Epilogue
ATLAS
One year later…
The king was in his dining room.
Judging by Lindy’s laughter that spilled out into the hall, it was entirely her fault.
Atlas shoved the heavy doors open. Corbin, Ms. Fumley, and Lindy were all seated around the table, looking incredibly cozy and relaxed with steaming cups of tea in front of them and a tiered tray with frosted shortbread to the side.
“I didn’t realize we were having the king for dinner.
” He scowled for the sake of tradition. The expression was short-lived, unable to survive long in the presence of Lindy’s smile.
She brightened as he entered the room, perking up like a cut flower in a vase of cold water, and jumped from her chair to greet him.
“We’re not having him for dinner,” she corrected with a twinkle in her eye. She wrapped her arms around his waist and tilted her head back for a kiss, which he happily dropped onto her lips, tasting sugar and lemon. “You need to choose different words if we’re going to salvage your reputation.”
“Will doing that result in more visitors?”
“It could.”
He pulled her chair out for her and took a seat beside her. Ms. Fumley handed him a plate piled high with shortbread. “In that case, I stand by my previous statement.”
Lindy shook her head with a smile and a long-suffering sigh. Corbin’s eyes darted back and forth between them under raised brows. “Should I be concerned for my safety?”
“You’re asking this now? I already turned you into a swan.”
“True,” the king conceded as he took a sip of his tea. “Though if I had known being considered as part of the menu was a possibility, I would have brought Elise along to plead my case.”
“If you make your pregnant queen climb a mountain, you’ll go back down as a toad.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “No son of mine is going to treat his wife that way.”
“Yes, Mother,” he answered dutifully, setting down his teacup in a polite and refined manner. The two of them kept up the act for a few more seconds, then dissolved into laughter.
Atlas met Ms. Fumley’s gaze and shook his head in baffled amusement.
The largest, and most unexpected, change that had happened since Lindy’s trial and subsequent, self-imposed exile had been the shift in her relationship with the princes.
Though they trotted out the “stepmother” title for laughs, all seven of them had adopted her as a sister.
Corbin, especially, soon learned the value in having another person at hand who understood the pressures and complications of ruling a country.
Though Lindy stood firm in her avowal of never wanting a throne, she still had years of training and experience to draw from, and it was rare that more than two weeks went by without him or one of his brothers making the climb up the mountain to ask her opinion on something.
He quickly accepted that he was powerless to prevent the sudden increase in traffic, and, as time went on, he had to begrudgingly admit that Ms. Fumley had been right in her predictions—once the thrilling idea of the angry giant at the top of the mountain had been debunked as a myth, he had fewer and fewer trespassers of the adolescent variety.
With the exception of Jacques, who was there nearly as often as Corbin was, and had developed a passionate interest in gardening and assisting Ms. Fumley in the kitchen.
He followed her around with as much devotion as Phoebe had for Atlas, and as the young prince’s character improved the longer he spent around the matronly housekeeper, Atlas couldn’t find it in him to chase him away.
In fact, he even went so far as to carve some additional hand and footholds into the cliffside to make the climb easier and less treacherous.
“Speaking of Elise, I have a letter for you.” Corbin reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out a neatly sealed envelope. “She also said to tell you that she ‘requests your presence at the birth of our child, as her darling husband will be of no practical assistance.’”
The delighted smile that had appeared on Lindy’s face when the letter was produced dimmed as Corbin delivered Elise’s message.
She took the letter and tucked it away. “I think my presence might cause more harm than good. Not to mention, if something goes wrong, they’ll probably accuse me of cursing the baby. ”
The thought of his sweet Lindy being thought of as anything but the compassionate, generous soul that she was made Atlas frown. “They’re a bunch of fools if they do.”
Corbin shook his head reassuringly. “I think you’ll be surprised, Lindy.
It’s been long enough now that people have had time to be reflective.
Once Haldrick was demoted and reassigned, the number of rumors being spread decreased significantly.
Those that were still swirling were checked by fact—other than some sharp words and scathing comebacks, no one could claim to have been actually harmed or threatened by you.
” He smiled gently. “Not to mention, you have a half dozen princes who are actively campaigning on your behalf.”
Lindy lifted a brow. “Only six?”
“A half dozen princes and one king,” he amended.
Corbin stretched his right arm out across the table to her.
The downy white feathers that covered his skin ended at his palm, which he held up and open in invitation.
“You’re family, Lindy.” His eyes flicked to Atlas.
“You and your giant. We may not have done a great job of showing it at the start, but you will always be welcome.”
She accepted his hand, and Atlas caught the sheen of moisture in her eyes as she smiled tightly at Corbin.
“You know,” the young king said a moment later, releasing Lindy’s hand and taking a slow sip of tea. “I found some of Father’s journals. I knew he kept personal records when we were younger, but these were dated from around the time of your marriage.”
“Oh?” Lindy dropped her hands to her lap, and her back went taught with tension.
Atlas draped an arm over the back of Lindy’s chair, gently brushing a hand up and down her shoulder. As much as he hated the reminder that she had ever been anyone else’s, he couldn’t deny her this closure.
Corbin nodded. “I always wondered what it was that compelled Father to marry you—no offense, of course. But you were significantly younger than he was, and it wasn’t as if he were in need of an heir.
In fact, we had all assumed that after his last wife died, he would remain a widower.
His marriage to you was a bit of a surprise. ”
Lindy nodded wordlessly.
“When he received the offer of a peace treaty from your father—with you as collateral—he was curious. He wrote that the tone of the letter was desperate and almost callous, as if King Alfred couldn’t get rid of you fast enough.”
