71. Epilogue
Six weeks after Wren’s miraculous return to life, I propose to her formally, just how she foretold—with flowers, tears, an ambitious declaration of love and even a poem that I don’t get to recite because she’s kissing me too hard and I’m crying.
“I told you you’d cry!” she tells me at one point.
“Of course I am,” I whisper. “I never thought I’d get to do this, and I love you so fucking much.”
Two months after that, we marry, and we do not spend a single night apart between those days. Even when my mother insists I spend the night at the palace before the ceremony to be traditional, Wren sneaks into my old chambers, flying back to Wrenwood in the morning to get herself ready.
My mother insisted the separation would make the moment I see her during the ceremony all the more sweet, but she clearly doesn’t know everything about me, because I’m crying too hard to see much of anything.
Wren flies up to the dais and transforms in a burst of flowers and feathers, wearing a gown in shades of soft gold and sunset, overlaid with patterns of leaves and branches.
Her hair is loose, dripping with flowers and butterflies.
A veil trails behind her, stitched with all sorts of runes the brownies bestowed on her the night before.
I can’t make them out. All I know is that she’s the most beautiful person in the entire world, and today, she becomes my wife.
Mother insisted we hold the ceremony at the castle, because openly marrying a fey into the family within the walls where many were killed sends a powerful message.
She consents to having the reception in Wrenwood, though, so after the ceremony, the fey summons dozens of elkasha and flying carriages and horses and transport every wedding guest to the second venue.
The brownies have outdone themselves. The Brindlewick wedding is nothing compared to ours.
Wrenwood is like something out of a dream, every branch and root lit with thousands of floating lanterns that glow like captured starlight.
Golden lights hang suspended in the trees, tangled with ribbons of ivy and moonflowers that bloom only after dusk, their pale petals shimmering silver beneath the evening sky.
Long tables curve between the roots of ancient trees, draped in moss-green silks and overflowing with fruit, cakes, honeyed pastries and sparkling wines that change colour in the glass.
Music drifts from everywhere at once, as though the forest itself has decided to sing for us.
Fiddles and flutes play somewhere unseen, joined by the deep hum of harps strung between branches, and every so often the wind carries voices—soft, wordless harmonies from the dryads hidden in the canopy above.
Magic shimmers through it all. Little foxfire spirits dart between guests like living sparks, and every laugh seems to send another burst of glowing petals into the air.
At one point, a circle of fey children spins in the clearing and summons illusions of constellations above us, stars wheeling low enough to touch.
Everyone dances. Humans and fey alike, barefoot on the moss, shoes abandoned somewhere long before midnight.
Evander lets Hyacinth drag him into the center of it all, where he spins him mercilessly until he is laughing so hard he nearly falls over.
Dain dances with Zephyr beneath the hanging lanterns, both of them pretending not to be enjoying themselves nearly as much as they clearly are.
Zephyr looks happier than I have ever seen him.
My mother dances with Ru at one point, moving together in crooked circles, both of them laughing.
Later, Ru drags half the guests into some wildly disorganised group dance that involves far too much spinning and nearly sends Tob into one of the dessert tables while Marnie laughs herself breathless, Baby Eva balanced on her hip and reaching for the lights overhead.
Even Robin tries to join in, and Magda cries openly through most of it, claiming it is the onions in the food, despite the fact there are no onions anywhere near her.
And through all of it, Wren keeps finding me.
Sometimes she is dancing, sometimes she is stealing sweets from the tables, sometimes she is simply watching me with that look she gets—the one that still makes me feel like I am being chosen all over again.
Every single time, she smiles like she knows exactly what I am thinking.
At the end of the night, Wren and I retire to our rooms and I help her untangle her new crown from her hair. My mother commissioned it herself. It’s a delicate thing, made of spun gold, and edged in flower petals. It’s as beautiful as Wren is.
“No one crowns a traitor,” I tease, setting the crown aside and sweeping her hair over her neck so that I can kiss it.
“No one but you, Cass. You are, of course, the exception.”
“Technically, my mother crowned you…”
“Oh, shut up…”
She manhandles me back towards the bed, laughing and giggling until she’s flush against my body.
