walked the aisle, my steps growing surer with every face I recognised, and gaining confidence as my wolves came into view.
Danica and Everlee beamed at me. Chase couldn’t stop smiling either.
Morden. Morden was actually smiling, and it wasn’t the forced, gruff sort of smile he plastered on whenever he had been pushed. He looked genuinely happy for me.
Vaeleryn stood in the row in front of him and dipped her head in greeting as Rhyn said something to her while grinning at me, and nudged Fallow. His younger brother scowled at him before turning to watch me approaching the dais.
On the other side, at the head of the rows, my new family filled the pews.
Riordan stood with the help of Malachi, and Jenavyr glanced between me and the vampire, seemingly unable to take her eyes off him for more than a second.
Riordan didn’t help matters by pressing a hand to his chest. Even though he dropped it before her gaze darted back to him, he wasn’t quite quick enough to conceal his discomfort.
Shadows snapped around his waist and forced his backside down onto the pew.
The vampire very wisely didn’t argue with her.
Neve stood beside Arianell, and I wasn’t sure how I had missed how alike they were before. They were the same height, had the same large eyes, and the same fiery attitude as they quietly bickered about something before they noticed me and immediately fell silent.
Or it might have been the shadows that gently snapped at their fine dresses that had silenced them.
Not Jenavyr’s doing this time.
My heart warmed at the sight of everyone who had come to be here for me, filling with happiness as I looked at them all.
And then Kaeleron.
Stupidly beautiful Kaeleron.
He cut a ridiculously fine figure in his polished boots, tight trousers, and his finest black tunic jacket decorated with delicate silver embroidery, and with his onyx crown circling his forehead.
He couldn’t have looked more handsome than he did with his black hair pulled back into a half ponytail that revealed he wasn’t wearing the silver caps on his pointed ears today.
He had done it on purpose. The bastard. That little tilt to his lips as my gaze landed on them told me as much.
I itched to run my fingers along them, teasing him and making him shudder, relishing the way he reacted to my touch.
He drew down a deep breath as his silver eyes silently admonished me, and I knew I was playing with fire.
I didn’t care.
I let him see the plans I had for him, biting back a smile as he raked his gaze down the stunning dress I had chosen, one that was similar to the gown he had given me that had reminded me of the sea.
Only this one was the teal of the Summer Court at my breasts, and the royal blue of the Shadow Court at the hem.
Diamonds, golden beads, and pearls encrusted the top of the corset and at the hem more diamonds, black pearls and silver beads weighed the skirts down, completing the colours of the courts.
A swath of enchanted diamonds had been stitched in a weightless sweeping curve from my right breast to the hem of my skirt at my rear.
He held his hand out to me, palm up, and I slipped mine into it as I ascended the steps of the dais and stopped on the one below him, following the instructions he had given me.
He kept hold of my hand, keeping them raised as he had said he would, and I waited for him to say the ancient fae words he had mentioned to me.
Only he pulled me up onto the dais beside him instead and came to face me, standing level with me rather than keeping me in a position lower than himself.
“What are you doing?” I hissed.
He smiled at me, that mischievous but toe-curling smile that never failed to warm every part of me.
He turned to the smaller throne that had been set next to his and opened the box sitting on it, bringing it to me and holding it before him, his silver eyes locking with mine as he gazed down at me.
“It is said that Lucia bore the fae from a sliver of her heart, severed into two.” His voice carried through the great hall, holding power and authority that I felt down my spine as he looked at me.
“One born beneath the sun. One born beneath the moon. For centuries, our people believed those halves were meant to remain divided.”
His eyes searched mine as his tone softened.
“But the land knew otherwise.”
A murmur ran through the gathered.
“You crossed into my realm believing yourself caged,” he said quietly, as if the words were for me alone, despite the hundreds of people who were listening.
“Yet Lucia answered you from the very beginning. The shadows welcomed you. The land knew your footsteps. And my heart recognised yours from the moment I first saw you.”
My throat tightened.
He slowly opened the box, revealing a crown nestled among blue velvet.
A beautiful crown of silver swirls and wolves that embraced sapphires that I recognised.
The box disappeared from his hands in a swirl of shadow, leaving only the crown behind as he lifted it before him in both hands.
“You are not bound only to light. Nor shaped only by shadow. You walk between them, carrying both within your wolven soul, as Lucia had intended when she had forged her children from a single heart.”
The hall had grown still and my breathing grew still with it as he raised the crown above my head.
“A heart that now beats with mine. Bound by blood. Bound by soul.”
He lowered the crown to rest on top of my head, his silver eyes softening.
“Let the land answer her. Let the night know her name. Let the stars witness the queen who stands unbroken between light and darkness.”
He released the crown and bowed his head.
“Rise, Saphira. Queen of the Shadow Court. First wolven daughter of Lucia.”
He lifted his head and took hold of my hand, turning with me towards the gathered.
The cheer that went up almost deafened me, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t hold back the smile that burst onto my lips as I stood there with Kaeleron, in a place a small part of me thought I would never be, becoming all that I ever could be.
His mate.
His queen.
His forever.
He turned with me, his smile flipping my insides as he slid a look at me out of the corner of his eye, and led me to the smaller throne he had installed beside his.
We turned back towards the gathered, both standing before our respective thrones, my heart still reeling from his words and the love that had shone in them, love I had felt all the way to my soul.
I went to sit as he did.
And squeaked as his shadows swept me into his arms and he pulled me down onto his lap, pinning me there with one hand between my thighs and the other around my back as he kissed me.
I lost myself in that kiss, in the warmth and the love in it, and the joy that spread through me, for the first time feeling as if everything was right in the world.
I lifted my hands, savouring how he trembled as I feathered my fingers along his pointed ears, and then grinned as I leaned back.
Snatching his crown.
His low, rumbling growl vibrated through me as I held it aloft and everyone laughed as he reached for it and I placed it on my head, silently daring him to come and get it back.
He kissed me again, distracting me, and I let him think he was stealing back his crown as I let him take it from me, because the plans I had made for us the moment I had set eyes on him involved him wearing that onyx crown of his.
“Your first official event as the new queen of this court will be to attend the hunt at Wraith Wood, where I would very much like to see you run as a wolf and show your fangs to all in this court,” he purred against my lips between kisses, “and then Rhyn wants us to attend the Winter Court for the solstice. I shall have to make you more charms, my love. We shall fill that bracelet of yours before long. I want to show you the whole of this world and more.”
I smiled against his lips and kissed him again, feeling as blessed by Lucia as he had said I was, because she had given me a male who knew me, who stood at my side and lifted me up, and pushed me to become all that he knew I could be.
I was a wolf.
Cunning. Smart. Brave.
And my fairytale?
It wasn’t a white picket fence with two-point-four pups and an alpha wolf.
It was a black castle, and a family that filled my heart with warmth, and the most stupidly beautiful and bewitchingly dark fae king.
“I love you, nyr ill’aeth vel’aerhys,” he whispered against my mouth as he drew me closer.
His little queen.
“I love you too,” I murmured between kisses. “Nyr vel’aerhyn.”
My king.
“Nyr an’sidwain.”
My heart.
“Nyr ky’aethena.”
My mate.
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