Chapter 12 #3
When they unlatch, their mouths are wet and swollen, Beacon’s lips red and Laurel’s chin raw from being scratched by Beacon’s growing beard.
“Is it alright to tell you I love you?” Laurel wonders.
Beacon jolts as if the words have shocked him, which makes Laurel want to say them even more. “Why would— I, I don’t…”
“Because it’s so soon,” Laurel explains. “I already know that you’re the man I’ve been waiting for. Best thing my father ever did for me.”
“The only good thing,” Beacon grouses; Laurel doesn’t argue. After a long moment of contemplating the stars, Beacon says, “I love you as well, then.”
“You can’t just say that if you haven’t put thought into it.”
Beacon’s brow arches. “Who says I haven’t?”
Laurel’s lips part, but surprise keeps him mute. Maybe he wasn’t expecting to hear those words either. Again, he muses, “Is it too soon?”
“We married five days after meeting.”
“Is that a ‘no’?”
“I love you, Laurel.” Beacon cradles his jaw, hazel eyes bright and glistening. “There’s nothing worth waiting for. Nothing will change my mind about you, and I’ll owe my mother a debt for the rest of my life—”
“More than you owe her for birthing you?”
Beacon hushes him. “Let me finish. I was waiting for you, too, even though I didn’t know it. Did I tell you I was betrothed once before, just as you were?”
“Yes.”
“Then you know I acted foully. I did everything I could to put her off the engagement, and it worked. I spurned her so harshly, I hardly remember her face anymore, and that was boorish of me. I regret it.” Beacon sucks his teeth.
“But while I am ashamed of my behavior, I don’t regret refusing the union.
If I had complied as my parents wished, I wouldn’t have met you. ”
“Maybe you would have,” Laurel says softly. “One year, at Everend. With someone else on your arm.”
Beacon quiets him with his thumb over Laurel’s stinging lips. “Don’t speak it; don’t even think about it. We belong to each other now. Against the odds.”
“Yes.” Laurel can’t help but wonder, against Beacon’s wishes, what his life would look like if he hadn’t left the smithy. If his intended hadn’t maimed his hand or hadn’t been disgusted by Laurel’s disability afterward. If they had been wed as planned.
“I don’t have much use for magic, and I’ve never had more than average reverence for the stars,” Beacon says quietly. “But everything about this life seems brighter now that you’re beside me.”
“I can’t imagine the stars being any brighter than they are now.”
Beacon kisses him quickly, and Laurel runs his fingers through the shaggy waves of Beacon’s red hair, purplish in the absence of light.
Humming, Beacon allows them to fall into silent contemplation until he finally sighs and rounds his back, spine popping. “Alright. I suppose we should make our appearance.”
“I’m exhausted,” Laurel whines, not meaning to sound pathetic.
Unfazed, Beacon says, “Let me help,” and as he stands, he scoops Laurel off the edge of the fountain and throws him over his shoulder like an empty sack
Laurel shrieks.
“Hush, sweet one. You’ll disturb the night.”
“You can’t toss me around like one of your— one of your big, heavy things!”
Without so much as a grunt of exertion, Beacon swings Laurel back around so he’s cradled in his arms. “Of course I can’t. You’re not the least bit heavy.”
Laurel tugs his beard in reprimand. “Stars above, you’re rude.”
“Let it not be said that you weren’t warned. You knew when you met me that I was an ass.”
“The only thing I knew when we met is that you were allergic to peppermint.”
Beacon takes long strides in the direction of the front gate. “You know better now.”
“I do.”
“Are you ready to meet my family?”
“I am.”
“You’ll take that back,” he warns.
Laurel delivers a punishing nip to Beacon’s jaw, drawing a noise of mock offense. “I’m stronger than you think.”
“I would never besmirch your strength. It shines no matter where, or how, you try to hide.”
“Like the stars?” The flecks of green on the back of his hand flicker in the darkness, as if his skin was made to match the night sky.
Beacon kisses Laurel’s forehead gently, lips lingering as he murmurs against his temple, “You’re far brighter than any star.”
“A bold compliment.” But Laurel’s cheeks warm with pleasure all the same. He slumps against Beacon’s shoulder, unable to pry his eyes from the vastness above. “Life in Stehr’s Peak… It’ll be a difficult adjustment in many ways, of course, but it sounds wonderful.”
The gate comes into sight, left ajar, so Beacon sets Laurel down. A breath of cool night air stirs the fan-shaped gingko leaves; creatures of the late evening sing along. A resolute expression makes a home on Beacon’s shadowed features. “As long as you’re there, it will be perfect.”
In that moment, gate creaking as Beacon swings it open, Laurel feels as if he could climb to the top of a stargazing tower—the stairs, the window, the roof—and when he stepped off, he would keep climbing. Higher and higher. Knowing that if he were to fall, Beacon would be waiting to catch him.
fin.
Thanks so much for reading!