POV Casimir
I held my breath, ring extended, heart hammering against my ribs. I had faced armies, dragons in their lairs, odds that should have killed me. Nothing had ever terrified me like this: kneeling beside our sleeping son, asking the woman I loved to choose me.
Selene stared at the ring. Tears slid down her face, catching the moonlight.
“Yes,” she whispered. Then, louder, her voice breaking with joy: “Yes. Yes, of course yes.”
Relief flooded me like warmth returning to frozen limbs. I slid the ring onto her finger—perfect fit. I’d commissioned it weeks ago on the road, daring to hope for this moment.
I pulled her close and kissed her—gentle at first, then deeper. Seven years of longing. Six months of fighting for this future. All of it arriving here.
“Marry me tomorrow,” I said against her lips.
She laughed. “Tomorrow? Casimir, a royal wedding takes months to plan—”
“I don’t want months. I don’t want spectacle or theater. I want you.” I cupped her face. “We’ve wasted enough time. No more waiting. No more obstacles. Tomorrow, in the palace chapel—just us, Ari, and whoever truly matters.”
“What about Isolde? You’re still legally—”
“Annulled three weeks ago. The papers came while we were in Lysara. She signed. Exile has…clarified her thinking.” My voice hardened. “She’s gone. Nothing stands between us.”
Selene touched the ring, as if testing reality. “Tomorrow.”
“Unless you’d rather wait—”
“No.” She kissed me. “No more waiting. Tomorrow. Let’s make this real.”
A small voice from the bed: “Are you getting married?”
We turned. Ari sat up, rubbing his eyes, grinning wide.
“Were you awake this whole time?” Selene asked.
“Maybe.” Mischief—blessedly back with his health. “So are you? Getting married?”
I sat on the bed beside him. “Yes. Tomorrow. Is that all right with you?”
“Will I get cake?”
“Mountains of cake,” Selene promised.
“Then it’s perfect.” He flung his arms around us. “We’ll be a real family.”
“We already are,” I said, holding them both. “But tomorrow we make it official.”
Dawn broke clear and bright. I woke early, too excited to sleep. Today I would marry the woman I had loved for seven years. Today we would be a family in law as well as in heart.
By royal standards, the ceremony was simple. The palace chapel wore black and silver for Vespera, threaded with green and silver for Lysara. Master Aldric would officiate.
Only the closest came: Anya—already weeping—Doctor Saren, Captain Theron and the soldiers who had climbed Cloudmount with us, and the handful of nobles who truly stood by us through conspiracy and trial. Ari, fierce with pride, served as ring bearer in a small formal suit.
I waited at the altar in black regalia, hands faintly unsteady. I, who had faced dragons, was nervous for marriage vows.
Then the chapel doors opened.
Selene entered in emerald silk—the color of the Founders’ Feast, the color of my ribbon, the color of our beginning. Silver embroidery caught the morning light pouring through stained glass. A simple silver circlet rested in her hair; nothing ostentatious.
She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.
She walked alone. No one to give her away. She needed no one’s permission. She came to me by choice.
At the altar I took her hands. We were both trembling.
Master Aldric began. Traditional words, somehow new.
“Do you, Casimir Ruvan, take this woman to be your wife—to love, honor, and cherish, in sickness and in health, for all your days?”
“I do.” My voice steadied. “I love her. I choose her—today and always.”
“Do you, Selene Ardent, take this man to be your husband—to love, honor, and cherish, in sickness and in health, for all your days?”
“I do.” Tears shone in her eyes. “I loved him seven years ago in a garden. I love him now. I will love him until my last breath.”
“The rings?”
Ari stepped forward with exaggerated solemnity, velvet cushion in hand. Two bands: hers, silver with an emerald; mine, black metal veined with silver.
We exchanged rings. Our fingers laced.
“By the power vested in me, I pronounce you husband and wife. You may—”
I didn’t wait. I kissed her, and the chapel burst into laughter and applause.
When we came up for air, we were smiling and crying at once.
“Presenting for the first time,” Master Aldric said, pleased, “King Casimir and Queen Selene of Vespera.”
Queen. The word settled over her like the crown she had earned by surviving, not by ceremony.
The feast that followed was pure joy: music, dancing, too much food, too much laughter. Ari ran wild with other children, healthy and bright in ways we once feared we’d never see again. Anya told mortifying stories from Selene’s cloister days. Theron embellished the dragon encounter until it had sprouted three extra heads.
Selene and I barely ate. We kept finding each other’s hands. Kept stealing kisses like proper newlyweds.
When the dancing began, I led her to the floor. We danced the same formal steps from the Founders’ Feast, and everything was different.
“Remember when we danced before?” I murmured. “I wanted to kiss you in front of everyone.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Fear. Duty. Stupidity.” I spun her through the turn. “I’m done with those. You’re mine now. Everyone knows.”
“And you’re mine.”
“Always was.” I drew her closer than propriety allowed. “Since the moment you tied a silver ribbon on my wrist in the dark.”
She brushed my chest, where the emerald ribbon—preserved and framed—hung on a chain beneath my coat. “You kept it.”
“Of course. It was all I had of you.” I touched her wrist, where the tattered silver ribbon—scarred from stopping Kestrel’s poisoned blade—was woven into a bracelet. “And you kept yours.”
“My talisman,” she said. “Proof that love survives.”
We danced until the musicians tired and the feast thinned to embers.
Near midnight we slipped away. Ari had long since been carried to bed by Anya. We walked the quiet corridors to the royal chambers—our chambers now. No more separate rooms. No more stolen hours.
I closed the door. Suddenly we were shy again, despite everything.
“Nervous?” I asked.
“A little,” she admitted. “It feels different. Official.”
“Good different?”
“The best.” She stepped into me. “We’re married.”
“We’re married,” I echoed, astonished by the simple truth.
I worked the tiny buttons down her back—too many, too small; my fingers fumbled and she laughed, helping. Silk pooled at her feet.
She turned in her shift, hair loose, ring bright on her finger.
“I love you,” she said.
“I love you.” I gathered her in. “My wife. My queen. My everything.”
We made love slowly, tenderly—no urgency now. All the time in the world. Not our first time, and somehow it was: binding, sacred, real.
Afterward we lay tangled beneath moonlight while the kingdom slept.
“Do you think we’ll tell Ari someday?” Selene asked. “About the Night of Silent Lanterns? About the masks and not knowing who we were?”
“When he’s older,” I said, stroking her hair. “We’ll tell him that sometimes fate disguises itself as accident. That the best things happen when we stop being who we’re supposed to be and become who we truly are.”
“That’s beautiful.”
“That’s us.”
We fell asleep wrapped around each other, finally at peace. One year passed in contentment and purpose.