I cross the room and take Seth’s hands, which shocks him. “You could have left. When we escaped Faros, you could have left us. If all you cared about was your own survival, you could have gotten on a boat and gone across the sea. It would have been safer. Or you could have given us up to Adria in exchange for your freedom.”
Seth opens his mouth to protest, but I squeeze his hands hard to silence him.
“Ow—”
“You can pretend all you want that you don’t care about this family we’ve made, but I know the truth. My gift to you today, on my wedding day, is that this is the last time I’ll mention it. I’ll go on acting like I believe you when you hem and haw and pick fights and insult Ronan, but deep down, I know the truth is that you love me and want to see me happy. And I love you too, brother. I hope you find happiness of your own.” I glance meaningfully to where Taran waits in the other cottage. “Just do me a favor and don’t tell me about it if you do.”
Seth’s face turns red, and he looks for half a moment like he’s considering hugging me, but he shakes my hands instead. “Yes, well, like I said. You’ve lost your mind, but you do look lovely.” He pauses, and when he speaks again, his voice chokes for the briefest of moments. “You look like Mother.”
“You do too,” I whisper.
“I should be going,” says Quinn, clearing her throat. “I’m on the groom’s side for all of this, technically.” She pulls me into a tight hug. “But really, I’m on both of your sides.”
“I know,” I say. “Thank you.”
With Quinn gone, there’s little left for us to do other than proceed to the woods. Selara and Nithyria share wedding traditions. Seth, as my oldest relative present for the event, carries a torch from my home as the rest of the family followsbehind him. If we were getting married in the village of Pyka, the other villagers would come out and throw flowers and hazelnuts at us for good luck, but since we’re marrying in the woods in secret, we walk directly to the marriage altar on our own.
The torch Seth carries isthetorch, Vayla’s torch, and it does not love my brother. It flashes dangerously in his hands when he takes it from the hearth, nearly burning him. “Can’t we just use a normal one?” he asks.
“No,” I say. “It won’t hurt you as long as you’re nice to it.”
“Nice to it? It’s a bloody torch…”
It flashes again, singeing his wrist with its strange bluish flame. “Ow!”
“Come here.” I heal Seth’s wound, and the torch glimmers as I use Ronan’s magic, responding with excitement and something like gratitude.
“You did that on purpose,” I say to the torch, and it flashes a denial, but I know its games.
“Like I said, you’ve lost your mind.”
I shove the torch back into Seth’s hands, and we follow him from the cottage.
Octavia holds up my dress as we walk so it doesn’t get soaked by the puddles and damp leaves on the forest floor. It isn’t a long walk to the little hollow where we had our proposal, at least. Kira’s meadow is empty when we walk through it—she and Bitey are already there with the others.
When we enter the woods once more, my heart begins to race. I’m really doing this. After today, I’ll be Ronan’s wife. I’ll be tied to him forever.
But my heart isn’t racing from fear. Maybe I should be worried or frightened, but I’m not. At all.
I’m just so excited to behis. Now and forever.
It’s quiet in the woods as we approach the clearing. The birds are just beginning to come back out after the rain, theirsongs distant and infrequent. Our steps are near silenced by the damp; our procession, which had proceeded with some nervous chatter, comes to a soundless halt as the woods open up.
It’s as lovely as it was a week ago; lovelier, even, with the bluebells nodding under the weight of the rain. And it’s made all the more beautiful with the altar at the back of the clearing: an arch constructed from a winding wood covered in wisteria, which has been coaxed down from the trees by the priestess of Kerensa, a nature-born with an affinity for florals.
But the sight that takes my breath away is Ronan himself. He’s standing there to the right of the priestess, with Quinn, Taran, and Typhon at his side, looking as beautiful as I’ve ever seen him.
His hair has been labored over, likely with the help of the wind-born Typhon, and he has shaved and maybe even plucked his eyebrows, probably with Quinn’s help, or at least at her insistence. I smile at the thought of her teasing him until he relented. He’s wearing a doublet much like Seth’s in a dark blue trimmed with gold, and though it fits well and accentuates his broad shoulders, it isn’t what I can’t stop staring at.
It’s his eyes that captivate me, and his expression. It’s so nice to see his true face out in the daylight with others around. From across the clearing, his look shifts from the happy nervousness of the wait into sudden awe when he sees me. His eyes go soft as his lips part, his sharp intake of breath visible even from a distance.
His hands clutch at his hips. His body tenses with the effort not to cry.
The torch flares, its reflection of Ronan’s feelings completely overwhelmed with love.
Seth leads us to the altar, but my eyes never leave Ronan. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Seth place the torch into a waist-high receptacle near the priestess, but I just can’t stop lookingat Ronan. I don’t want to miss a second of the way that he looks right now, the way that he feels.
Octavia takes her place to the left of the priestess as Larus and Seth present me to him. They each take one of my hands—the job my parents would have done if they were here—and they place them into Ronan’s hands, which are held by Taran and Quinn doing the same thing.
