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A high-pitched scream sounded, and I looked up in time to see the other pixie racing toward me, but before it could land a blow to my face, I slapped it, and it landed some distance away in the grass and did not rise again.

I washed my hands free of the blood and bone in the water and reached for my ax when I noticed black thorns and solid shadows trailing across the ground. As I straightened and turned, I found Casamir before me, his magic surrounding us like a wall, a comfort I never thought I would want but desired now forever.

He took me by the shoulders and brought me close, his eyes as black as the night sky, gleaming like the stars.

“Casamir,” I breathed.

I wrapped my arms around him, though he looked vicious and bloody. If I had to guess, the other pixies who had helped the prince capture me had met their ends at his hands.

“You are hurt,” he said.

“It is only a scratch,” I said, pulling back to look at him. “The prince is dead.”

Casamir bared his teeth.

“I am sorry. I did not know—” he began.

“It’s all right, Casamir,” I said and pressed my fingers to his lips. “It does not matter. I am well and I know your name. Your true name.”

The harshness etched on his face did not ease.

“My name?”

My brows lowered. “Aren’t you pleased?”

I thought he would be. Wasn’t this what he wanted?

It was what he had said when I’d asked him what he wanted most.

My name. My true name.

“I lied,” he said. “When you asked what I wanted most. I want you. I know myself when I am with you.”

“Casamir,” I said and drew a stray piece of his hair behind his ear, then I smiled before whispering, “My name is Gesela.”

His eyes widened, and I leaned in, whispering his name before my mouth met his.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Happily Ever After

It was almost noon, and the sun burned high in the sky as I road into the town of Elk on Balthazar’s back, dressed in a gown of thorn and shadow. On my head, I wore a crown of twigs and iridescent wings, a gift from Casamir. They’d come from the backs of the pixies who had aided the mortal prince in abducting me. I wore it proudly, a mark of my status as his future wife.

The thought made my chest feel warm, and as it spread through my limbs, I sat up taller.

“Gesela,” Casamir had murmured as we lay together in bed once we returned home from the selkie’s pond, once we had washed ourselves of the mud and blood. “Princess of the Kingdom of Thorn.”

I shivered at the sound of my name on his lips, at the title he would bestow on me.

I looked down at him, tracing his mouth. “But that is my true name,” I said. “Only you can call me by my true name.”

Only he and death.

He smiled. “True,” he said. “What would you like to be called by everyone else?”

My grin matched his. “Princess would suffice,” I said, pausing. “Princess…Ella. It is what my sister would call me.”

I only hoped that one day soon, she would emerge from the roots of the willow tree where she had lain and healed to hear her call me that again.