The fawn is all legs in Aris’s arms as he walks her out of my alchemy room, where she’s been bouncing across the floorboards for the last hour, jumping on any flat surface and threatening to lose her life repeatedly around everything hard and sharp.
Heat pours from my fingertips. I smooth a length of silver flat, the molten metal reflecting red against the granite, when Aris returns in a huff, sweaty, new bruises on his forearms when he rolls up his sleeves.
He tsks, giving me an incredulous look before easing into his resigned seat at my worktable–the only stool strong enough to hold his impressive stature and weight. “You may have been right.”
“About what?” I tease, picking up the tools I need to begin etching the strip of silver.
“That our darling daughter is a wild animal and would be better suited to a life outside.”
“Our daughter?” I laugh, and it’s pitched. “Aris!”
“Do that again.” He braces his hands on the granite and eases up, leaning forward.
“Do what?”
“Smile like that again.”
The tools become leaden weights in my hands. His eyes are so bright and yearning that I do smile with utter and sincere happiness.
He traces the curve of my mouth. “You are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever witnessed.”
I used to think butterflies in my stomach were only reserved for the great, fictional romances. Someone will write a book about me one day. About us.
Today has been nothing short of a fever dream. We left the caves only an hour or two ago, Aris whisking us back to the surface using his powers. I showered off the grime and cold and immediately felt called to work on the diadem. I’m hoping, if fate allows, that Isolde will return from whatever alcove she’s been hiding in and tell us more about what happened to her and the male spirit. So, I’ve been etching and weaving lengths of pressed silver before coating it in flakes of raw iron, heating them until they meld into a loose, almost fragile alloy, then coating it again in an alloy of iron of chromium to strengthen the bond, trapping the silver inside. The braids of coated silver are scattered across my work table, ready to be fitted to the missing pieces of the diadem, but my hands suddenly don’t want to work. They want to press against Aris’s broad chest, undo the buttons on his shirt, and sink lower, and lower…
But he’s been a little weird since we got back.
First, in the caves, he pressed a kiss to my forehead and whispered that he had something to ask me. It sounded like he hadn’t meant to say it out loud, like his internal thoughts lurched out of him before he could stop them. He’d taken a moment to look around and then brought us back. He’s been hovering, nervous energy flooding off him in torrents, vicious and hard to ignore.
“You’re acting weird,” I accuse him, and he grunts in agreement before pulling back and sitting down. He crosses his arms on the granite and leans down to watch me work at hand-level.
“I have a hunch,” he murmurs, his eyes meeting mine briefly, “that you can’t wear just any kind of ring, can you?”
My throat feels suddenly thick when I swallow. “You’re correct. Metals are temperamental against my skin, yes.” I smooth another length of silver and heat it until it shines crimson.
He tilts his head, enthralled by my fingers and wrists, like he can see and sense the strange, shapeshifting powers of heat pouring like invisible thread from my hands.
“I want you to make me something.”
“What would you like?”
He makes me wait several aching, unnecessary seconds for an answer.
“A ring.” His silver gaze leaves no room for misinterpretation. “And a matching one for yourself.”
I set my tools down and lean toward him, the space between us narrowing into a slice of air. Nearly nose to nose, I ask cheekily, “Are you going to ask me something? Perhaps whatever was on your mind in the caves, Prince Aris?”
He narrows his eyes and rises, keeping his eyes on me as he rounds the worktable to stand in front of me. I angle to meet him, soot-stained fingers on my hips.
“You do enjoying watching me grovel for your affection?” He smiles.
“It’s my favorite thing in the world.”
He kisses me tenderly, possessively, groaning into my mouth in a way that makes me lean in, desperate for more, but then he pulls away slightly and kneels, taking my fingers in his hand.
“Marry me,” he whispers for only us to hear.
“Say please.”
“You are the biggest pain in my ass.”
“And yet, you’re still on your knees, Aris.”
He squeezes my fingers. “Be my wife. I’ll beg if you want me to. I’ll crawl.”
I know he will, and maybe that’s why I’m on the verge of tears. Maybe that’s why I’m already crying, imagining myself tucked in that bed at his summer house, books I couldn’t care less about sprawled all around me. Me, wearing the glasses I haven’t needed since I started letting my powers flare through my veins, melding with my blood to create something new and powerful, something that makes me whole and knits all the jagged pieces of my psyche together.
Me, watching him brace himself in the doorway, teasing me, his eyes having a very hard time staying fixed on my face.
I love him. I’ve loved him.
He’s mine. All mine.
“Posey Sapphire,” he whispers, “make me a ring so I can wear it everyday for the rest of my life and feel you there when we’re apart. I love you. I don’t deserve you, but I’ll try, Posey, for Goddess’ sake, I’ll do my best, even if it kills me. Even if you’re the one to kill me.”
“You’re–” I suck in a sob, trying to keep the mood light. “You’re barely selling this.”
