Chapter 28

Elara's POV

The days following Mathis's removal from the council brought a strange kind of quiet to Nightfall Hollow,

not the uneasy quiet of watching shadows in archways, but something closer to relief,

Like the whole castle had been holding its breath for weeks without realizing it and had only just remembered how to breathe normally again.

"You look lighter today," Nyra observed, watching me across the library table where we'd fallen back into our usual morning routine, though the texts in front of us now had less to do with ancient bloodlines and more to do with simple, practical matters, court customs, the history of Nightfall Hollow's founding, things I found myself wanting to learn now rather than needing to for survival.

"I feel lighter," I admitted, closing the book I'd been only half reading. "I didn't realize how much weight I was carrying, waiting for the next thing to go wrong, until some of it actually lifted."

"Enjoy it while it lasts," Nyra said, though there was warmth underneath the practical tone. "Court politics rarely stay calm for long, but you've earned a little peace after the last few weeks. Don't spend it worrying about what comes next."

I took her advice more seriously than I expected to, and over the following days, I let myself simply exist in Nightfall Hollow without the constant undercurrent of watching for danger, walking the gardens with Kael in the evenings without checking the archways for shadows, laughing freely at Soren's teasing during meals instead of holding myself carefully composed for an audience that might be judging every word.

It was during one of those easier evenings, walking the same garden path where we'd first said the words out loud to each other, that Kael stopped suddenly, turning to face me with an expression more nervous than I'd ever seen on him, more nervous even than the night of the full moon when he'd feared losing himself completely.

"I want to ask you something," he said, and something in his voice made my heart start racing before I even understood why. "I've been turning it over for weeks now, waiting for the right moment, though I'm beginning to think there's never going to be a perfect moment for something like this, only moments brave enough to ask anyway."

"Kael, you're worrying me."

"Don't be worried." He reached into his coat and withdrew something small, and when he opened his palm, a ring sat there, simple but beautiful, silver worked into the same crescent moon and thorns pattern that marked both our wrists, clearly crafted specifically to match. "I know it's only been a handful of months since the forest. I know that by every ordinary measure, this is fast, faster than anyone would advise, faster than even I expected my own life to move after a hundred years of expecting nothing to change at all."

My breath caught, understanding dawning even before he lowered himself onto one knee in front of me, the garden lanterns casting soft light across his face, none of the careful, guarded King left in his expression, only the man underneath, open and vulnerable in a way I'd come to treasure more than anything else about him.

"But I've also learned, these past months, that some things aren't measured by ordinary rules," he continued. "The bond found us in a moment of crisis, and it's carried us through crisis after crisis since, Vesna's warnings, Mathis's betrayal, my own curse trying to claim me every full moon, and every single time, you've chosen to stay. Not because the mark demanded it. Because you wanted to. That's not something fast or reckless, Elara. That's something I've come to believe is simply true, the way very few things in my long life have ever been simply true."

"Kael," I whispered, my eyes already stinging.

"Marry me," he said. "Not because the bond makes it inevitable, not because a prophecy demands it, but because I love you, entirely, and I can't imagine spending whatever years I have left, cursed or cured, without you beside me for all of them."

I didn't need time to think about my answer, the certainty of it settling warm and unshakeable in my chest the moment he asked, and I found myself nodding before I'd even fully found the words, tears slipping free despite the smile stretching across my face.

"Yes," I said. "Yes, Kael, of course yes."

He slid the ring onto my finger with hands that weren't quite steady, and when he stood and pulled me into his arms, kissing me slow and certain under the soft glow of the garden lanterns, I felt the mark between us flare warm and bright, brighter than I'd ever felt it, like even the old magic binding us together understood the significance of the moment and wanted to celebrate alongside us.

"I love you," I murmured against his lips. "I love you so much it terrifies me sometimes, how much has changed since that night in the forest."

"Good terrifying, I hope," he said, laughing softly against my hair.

"The best kind," I said, pulling back just enough to look at him properly, at the King who feared across three kingdoms who had somehow become, over the course of a few short months, the softest, safest part of my entire world. "I never thought I'd feel this way about anyone. Especially not after Ryker, after everything I believed about my own worth before I met you."

"You were always worth this," Kael said, cupping my face gently. "You just needed someone patient enough to help you see it. I'm grateful every single day that I got to be that person."

Word of our engagement spread through the castle before the night was even over, and by morning, the whole of Nightfall Hollow seemed to be humming with a kind of excitement I hadn't witnessed since my arrival, servants offering warm congratulations in the halls, Soren teasing Kael mercilessly over breakfast about finally working up the nerve after weeks of nervous hesitation Kael hadn't bothered mentioning to me.

"He asked my opinion on ring designs a month ago," Soren informed me cheerfully, ignoring Kael's warning glare from across the table. "A month, Elara. The man faced down Alpha Cross without blinking and still needed four weeks to work up the courage to actually propose."

"I wanted it to be right," Kael said, though there was no real irritation behind it, only warmth, and affection, and the easy happiness of a man who'd finally set down a burden he'd carried alone for far too long.

I reached over and took his hand across the table, the ring catching the morning light, and felt, for the first time since the night of my rejection, that the life waiting ahead of me held nothing but genuine promise, no shadow of Ryker's cruel words left to darken it, only Kael, and Nightfall Hollow, and a future I intended to claim fully, exactly the way I'd promised myself in that garden weeks before.