Chapter 17 Eryx
Eryx
I’ve stepped out of my district. Out of my walls. Into hers. Kings aren’t meant to marry on borrowed ground. Yet here I am.
We’re in her living room. Outside, it’s raining. Thunder booms. Lightning cracks.
It feels like the weather is commenting on this marriage.
Chelsea stands beside me, the scent of her filling my senses, making it almost impossible to focus. But my distraction isn’t entirely because of her.
Why did you tell her she can have her own bedroom? Nightmare demands. I was hoping to watch her sleep.
Try that and she’ll probably cut our throat.
She wouldn’t do that…would she?
I’m not willing to risk it.
In front of us, Chelsea’s grandmother says, “We are here to join these two people in holy matrimony.”
I had wanted a priest, but it was impossible to get one on such short notice. We only finished breakfast half an hour ago.
Her parents didn’t put up as much of a fuss as I thought they would.
That’s because you saved their asses. Maybe she’ll thank us with a kiss.
More like a kick between the legs.
Chelsea looks over at me then, before quickly glancing away. But not before I see it—the flicker of something in her eyes. Not fear. Not resignation. Hope, maybe. Or curiosity. Something that makes my chest feel less like a cage.
God, I feel like such shit.
But shit that is marrying a creature so divine I’m going to write poems about her, Nightmare says with a sigh.
You don’t even know her.
I know her. My magic knows her.
That can’t be argued with. It feels like our magic knows one another, which might be why she’s infiltrated my and Nightmare’s thoughts so much in the past few days.
Though Nightmare takes things farther than it should.
“Is there a ring?” her grandmother asks.
The ghostly apparition looks down her nose at me, and wow—how could I drop the ball like this?
I told you we were forgetting something when we left the manor this morning.
Yes, but you didn’t say what.
Nobody’s perfect.
“Just a moment.” I press a hand to my heart. “One second.”
I step outside, onto the front porch—yes, I’ve left my own wedding—and reach into my jacket. Rain pelts my head and shoulders, but it’s not lightning, so there’s that.
Kaboom!
Well, there was that. I sigh and feel around the inside of my jacket before pulling out one of her golden roses.
What are you going to do with that?
Just wait.
Using our magic, I shrink the rose until it becomes a gold wedding band.
So boring. You should add one of the black roses to it.
You’re right, Nightmare.
I reach into my jacket again, pulling the black rose through space and time until it’s in my hand. I shrink it, mold it to the gold band. The two together look like lava and gold, molten and liquid.
Perfect.
I step back inside and find Chelsea tapping her sparkly purple sneaker. Does she have a pair in every color?
“Sorry about that. Here’s the ring.”
I hold it up, and Chelsea stares at it a moment and then looks at me, searching my face for an explanation.
“May we continue?” I ask her ghostly grandmother.
“Please put the ring on her finger.”
She offers her hand, and I pause, unsure of what will happen when this ring is slipped on. I must take a moment too long because she lifts a brow as if silently saying, Any day now.
What are you waiting for? Put the ring on her finger and kiss her. Are you planning to use tongue?
You see what I have to deal with? It’s no wonder I haven’t jumped off a bridge or thrown myself in the path of a drunk witch on her broomstick.
I slip the ring onto her finger and wait.
It fits perfectly. Like it was made for her.
Because it was, Nightmare murmurs. From the roses we created.
From magic that shouldn't work but does, I reply.
Tomato, tomahto.
She stares at the ring—gold and black twisted together—and her breath catches. Her fingers curl slightly, like she's testing the weight of it.
"It's beautiful," she whispers.
Those two words shouldn't hit me as hard as they do.
And then—
Light explodes, seeming to come from every place all at once.
Golden light pours from Chelsea’s hand, swirling to the ceiling. Black shadows fall from my hands, rising to join her light.
Nightmare! Is this you?
It’s not me, I swear.
Her light and my shadows dance together, entwining like a pair of swans, rising up and then zipping around the room as Chelsea’s family watches with mouths open.
Chelsea steps back, eyes wide. My heart thunders. Is this it? Will she turn and run screaming from the room?
Please don't run. Please don't look at me like I'm a monster. Please—
But then she watches the magic and her eyes soften. She holds out her hand, and our combined powers ripple through her fingers like water.
And then she smiles at me.
And my chest pulses.
See? I knew you liked her.
I steel my shoulders. This is self-preservation, I tell Nightmare.
Sure it is.
The magic dissolves, falling to the floor where the wooden boards soak it up. The house shudders, and I cock a brow.
“It’s happy,” Chelsea murmurs to me.
And that’s when her grandmother says, “You may kiss the bride.”