Chapter Forty-Eight
Three weeks later
This time, when I look upon my reflection, I see not the girl everyone else arranged for me to be, but someone who is wholly herself.
I am dressed and decorated to my own preferences. A thin stroke of liner, a light shimmer across my eyes, and nothing more. My curls are loose, flowing past my ribs, a few pieces gathered here and there and secured with sea-glass pins.
The dress, however, is similar to the one Anton made all those years ago—the Fate of Morta gown.
Only this time, it’s weightless, the glass beading falling across one half of the bustier and down to my waist, accentuating the curve.
The other side is like liquid silk, a pale ivory that glows iridescent in the last glimmer of afternoon light.
Laurent brings the final touch. It is a crescent of a crown—an arc of hammered gold he positions carefully on my head. “Resplendent,” he says. “I feel like a proud mom.”
I laugh amid the sting of tears. “You are my family now,” I tell him. “Whether you like it or not.” I angle my head toward the cracked door, where two faces peek through the shadows. “That goes for you two as well.”
“I’m sorry!” Marian says, sliding inside, pulling her mother with her. “We couldn’t wait! We had to see the dress!”
“Laurent was supposed to send for you anyway,” I say, and Laurent has the grace to look guilty.
“I got distracted! His Majesty requested I bring the first piece of the crown to you at once.”
“The first piece?” I ask.
“This is only half. The other will connect to it at the coronation.”
The coronation, which will take place after the ceremony.
All of this feels irrevocably surreal, a happiness I never thought achievable for someone like me.
I still wonder if I’ll wake up and realize I’m in the dark of a cell again, that all of this will have been a dream, but it’s my friends who ground me in this moment.
I step down from the small platform in front of the mirror, facing Brigitte and Marian directly.
“I meant what I said about family. I called for you both to ask if you would stay. I realize you are both sharing a suite in the staff quarters, but I would like to move you here, to the royal wing with Laurent, as my ladies-in-waiting. I wouldn’t assign you any actual duties,” I hasten to add, a frisson of nerves, however silly, pulsing through me at that.
“I only ask for your companionship. This is all so new to me, and I’m rather overwhelmed, and it was your story that afforded me bravery,” I tell Marian, then glance at Brigitte.
“And it was your kindness that speared through the heart of my fear before the Gathering. My only relatives are far away; I’ve never even met them.
And I need…I need…” My throat tightens until I can no longer speak.
It turns out, I don’t have to. I am swept up into an embrace before I realize it.
“I couldn’t imagine a greater honor than to stay by your side,” Brigitte whispers into my hair before pulling back. “What a gift it is to choose our family, especially when the world tries to take it away.”
I swallow thickly, and to Marian, I say, “You can keep your position as head chef in the kitchens unless you don’t want it. How you both spend your days is at your discretion. I will ensure your every need is provided for from this day forward.”
“Your Grace,” Marian says, “your generosity—”
“One last thing,” I say, smiling. “Speak to me as equals. Vasalie will do.”
Just then, a soft knock sounds at the door, and to my surprise, Copelan peeks his head in.
“Could I…” He clears his throat. “Could I speak with Vasalie for a moment?”
Laurent looks to me, and I nod. He, Marian, and Brigitte slide past Copelan and out the door, and Laurent tells me he’ll be waiting for me outside.
I swallow as I turn my attention back to Copelan. His loose linen attire flutters in the breeze from the open window, his hair disheveled rather than styled, for once.
He scratches his head. “Vasalie, I—”
I march to him, pull him in for a hug. It’s fast, delicate, but when I pull away, he blinks in confusion. “I don’t know what that was for. I hardly did a thing.”
“You risked your life,” I say. “Back on Anell, by freeing Anton’s men, and by staying with me in Brisendale. Do you really feel you don’t deserve my gratitude?”
“All right,” he says. “So I helped a little. It doesn’t make up for the guilt I feel for nearly getting you killed. I was the one who turned you in to Illian, Vas. I put you through so much beyond that.”