“I love you,” she whispers against my lips.
“I know,” I tell her, cupping her face and stroking back her hair. “I know it, and yet I am not averse to hearing it again…”
She laughs softly, the sound warm and breathless, and kisses me before I can say anything else.
Slow at first, lingering, like she’s still learning the shape of forever, and then deeper, smiling against my mouth when I make a helpless noise into the kiss.
Her fingers curl into the front of my shirt, tugging me closer as though there is still any distance left between us.
“I love you too, you know,” I tell her.
“I am very aware, and, strangely enough, not at all averse to hearing it.”
She kisses me again, and this time I let myself drown in it entirely, in the taste of honeyed wine on her tongue and the warmth of her skin beneath my hands.
I guide her gently backwards until the backs of her knees meet the bed, and she laughs as she falls onto the mattress, dragging me down with her.
I lean over her, pressing kisses to the corner of her mouth, her jaw, the soft place beneath her ear that always makes her shiver.
“You’ve made Ru very happy, you know,” I whisper, drawing back. “She loves having another princess around.”
Wren, who has faced down monsters and kings without blinking, suddenly looks down at her hands with something almost like shyness. A flush rises softly in her cheeks.
“We may not be the only ones for much longer.”
There’s a sharp, stupid leap in my chest. “Wren, are you…?”
“No! No, sorry, I realise how that sounds. No, I’m not pregnant, we’ve been careful. Well, mostly careful. We could stand to be a bit more careful actually, if that’s not something we both want right now, but…”
“But?”
Wren takes a deep, careful breath. “I’m aging,” she explains.
“Not rapidly, or anything like that, but…” She plays with her hands, like she’s itching for a blade to polish.
“I knew I’d have to sacrifice something to bring Evander and the others back.
One life for theirs seemed a worthy enough bargain, but it turns out a fey’s lifeforce weighs more than a human’s on a cosmic scale.
When I first came back, I thought I might have lost my magic, only I clearly haven’t.
I wasn’t sure what else I could have lost, but I’m bleeding monthly now, and although I’m not human by any means, I think what I gave up is my extended lifespan. ”
She looks at me, waiting for my reaction. I’m not entirely sure what one to give. I ought to be worried if she’s aging—Saints know, I don’t want to live in a world without her again—but if she’s only aging like a human…
“This is a good thing, Cass,” she tells me. “I have no interest in spending centuries in this world without you in it, and if my cycle is monthly now, then, well…” She takes my hand in hers. “I told you I wasn’t sure it would be possible before, but I think it is now. If… if you still want to?”
“You… you want to have a baby with me?”
“I mean, it doesn’t have to be right now—”
I kiss her so hard she squeaks. There is no elegance in it, no princely composure—just overwhelming, ridiculous joy.
I cradle her face in both hands and kiss her again and again, laughing helplessly between each one, until she’s laughing too, breathless beneath me.
I press my forehead to hers. Another kiss to her nose.
Her cheek. Her mouth. I cannot seem to stop.
“Yes.”
She blinks at me. “Yes?”
“Yes. Right now, next month, next year—whenever. Absolutely. Yes, please, Wren. I’d love to have a baby with you. Several, even. However many you want.” I kiss her softly this time, reverently. “Let’s build our family together, Vastren.”
“Our child will be the future king or queen of Erelis.”
“And the first openly fey one, too.”
“What will the people say?”
“Hopefully, ‘they’re as beautiful and wonderful as their mother is.’”
“You have such a biased point of view.”
“A man would have to be blind not to see how brightly you shine, Wren.”
“Oh, you are so very funny.”
“I thought so.” I brush a flower from her hair and tuck it behind her ear, letting my fingers linger against her skin. “Even when I couldn’t see you, I felt your wonder,” I tell her. “As keenly as sunlight through the fog. I would have spent my life in darkness happily, with you by my side.”
“You lit up my world, too.”
I smile against the corner of her mouth. “I’ll make a poet out of you yet.”
“Never.”
But when she kisses me, I feel the promise of all that is to come echoing outwards, like bells signalling in the dawn. The poetry writes itself, and the present, once full of darkness, carries only the brightest of sunlight.