Page 78 of Shadow Cursed

Vlari’s giving me the one thing I wouldn’t have asked for, the one thing I truly want. Herself. Her time, her priority. She’s given up all of her power for me.

Rulla strides to her brother, and Dornant kneels to receive his crown.

“Long live the high king!” she bellows.

There’s silence at first, but all, puck and pixies, elves and gentry, come to their senses and exclaim as one. “Long live the high king!”

I woke up believing the rest of my life was going to be meetings and festivals, parades and war councils. I woke up knowing that I had to compete with the rest of Tenebris for my mate’s time. Now, we have our entire lives before us to do as we please.

For the first time in centuries, I’m free. We are free.

I wish Alven were still with us, little as I liked the bastard. Vlari cared for her grandfather. He’s gone, too. I wish Nero had shown his face sometime in the last century, but since his bondmate’s death, he’s retreated deep into the Wilderness, like so many shy folk. I wish my sister were here with us, but she’s one of the names we shout at the sky every year, in remembrance of the battle of Whitecroft.

They should have enjoyed today with us, but they can’t, and I have to make peace with their loss. The one true shadow that can never heal from my heart is the absence of Cissa, our third-born daughter. A child of the sea who hardly knows us. I don't doubt that she was invited, but she never comes to us.

I stride to my mate and wordlessly lift her, throwing her on my shoulder.

I know just how I want to spend the next hours, and that’s not playing nice with a court that's no longer ours to rule.

"Revolting," the high king states, glaring at us.

I wink at my son, dragging his mother to our bed one last time, before we vacate the royal rooms that now belong to him.

The End

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