Atlas’s arm tightened around Lindy’s shoulders, and he hoped she could feel through the contact just how much she was treasured.
“He was offering you as a bride for one of us, but before Father could agree, he wanted to meet you, especially given what had occurred with Prince Dorian,” Corbin continued.
“He said that when he arrived in Nedra, he was struck at once by how poised and seemingly perfect you were—how every movement, every answer, every smile seemed to be calculated to please your father. He saw the way your eyes changed whenever your father entered the room, and he decided to bring you back with him to Cygnus, knowing that what you needed was not marriage to one of his ‘spoiled, unruly sons’ —his exact words, by the way,” he added with a rueful smile.
“—but to be free of Alfred’s influence.”
“So he married her himself,” Atlas interrupted, putting the pieces together.
Corbin nodded. “He hoped that whatever protection he could offer Lindy by making her his queen would offset the reputation she gained by cursing Prince Dorian. Then, as he got to know her better, he said he hoped that we would learn from her, that her strength of mind and will and calm, collected presence would help temper us. I’m afraid it wasn’t a very fair expectation to be placed on you, Lindy,” he said with a regretful smile pulling on his lips.
“You had enough to deal with, without being called upon to help us grow up, too.”
Lindy was quiet, her eyes dropped to her hands. Finally, she whispered, “He told me to take care of you.”
“What?”
She looked up, meeting Corbin’s confused expression. “The day that Theodor died, his last words were that he wanted me to take care of his boys.” She grimaced. “I’m afraid I didn’t do a very good job of it.”
“Not true,” Atlas immediately jumped in as Corbin shook his head in agreement.
“You gave them exactly what they needed: some tough love and time to reflect on their choices and character.” He reached under the table for her hand, gently turning it and rubbing his thumb over the bumpy scars that lined her fingers.
“Though I would have preferred if they could have achieved the character growth without so much pain on your part.”
“It was worth it.” Lindy’s eyes danced between them. “I didn’t exactly give them a reason to like or trust me at first. Not to mention the fact that it was my curse in the first place, whether I meant to cast it or not.”
“Someone else could have broken it.”
“Elise would have been the only person I can think of willing to suffer for them, and I wasn’t about to let her suffer through that. She already had Haldrick to deal with. It was my mistake, and I fixed it.” She nodded her chin firmly, ending the discussion.
“As any good mother would do for her children,” Corbin added, stifling a grin. “I’m thankful Father brought you to us, Lindy. But speaking of children.” He pushed his chair away from the table and stood. “I should get back to Elise before she starts to worry.”
Atlas and Lindy both followed his lead and rose to bid him farewell.
Atlas gave his hand a hearty shake, then moved aside as Corbin wrapped Lindy in a tight hug, whispering something in her ear that made her shake her head with a smile.
She stood beside him, slipping her hand inside his and leaning against his arm as Ms. Fumley escorted their guest to the door.
He bent down to kiss the top of her head. “What was that about?”
“Hmm?” She looked up, blinking the wide blue eyes that had captured him from the first.
“Corbin said something you didn’t like.”
“It’s not that I didn’t like it; I just don’t agree with him.”
He raised his eyebrows, wordlessly asking her to continue.
Her gaze dropped to the floor as she blushed, the pink stain creeping from her neck up to her cheeks.
“If it makes you look like that, I definitely want to know. What did he say?”
Lindy bit her lip, still refusing to meet his eyes, and the words came out in a rush, “He said he thinks I should ask for a promotion.”
Atlas’s brows furrowed. “A promotion?”
“To lady of the house. I told him that I was perfectly content as your housekeeper, once Ms. Fumley decides she truly wants to retire, and that I wasn’t going to—”
He stopped her with a finger to her lips, the sound of his own heart beating in his ears nearly loud enough to drown out her words. Hope and longing, kept alive but held at arm’s length out of careful love, burned in his chest. “Do you want a promotion, Lindy?”
Her startled eyes jumped from the floor to his face. “What?” she squeaked.
He turned and slid to one knee, putting himself at eye level with her. “Do you want to marry me?”
Hope and confusion warred in her eyes. “But I…you…”
He took her hands. “I haven’t said anything yet because I didn’t want you to force yourself to say, ‘Yes,’ before you were ready. Your husband had just died.”
“It was hardly a real marriage,” she whispered.
“Exactly. It was an escape. The lesser of two evils. An expectation to fulfill.” He squeezed her fingers. “I wasn’t going to present the idea until you were healed and whole enough to see it as an offering, not a requirement.”
“Oh,” was all she said as tears glistened in her eyes.
“Do you want to marry me?” He transferred both her hands into one and used the other to cup her cheek, swiping his thumb over the lone tear that escaped.
“Ms. Fumley will be very sad to lose her roommate.”
His heart plummeted in disappointment until he caught the teasing sparkle in her eyes. “I’m sure the bliss of planning a wedding will be enough to console her,” he drawled.
“And what about Phoebe? If she finds out she’s no longer the only girl in your life, she might turn against me. I’ve heard that geese can be very territorial.”
“Lindy.” Her name came out in an exasperated rush as Atlas pulled her toward him and touched his forehead to hers. “Stop being a goose and answer the question.”
Her voice was breathless. “Yes. I want to marry you, Atlas.”
He didn’t give her a chance to extrapolate, dropping her hands to wrap an arm around her waist and holding her close as their lips met, sealing their promise of love with a magic stronger than any curses.