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Her breath gave a tiny hitch.
‘You asked me what I would have been if I hadn’t been born heir to the throne and I had no good answer for you, because it wasn’t something I had ever allowed myself to think about. The throne, my country...they were my life. I didn’t expect love. My only hope for marriage was that it would be better than what my parents had. However it panned out I would do my duty and I would respect my wife. That was the most I hoped for. I didn’t want love. I saw the way my father abused the power of my mother’s love and I never wanted to have the power to inflict such hurt on a woman. That’s why Catalina seemed so perfect—I thought she was emotionally cold.’
Amy shivered.
Helios tightened his hold and gently kissed her. ‘I know I have the power to hurt you, matakia mou, and I swear on everything holy that I will never abuse it. But you need to understand one thing.’
‘What’s that?’ she whispered.
‘You have equal power to hurt me.’
‘I do?’
‘Living without you... It’s been like living in an emotional dungeon. Cold and dark and without hope.’ He brushed his thumb over her soft cheek. ‘If spending the rest of my life with you means I have to relinquish the throne, then that’s the price I’ll pay and I’ll pay it gladly.’
Her hold on his shirt tightening, her eyes wide and fearful, she said, ‘But what about the throne? What will happen to it?’
‘I don’t know.’ He laughed ruefully. ‘Theseus is next in line. That’s one of the things that struck me earlier—my grandparents raised three princes. It doesn’t have to be me. We’re all capable and worthy of taking the throne. Except Talos,’ he added as an afterthought. ‘Never mind that he’s marrying a commoner too. He can be particularly fierce. He’ll probably scare more people away from our country than attract them.’
She managed a painful chortle at his attempt at humour. ‘But what if Theseus doesn’t want it?’
‘He probably won’t want it,’ he answered honestly. ‘But he understands what it’s like to be without the one you love. His fiancée has royal blood in her. It should be enough.’
‘And if it isn’t?’
‘Then we will work something out. Whatever happens, I swear to you that we will be together until we take our dying breaths and that the Agon monarchy will remain intact. Have faith, matakia mou. And to prove it...’
Disentangling himself from her arms, he dug into his pocket and pulled out the object Pedro had set about retrieving a few short hours ago.
Dumbstruck, she simply stared at it as he displayed it to her.
‘This, my love, belongs to you.’ He took her trembling left hand, slid the ring onto her engagement finger, then kissed it. ‘One day the eldest of our children will inherit it, and in turn they will pass it to the eldest of their children—either to wear themselves upon marriage or for their wives to wear.’
‘Our children?’
‘You do want them, don’t you?’ he asked, suddenly anxious that he might have made one assumption too many. ‘If you don’t we can pass the ring to Theseus...’
‘No, no—I do want your children,’ she said. And then, like a cloud moving away from the sun, the fear left her eyes and a smile as wide as the sunset before them spread across her cheeks, lighting up her whole face. ‘We’re really going to be together?’
‘Until death us do part.’
Such was the weight of her joy that when she threw herself into him he fell back onto the grass, taking her with him, and her overjoyed kisses as she straddled him filled him with more happiness than he had ever thought possible.
She was his. He was hers.
And as they lay on the grass, watching the orange sun make its final descent through the pink sky, he knew in his heart that the rest of his life would be filled with the glorious colours of this most beautiful of sunsets.
EPILOGUE
Six months later
THE RED DOME of the Aghia Sophia, the cathedral located in the exact central point between the Agon palace and the capital, Resina, gleamed as if it were burnt liquid gold under the autumn sky.
As Amy was taken through the cheering crowds on a horse-drawn carriage she turned her face upwards, letting the sun’s rays warm her face, and sighed with contentment. Unlike many brides on their big day, she had no fear or apprehension whatsoever.
Beside her sat her father, who would be walking her down the aisle, and little Toby, proud as Punch to have been given the important role of ring bearer. In the carriage ahead of them sat her three bridesmaids: her soon-to-be sisters-in-law, Amalie and Jo, and Greta. Ahead of them were seven mounted military guards, in all their ceremonial attire, with the front rider holding the Kalliakis Royal Standard. More guards rode alongside the carriages, and there were a dozen at the rear.