“And I had been lying to you,” I say. “We were both hurting and desperate, just in different ways. You can make amends by moving beyond it. By finding your own happiness.”
“You really are something,” he says softly. “At least I can say I performed with the future queen. That I was witness to her strength before anyone knew her name.”
It still seems strange to think of myself as queen. But in a few short hours, I will be. I tuck my loose hair behind my ear. “What will you do now? Will you stay in Ansa?”
“Laurent offered me a position at the theater. Would that be strange? If I am nearby? They need a performer but also an instructor. There are several girls from the Glory Court who want to learn how to dance.”
“I couldn’t think of a better person for the role,” I say, meaning it. He isn’t the Copelan I first met here on the isle. He has a newfound gentleness to him, and perhaps that’s precisely what those girls will need.
“Any advice?” he asks.
“Listen to them. Believe them,” I say, “if they tell you they are in pain. Don’t search for evidence. Don’t go by only what you see. Pain is often invisible. We are excellent at masking it.”
He nods. “I vow it.”
A moment passes, though surprisingly, the silence isn’t uncomfortable. Just when I think he’s about to leave, though, he asks, “Are you happy? I just…I want to make sure.”
My smile grows wide. “I’m so much more than that.”
For once, his smile matches mine. “Then I can finally be at peace.”
I linger before the tall double doors leading to the throne room, the sunlight pouring in generously to dapple the floor below. Flecks of warmth glitter over me as I shift on my feet.
I wait only with Laurent, who will escort me down the aisle. A choice I made for the man who showed me kindness when I didn’t deserve it, and who does the same for everyone else.
I am glad for the moment of reprieve. My hands jitter nervously, twirling my engagement ring around my finger. It’s not that I am afraid. It’s that I don’t know how to handle this type of joy and excitement all at once. I’ve never felt it before.
Gustav approaches us and places a hand on mine, smiling softly. “He was grinning like a madman all morning, so much so that Basile thought him drunk. Not for one second did he drop it. I’ve never seen him happy like this, Vas.”
A soft laugh escapes my throat. “The feeling is mutual.”
“Here’s one piece of advice,” he says. “My wife and I…Well, on our wedding day, it was so busy and crowded that the day passed seemingly without us in it. We could hardly remember a thing. So today, Vasalie, soak up every single moment. Be present. Do not be parted from him. It is the day you two have earned. Revel in it, my friend.”
With that, he slips into the room, leaving us alone once more.
I glance at Laurent. He glances at me and immediately sets to work: tugging a stay curl of mine loose, then smoothing my skirts and flaring the train of my dress.
“I don’t know why I’m so nervous,” he mutters, tugging a small container from his jacket pocket and dabbing shimmer along my cheeks.
“I’m giving you away to the only man I’d trust with my life. ”
I can’t help a chuckle, then shiver—except not from the cold.
“I feel like I’m jumping out of my own skin—like it can’t contain me.
” It’s strange, this euphoria. Still my body is weak and fatigued.
Pained. But the adrenaline and joy carry me from each moment to the next.
I know I’ll crash later, but I’ll do so in peace with a man who understands me.
“I’d get used to the feeling—especially with His Majesty’s…talents.”
“You scoundrel,” I say with a laugh, swatting at his shoulder. But then he grips my hands.
“To family,” he says.
“To family,” I breathe.
When finally the doors open, Laurent folds my arm into the crook of his.
When I see Anton, even from this far, his smile is like the dawning sun.
He is clothed in a gold surcoat with ivory detailing, his ears and fingers bedecked with golden rings.
His sea-glass crown brims from his hair, which is windswept just the way I like it.
Behind him, Ishu is propped on her hind legs, a satchel tied to her jeweled collar that I assume contains the rings.
Basile, his ever-present captain, who is equally as ornamented—which I assume was at Anton’s insistence—stands on Anton’s other side.
