“Ronan,” I say, propping myself up on my elbow. “Let’s get married.”
His eyes widen in genuine shock. He may be able to read my feelings, but he certainly still can’t read my mind. “What?”
I feel his heart racing under my palm as I rub his chest. “I want to marry you. Now, while we’re still here.”
“Sylvie,” he says, sitting up and holding my hands. “Do you mean it? Are you sure? I don’t have anything to offer you. The home we’re staying in isn’t mine. I have no land. I have no crown—”
“I don’t care about any of that.” I pull his hands up to my lips, looking up at him through my lashes. “I just want you.” I feel the conflict in his feelings. His elation is tinged with doubt and fear. Maybe I’ve misread this. “Unless you don’t want to—”
“No,” he says with some force. “No,of courseI want to. I had thought, once we retook the city…You’d really marry me with nothing? You won’t be queen. I can’t even promise you that any of what we have planned will work. You may never be queen—”
“I don’t want to be queen. I want to be your wife.”
“Wait here,” he says, rising suddenly. He senses my concern and leans back down, kissing me hard and weaving his hands into my hair until I’m breathless when he breaks away. “Just wait here a minute. Trust me.”
My heart fills with nervous excitement. I lean back on the blanket, adjusting my dress and using the light magic I’m still able to use with Ronan nearby to ease my cramps once more. The sky draws me in with its deep, dreamy blue and impossibly fluffy clouds. For a moment, I have a sensation of falling into it, but then I’m grounded once more by a breeze blowing through the trees, which lifts the sweet fragrance of the bluebells into the air and shifts the shadows and the dappled light in a serene dance.
I don’t wait long. Ronan returns in less than half the time it took us to get here, but he cheated—he took Kira.
He lands her near the blanket, and she stomps around happily, chasing a rabbit into the woods.
Ronan kneels down, and he pulls from his pocket a small wooden box. The secret box he took from the palace on the day we fled. I’ve seen it by his bedside, but I never opened it. I know the value of secrets better than almost anyone.
“You said you’d need that,” I say, remembering. “What is it?”
He winks and flips the lid open.
It’s a ring.
And it’sstunning. A single large sapphire is set in gold so old it must be antique, judging by the intricate style of the engravings. They’re similar to the markings on my mother’s signet ring, the ring I wear on my right hand.
“This was my mother’s,” he says quietly. “The gold predates alchemy. It’s an heirloom of House Paulla, my mother’s House.”
“It’s beautiful, Ronan.”
“I knew I wanted you to have it before we even left. I knew I didn’t want to take the chance of losing it when Adria took the palace. I want to give this to you.” He takes a deep, stilling breath. “But I’m not certain I’m worthy of you. This version of me isn’t my best. It’s not even close. I have never had so little, and you deserve so much. You deserve the world. If I give this to you now, it comes with a promise. A promise that I’ll do everything in my power to become a man worthy of your love once more. IswearI’ll do it.” He looks up at me where I sit, his eyes filled with tears.
“Gods, Ronan,” I say, taking the box from his hand and setting it aside. “How can you be so wonderful and yet so wrong? This isabsolutelythe best version of you. This is the version that has lost everything but that won’t stop fighting. This is the version that feels his worst but that doesn’t give up. This is the version that wakes up with me every day and makes me so blissfully happy in spite of everything that I can’t imagine a single day without you. I don’t want your crown. I don’t want your power. I don’t want only the best moments of your life. I wanteverymoment.” I wipe away a tear. “I love you. Your best, your worst, and everything in between. I loveyou.” I lean forward and wipe the tears from his eyes, kissing him softly until he leans forward to hold me.
“Sylvie. You are already everything to me. I love you with everything that I am and will ever be.” He picks up the box once more. “Will you marry me?”
“Yes,” I say, my voice choked with happy tears. “Yes, Ronan.”
He reaches a shaking hand into the box and slips the ring onto my finger.
Then he kisses me, and I swear the sun could have fallen from the sky, and I never would have known it.
Who needs the sun when I have him?
Chapter Thirty-One
“Technically, I proposed to him,” I say, flashing my ring at Quinn as she returns from the bar with several shots of rum.
We’re down at an inn near the joined temples of Sai and Vahlo. Father took us here a few times before the war, although he always made us go back to the castle at night before it got too rowdy.
The Orsa seem to have kept that tradition alive. The inn is crowded, not just with the people from the town and the castle, but it’s also overloaded with Selaran refugees and Brakkari soldiers. There’s barely room to stand, but luckily, they made room at a table for one of Selara’s generals.
Quinn sets her cane to the side as she takes the seat next to mine. When she walked off the gangplank onto the dock last month, I cried at the sight. She may never regain the use of her left leg, but she’s getting around well now with the help of her cane. Octavia credits the sea air, but I know the truth is months of hard work and daily practice, much of it thanks to Octavia’s endless patience and encouragement.
