Chapter 42
?──── Kallan (Flashback) ────?
We sit in the hot spring, steam curling softly around us, the warmth seeping into my bones.
My back rests against the smooth stone ledge, Serenya’s body settled in my lap, her back pressed to my chest. One arm circles her waist while my free hand idly winds a strand of her silken hair around my finger, unable to stop touching her, needing to feel her close.
The glowworms clinging to the cave walls scatter their pale blue-green light across the water, mingling with the silver thread of moonlight that spills through the opening, where the lake beyond laps gently against the rocks. The world feels hushed, as though holding its breath for us.
She sighs, soft and content, and the sound strikes something deep in me.
“What do you want your wedding to be like?” I murmur against her hair, my voice low, almost tentative.
She chuckles, but there’s a note in it that isn’t lighthearted. “It will be a royal wedding. I doubt I’ll have much of a choice.”
“We could have another,” I counter quickly. “A smaller one. Intimate. Just us, and those closest to us. We could hold it in the meadow, with all the flowers in bloom, the air filled with the scent of them. Something just for us, beyond the crown, beyond the court.”
Her body stiffens slightly, and I feel her breath catch. “Kallan…” Her voice drops to a whisper. “Don’t. Please. Don’t paint me this dream that sounds so lovely but…impossible.”
“Not impossible.” The words leave me with certainty.
“We’ll find a way. I’ll find a way. I’ll search every line of the trial laws for a loophole.
I’ll enter, and I’ll fight, and I’ll win.
And when I do, you’ll be my wife. I won’t accept any other future.
” My tone is filled with determination, with the raw vow already burning in my blood.
She twists in my lap, straddling me now, her violet eyes glistening with unshed tears as they catch the glowworm light. My hands settle instinctively at her hips, holding her as though she might slip away.
“Promise?” she breathes, so quiet I almost miss it.
I lean forward until my forehead presses against hers, until the only thing I can see are those beautiful, violet eyes. “I promise, Renya,” I whisper, her name reverent on my lips.
Her arms wind around my neck, her face burying against my skin, and I feel the beat of her heart in her chest. “I only want a future with you. I couldn’t survive a life without you beside me.”
“Yes, you could,” I answer softly, though it hurts to say it. “You are stronger than you know, love. But you won’t have to. I’ll never leave you.”
She lifts her head again, her gaze steady despite the tears shimmering there. “Even if it means standing against the entire court?”
“Even then.” My voice is iron, unshakable. “There isn’t a force in this world or the next that could tear me from you.”
I kiss her then, pouring into it everything that words can’t say.
My devotion, my desire, and the vow I’ll never stop making.
That nothing, not kings or gods or death itself, will ever keep me from her.
She has owned my heart and soul since we were children, and without her, my world would cease to exist. If I must fight courts, burn kingdoms, or fall in battle, so be it.
Even in death, I would claw my way back to her. Always.