Epilogue Colette
“You have to stop dancing. Your hair is a disaster!” Lysandra pulls the braid she’s been working on loose and snarls at me.
“I didn’t know fauns could snarl,” I say. I love teasing her.
She mutters something and pulls my hair. “Just sit still.”
Tully and Laini laugh, and I join in.
“I didn’t know librarians could snarl,” Laini says. Her hands are busy with Archer’s and my handfasting piece. It’s in the shape of a bat. Archer doesn’t know that so I can’t wait to see his face when he sees the design.
Tully snorts. “I’ve seen some very impressive snarling from librarians. I would not mess with you, Lysandra. I can promise you that.”
Lysandra nods in the reflection of my mirror.
Her hands work deftly to braid my hair in a crown around the top of my head.
Tully flicks her wand, and the woolen flowers Laini gave me earlier appear in my braid—little spots of dark purple to match my dress, deep red for the wine Archer loves, and pink because it’s my favorite color.
Finally, I stand ready to meet my groom. I spin and everyone claps. The candles flicker, and the window shades flap as the inn joins the fun. Mossette leaps onto the bed and mrrrrrows loudly.
I pet her soft, little head and scratch behind her ears. “There isn’t a softer spot than right here,” I whisper to her. I kiss her and start out the door while Tully begins singing.
“To the woods,
She goes to wed her handsome knight,
To the night,
She goes to bed her fine young male,
To the trail,
She goes to quest with her tall mate,
To the gate,
She goes to buy gifts for her love…”
“You actually know a song that doesn’t involve anything baudy?” Laini asks Tully, her voice sincere as a chapel bell.
“Only the one,” Tully says, chuckling.
Grinning, I hurry into the last of the afternoon’s light.
“He’s not going to leave if you are a minute late,” Lysandra says.
“I want to see him all dressed up and prepared to celebrate. I can’t wait. I promised him a quiet honeymoon on some faraway moor, so he swore to me that I would have the biggest wedding party ever seen in Leafshire Cove.”
“Oh, it’s a big gathering, that’s for sure,” Kaya says beside me. She smells like the cake she baked for us—white chocolate cake with dark chocolate frosting and frostberries piled so high that they will topple decadently over the sides. “Did you know that Archer’s brothers came?”
“They did?” I had no idea. I encouraged him to reach out, to invite them, but I didn’t know he’d done it. My heart warms at the thought of him mending those fences.
Lifting the voluminous weight of my dark purple dress, I lick my lips, imagining the sugary treat. I feel like a queen, and I am loving every second of it.
Archer doesn’t disappoint. Giving his brothers a wave of greeting from where he stands in the shadow of the pines, his eyes practically glow. He’s deliciously dangerous-looking. His black cloak sweeps the snow, and he wears a crown of greenery like a forest god over his long, wavy hair.
“He’s too handsome,” I whisper to Lysandra before we leave the cover of the trees and enter the clearing. “It should be illegal. I would give him anything he asked for with him looking like that.”
“It’s true.” She tsks and shakes her head.
I walk into the clearing. The snow reflects the orange and pink of the sunset. Lanterns line the labyrinth, and I walk it slowly, all the way to where my love stands smiling and waiting for me.
“Hello, my sunlight. Your beauty could blind me and I’d only ask to see you again.”
I lean into him and take his hand. “Your brothers came.”
His grin is radiant. “They did.”
Mayor Rustion begins the lines of the bonding ritual.
The words slide over me. I can’t concentrate with Archer looking at me like he is and holding my hands so carefully.
At some point, Halvard comes over and sets Laini’s handfasting piece over our joined fingers.
I eye Archer expectantly, and he frowns, looking down.
“A bat!” he says, interrupting Rustion and smiling down at the bat weaving.
I laugh, and so does the crowd.
“Hush, now,” the mayor says, a kind smile aimed at Archer, who grimaces and shrugs.
“She’s rubbing off on me,” he whispers.
I stick my tongue out at him, and he grins as the mayor closes his eyes and shakes his head.
“Can we continue now?” he asks.
“Of course,” Archer and I say in unison.
We agree to love and honor one another. Honestly, this is all for show. We both already know we’re committed. I can feel it in my mate mark as I know he can feel it in his. We are joined already. Fully bonded.
Mayor Rustion ties the last knot for our handfasting. “I hereby proclaim that these two souls are bound by love and knowing. Let us celebrate them!”
The crowd erupts in a grand shout of good luck and best wishes, and we sweep through the labyrinth.
Archer grips my fingers tightly. “I can’t wait to live our lives together, my sunlight.”
A bat soars out of the tree line and lands on his shoulder, wings splayed. I gasp and pull us to a stop. Archer delicately touches the bat’s wing with his free hand.
“Are you my familiar?” The tentative joy in his voice does me in.
The bat croaks and extends his pink tongue to lick Archer’s cheek. Archer laughs and looks at me. “It’s finally happened. I have a familiar!”
The bat takes off, but flies in circles above us. We leave the clearing and the last of the day’s light to walk happily into the dark beauty of our future.
Thanks for reading!