His eyes are wet and glassy when he smiles and takes a breath to try again. “I love you. I want to wake up beside you every morning. I want to fuck you into our mattress every night.”
“Aris,” I sniffle, laughing despite the glowing warmth in my chest.
“I want to hold our child in my arms and witness something we made together. I want to grow old and wrinkly with you by my side. I want it all. I want you, just as you are, quiet, shy, and easily entertained by silence and something to do with your hands. I want to sit there on that stool and watch you create masterpieces with just a touch. I want that. I’d do anything for that. I’d do anything for you.”
“I know.” My heart lurches. My throat aches with a sob I’m not sure I can hold back. “I want that, too.”
“Then say you will.”
“I’ll marry you.”
He rises, cheeks damp with tears, and leans down, his mouth angled over mine. “Say it again.”
“Yes. I’ll marry you, Aris. I’ll make us rings. I’ll make them right now.”
I make his out of iron with gems made from nickel and platinum, turned into smoky diamonds under my touch. My ring is a thinner band, but the same. A beautiful, imperfect duet. He inspects them as they rest on the granite to cool, perfectly sized and glittering in the light of the setting sun, and I move on, my powers beautifully stable as I begin to piece the diadem back together, repairing lengths of iron that remind me vividly of the spires of the castle. In fact, it has exactly the same number of prongs as the spires themselves.
“I like the smoky diamonds,” he says around a mouthful of food.
He leans over with his fork, forcing me to take the offered bite. I appease him and continue the finishing touches on the crown.
“I think I’ll add a few… sapphires.” The iron in my palm warms, separating into balls of liquid metal before taking form. Raw, glimmering sapphires appear when I unfurl my fingertips, sizzling and steaming against my skin, but I don’t feel a thing. My hands are torched black by now, however.
“I can’t let Maeve know you can do that so easily. She’ll send you an entire list of things to make for her. She’s got a penchant for things that shine, like a crab.”
I choke on a laugh, and he feeds me another bite of food.
“I think,” I say mostly to myself, “it’s done. What do you think?”
“Try it on,” he says, standing.
I hesitate. “Well, it’s not mine. It’s Isolde’s.”
“She was the wife of the Alpha King, or one of his heirs. If she wore that, it means you have every right to do so, as well. I want to see it on you.”
The diadem feels light as air despite it being made of mostly iron. It looks so Gothic. Haunted, honestly. The alchemized gems glisten in the glow of the nearby hearth. It is, honestly, the most beautiful thing I’ve ever made.
But while I consider it, Aris moves toward me. The sword Ryatt left behind rests on a shelf above my head. I thought maybe he meant for me to repair it, but after a thorough examination, it’s not something that needs to be done. I could smooth the blade and replace the gems, sure, but it’s not just a hunk of metal. Every skill, every conquer, adds to its magic. That’s not something even my powers should manipulate.
With a deep breath, I raise the diadem and place it on my head. Aris has just grabbed the hilt of the sword at that very moment, his powers roaming through it, illuminating every gem in shades of blue and silver.
His bracelets ignite.
The gems on the diadem flare with light when our eyes meet and lock. “Aris, what–”
A shudder runs through the castle. It starts as a small, insignificant vibration, like wind howling against the spires, but erupts into a bone-rattling combustion, and then the room is alight. Neither of us moves, though. Light and sound storm around us. Figures of shadow dance in a slow, haunting waltz. Murmurs of conversation in a language lost to time and the whine of string instruments is broken by sudden chaos. I can see it all clearly, as if I’ve fallen back through time.
There’s a battle raging in the temple that spills into the castle despite an army of guards at the ready. Dark, vicious magic spreads like poisoning gas, stopping wolves and armed guards before they can even turn to unseen enemies.
The ballroom is next. The stench of death is too much.
“Aris?” My voice is weak. I can’t breathe. But his eyes are open and full of shadow as he holds my gaze, mouthing, “Wait.”
A man who towers above the rest fights with the same sword Aris holds. The same corridors we traveled earlier in the day come into view as he’s shoved back further and further until he’s guarding the doorway of the altar room, the place he carved out for his wife.
Not an altar of granite.. Not a place of worship.
That room was Isolde’s alchemy room.
Her scream of terror splits my eardrums as she’s attacked. He tries to save her, taking a fatal blow in the process, his helmet breaking, his Shadowsynger powers running dry.
They made promises to each other. They wouldn’t leave. They’d guard this place, their home, where they fell so madly in love they could watch the world burn and it wouldn’t matter as long as they were together.
But their world did burn.
The image suddenly extinguishes. I rear back, my hips biting against the worktable. I reach to snatch the diadem from my head, but Aris clutches my wrist to stop me and turns me to the strip of moonlight filtering through the windows.
Isolde stands, ghost-like, nearly transparent. Her wobbly smile fades, however, when she says, “He doesn’t remember yet.”