Page 39

AUTUMN

T he sunlight sifted through the canopy like spilled honey, dappling the forest floor in soft gold and mossy green.

Echo Woods had always carried a sort of hush to it.

A quiet not born from fear, but from reverence.

The kind of place where time stepped back and waited at the tree line, letting you be exactly who you were for just a little while.

Autumn stood barefoot on the moss, her heart thudding steady under her ribcage. Not wild. Not frantic. Just full.

Her dress was simple, a soft ivory silk that hugged her just right, the bodice laced with barely-there embroidery that mirrored the sigils Missy had etched into her final charm bracelet.

A thin ribbon of pale green wrapped her waist, the ends fluttering with the breeze.

Her hair, curled loose and long, was adorned with sprigs of rosemary and a few stubborn violets from Millie’s garden.

She wore no veil. She hadn’t wanted one. Nothing to hide today.

Nico had cried the moment she walked into the clearing. Then handed her a mug of calming tea with a flourish. “For nerves,” they’d said. “Or drama. Whichever hits first.”

Now, the town gathered in a crescent around her.

Cassian Drake leaned against a tree, still wearing his notorious velvet coat and a smirk.

Junie stood beside Nerissa, hands linked in excitement.

Missy perched on a fallen log, pretending not to wipe her eyes.

And Markus, tall, calm, and composed in a charcoal-grey robe that somehow didn’t clash with his rugged stubble, stood at the center, holding a leather-bound book of his own making.

Autumn took a breath and braced herself when she saw him.

Dorian emerged from the trees like the forest had carved a path just for him. His suit was dark moss green, tailored and quiet. No tie. The top button of his white shirt undone. Boots, not dress shoes. A sprig of lavender tucked in his lapel, next to a sliver of pine carved into a small sigil rune.

He looked like a storm waiting to be kissed.

Autumn’s feet moved without command, drawing her forward. She met him beneath the oldest tree, where the roots curved like arms and the branches bowed low in silent blessing.

He took her hands, warm and calloused and sure.

Markus cleared his throat.

“We gather here,” he began, voice calm, “not to promise perfection, but to promise presence. To stand beside what is imperfect and call it sacred.”

Autumn barely heard the rest.

All she saw was Dorian. His eyes. The faint twitch at the corner of his mouth as if he wanted to smile and couldn’t, not with all this feeling in the way. Her thumb traced the scar on his knuckle. His fingers curled tighter around hers.

Then it was her turn.

The words came slow. But certain.

“I thought love had to be quiet,” she said.

“Like it was something you earned in pieces, and if you held too tight, it would vanish. But then you stood there—in that house full of grief and ghosts—and you stayed. You stayed. And you didn’t ask me to be less, or softer, or quieter.

You asked me to be mine. And I’ve never wanted anything more than to be yours. ”

Dorian swallowed hard, eyes shining.

He cleared his throat. Spoke low.

“You were the loudest thing I’d ever felt in a house that hadn’t made a sound in years,” he said.

“And I didn’t know I was waitin’ for you until you knocked the dust off my life and asked it to bloom again.

You taught me that strength isn’t in the holding on, but in the letting in.

And I’ll spend every damn day proving that you never have to run again. ”

Markus’s voice was soft when he spoke next. “By the wind that brings change, by the soil that holds memory, by the moon that knows secrets, we bind this truth.”

The ribbon—green and gold—wrapped their joined hands.

Dorian kissed her there with a kind of kiss that carried roots. The kind that whispered, We made it.

Applause broke through the clearing, wild and bright. Someone whistled. Someone definitely wept.

They turned, hands still laced, faces flushed.

Autumn looked up at him. “You’re my home,” she said.

Dorian grinned. “Took you long enough to say it out loud.”

She rolled her eyes. “Still not taking your last name.”

“We’ll talk about it.”

They laughed.

And somewhere, just beyond the clearing, the wind stirred through the trees, not mournful, but light. Content.

Echo Woods didn’t whisper warnings that day.

It sang.