Though his weapons are still strapped to him, his arms are decorated with cuffs, his braids jeweled, and even his armor has shining gold accents among all that leather.
When he sees me, he offers a subtle nod that lifts my heart.
It seems Anton forgave him, after all. I would have expected nothing less, when Basile only did what I led him to believe was the only option.
Out of the corner of my eye, I glimpse Sundar near the front, grinning broadly next to Queen Sadira, his brothers beside them.
Laurent told me earlier that he had woken, and he and Anton had reunited last night in what Laurent described as a “love fest” over a few glasses of ale.
Later I will give him my best hug, and we will all dance together, his brothers included, along with all my newfound family.
With every step I take, Anton bounces on his feet, as jittery as I am.
And when I make it near to the front, a delighted laugh escapes his lips, and I can’t help it.
I laugh, too. He grows impatient thereafter, when I’m a few feet away, and fetches me, pulling me up the few steps to join him on the dais.
His lips find my cheek, my forehead, until the priest coughs animatedly, a not-so-subtle sign that we should begin.
Soak in every moment.
That, I would do. But not just today.
Here and now, caught in the sea-glass green of his eyes, I vow to myself—and then to him, later, in the privacy of our bedchamber—that I will cherish every moment together.
I will cherish his smiles, his concerns, his jokes, his tears.
I will value every day waking up to him, knowing that this future is balanced on the edge of a knife.
That it almost wasn’t ours. Every second of our future was fought for, and I will never forget it.
I followed this man from this world and into the next, after he had done the same for me. We have earned this.
His vow to me is similar. “You are mine, come what may,” he says. “And I will fight for your affections, for your smiles, and for your heart, every single day, not because I must, but because nothing brings me more joy.”
Through this, I have learned that love does not erase pain.
But real love, true love, makes it all worth it.
It is a different kind of healing but healing all the same.
Later that night, we lie together on the settee on his balcony, gazing up at the stars. It reminds me of our time on the crescent. I tell Anton as much as I curl further into his arms.
“I feel I should win an award for the restraint I showed that night,” he tells me. “One look at you in that tub and I wanted to die. Sheer torture.”
“Torture? Yes, let’s talk about torture.” I turn and grip his chin. “Watching you with all those souls—”
“Jealous, were you?”
I pretend to frown. “Peeved is more like it. You were insufferable, arrogant—”
“And irresistible.” He smiles cheekily.
“I resisted you just fine.”
“You put up a fight, I will admit. A valiant effort. In the end, though…” At my scowl, he laughs.
“Souls, Vasalie, I had never been so flustered or frustrated in my life at the fact that you wouldn’t give in to me.
I tried to distract myself those evenings you danced.
I shoved you out of sight and mind, only for you to infest my dreams.”
“Yet you were reading my codex all along.”
“I had to know the truth about you,” he says. “The more I read, the more addicted I became. Your life…”
I bury my face in his chest. “I’m trying to forget the fact that you were privy to my every thought.”
“For that, I am sorry,” he says solemnly, until another grin peeks out.
“Liar.”
“I admit I found reading our story rather fascinating. You were as attracted to me as I suspected.”
“You are going to be insufferable about that, too, aren’t you?”
“Of course.” When I groan, I feel him laugh. I pop my head up, and he presses his lips to my forehead. “I fell in love with you page by page. There is nothing in there you should be ashamed of. But I am sorry for the invasion of privacy. Past Anton was the worst.”
“You have a lifetime to make it up to me.”
He pulls me against him once again. Soon we will go back to bed, but here, soaking in the stars above, I realize that for the first time, perhaps ever, my worries have melted away.
“Thank you,” Anton whispers into my hair.
“For what?”
“Not giving up on me. For loving me when I didn’t deserve it.”
“You always deserve it,” I tell him.
I’ll remind him of that for the rest of my life, which is easy, because I know he’ll do the same for me.