Page 71

Brynla

Three months later

“Snowball fight?” Andor says to me from atop Onyx, the horse dancing back and forth in anticipation.

“Only if you feel like losing again,” I say, gripping the reins of Juniper, the white mare I ride. She belongs to Steiner technically, but since the youngest Kolbeck has no interest in riding, she’s become mine by default.

Which is great, because she’s a lot faster than Andor’s horse.

He grins at me, his eyes crinkling at the corners, and I feel that flutter in my heart. How much I love this man. It should be a crime.

He knows it too. He uses his looks to disarm me.

“Hee-yah!” he cries out to Onyx, flapping the reins, and his horse takes off, galloping down the lane away from Stormglen.

He leaves me in a trail of dust and fallen leaves, but I only have to cluck to Juniper before she takes off like a bolt of lightning, her white mane flowing in the wind.

Lemi barks, joining in the chase, and he gallops beside me as we catch up to Andor just before we hit the main road. Once we go faster than he can run, he starts to shift and will merrily shift all the way up to Lake Efst.

Not that we’ve come back here since the original visit, summer having faded into shades of gold and bronze, autumn at our doorstep.

A change in seasons is a new thing for me, since the only thing that changes in Esland is the path of the sun, and I’m soaking it up every chance I get.

The first falling leaf from the mighty oaks outside the castle filled me with such delight, even though Solla lamented that it was a sign of the long winter ahead.

But winter isn’t here yet. Even though there will always be snowfall in the mountains, Andor says we won’t get snow at Stormglen for a couple of months.

Until then I’m soaking in the long shadows and shimmering wheat fields and chilled nights that lend themselves to talking with hot pear cider by the hearth.

I’ve been keeping busy too. Andor and I have gone back to the Midlands twice, both to collect more suen and to visit my mother.

Our talks are short—and strange, if I’m being honest. She’s my mother and yet she’s not anymore.

But even just those brief sessions with her are enough to heal the hole inside my heart, knowing that she’s not quite gone from my life.

She’s also been helpful with tips on how to raise the deathdrage, which should be hatching in, oh, about sixteen months.

It turns out that the egg has a very long gestation period due to the dragon’s size.

But that’s fine with everyone since we need the time to prepare for it.

Well, fine for everyone but Torsten, who wants his damned dragon now .

For what purpose, we aren’t really sure.

One dragon that will want to kill everyone but me doesn’t really help the Kolbecks or the people of Norland.

It’s not as if anyone can ride the thing into a coming war.

Speaking of the patriarch, ever since we returned from the heist, Torsten has begrudgingly welcomed me into the family.

I know he doesn’t like me, I know he thinks I’m beneath him (though he thinks that of everyone), and Andor’s uncle still goes out of his way to make me feel uncomfortable, but at least I’ve been accepted.

They know I’m here to stay. Andor waxed poetic about me while he held his knife to his father’s throat, something that would have been romantic if I hadn’t been so afraid for our lives at the time.

But other than publicly declaring his feelings for me in a fascinating display of courage and vulnerability, things haven’t really progressed.

And I’m not complaining. I don’t actually expect Andor to want to marry me.

I’m an Eslander, a Freelander, and I don’t know of any Norlander that has married into my people.

We’re either fanatical dragon worshippers or rebels, and neither of those things is an asset to either the Kolbecks or the royal family of Norland.

But still. Some nights we lie in bed together and I wonder how long I have.

I love Andor with all my heart and I know he loves me.

I know he has declared me to be his, that he has chosen me over his family.

And yet I’ve never been in a relationship before.

They’ve seemed so trivial when so much of my life was about survival, and I’m not sure of how one should go.

I suppose I should keep taking each day as it comes. Be grateful for what I have with Andor and ignore the fear in my heart that perhaps this is only for now and not forever.

So I push that feeling away and I surrender to the moment, galloping beneath the tall pines, their smell extra fragrant as a few fallen boughs pepper the path, chasing after my dark prince and his black horse.

When the woodland path opens up into a field of shimmering wheat and tall white flowers, I urge Juniper onward, galloping until we’re neck and neck with Andor.

I give him a saucy grin, the one that tells him I’m about to win this race, and his eyes flare in determination as he kicks at Onyx.

But it’s no use. Juniper is at her top speed now and we soar past the heavier horse until we’re in the lead.

I whoop and holler, twisting in my saddle enough to stick my tongue out at Andor, and then guide Juniper back into the forest, following the trail up the mountain.

After a while we both slow down to give the horses a chance to catch their breath, but Andor starts getting closer again as we approach the glowfern tunnel and soon both of us are galloping through the darkness.

The glowferns whiz past us like blue shooting stars, and I’m breathless and giddy by the time we stampede out of the tunnel and into the white world of Lake Efst.

The cold is a shock to my lungs, enough that I pull Juniper to a stop.

She throws her head up, steam rising from her nostrils as she snorts, and I stare at the beauty in front of me, the wide expanse of glittering white snow, the light fog that showers us with sparkling flakes, the bright blue lake that seems to glow like a crystal.

And then Onyx races past me, all the way to the lake, before galloping back.

“I won,” he announces, head held high. “The race was to the lake.”

“What?” I cry out. “We never agreed on that!”

He shrugs, giving me a smug smile. “Those are the rules.”

“You just made that up! You’ll do anything to win!”

“Won you over, didn’t I?” he says as he dismounts, the snow just past his ankles. He pats Onyx on the flank. “Now, how do you want to do this? I feel using our horses as shields is a little unfair.”

My mouth drops. “You’re the one who used your horse as a shield last time.”

“But we both have horses now. That’s no fun.”

With a wicked glint in his eyes, he reaches into his pocket.

Then he reaches down into the snow with that same hand and starts to make a snowball.

“No,” I say, starting to panic as I get my boots out of the stirrups. “No, that’s not fair, wait until I get down.”

But my dress is caught over the tip of my boots, making it harder to pull them out of the stirrups and dismount, so instead I’m squirming in the saddle.

And Andor has already shaped the snowball perfectly and holds it back, ready to fire.

“Andor, don’t you dare!” I yell.

Too late. I attempt to duck but he anticipated that and the snowball hits me square in the middle of my forehead, the cold blast showering me with snow.

It’s while I’m noticing that despite the lack of suen in his body, he still has incredible aim, something heavy falls right onto the base of Juniper’s neck.

I stare down, blinking hard at the sight. Snow has scattered across Juniper’s mane, but nestled right in front of the saddle’s pommel is something even more glittering.

It’s a silver ring.

My heart pounds in my throat as I dare to glance at Andor, so afraid of getting ahead of myself, of what this ring could be.

But he’s walking toward me, a grave yet anxious look wrinkling his brow, his eyes imploring as he stops at the side of the horse and goes down on one knee.

“Oh,” I cry out softly, my chest tight, my breath stolen.

He nods at the ring. “I hope you like it.”

As if in slow motion I reach out and pick it up.

The ring is silver but there’s a hint of gold in it, reflective and bright.

The band is simple until it gets toward the stone, where it forms wavering branches and ferns, wrapping around the stone like a nest. And the stone itself is a light blue crystal, fully transparent, with a glow that seems to come from within, bathing the air around it with an azure tinge.

It’s the most beautiful piece of jewelry I have ever seen.

“What is this?” I ask, my fingers trembling.

“It’s a proposal, lavender girl,” he says. I glance down at him and he stares up at me with so much hope in his gaze that my eyes immediately burn, my chest constricting until it feels like my heart has outgrown it. “Will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”

I stare at the ring, at the surreal glow, then back at him. “Are you serious?”

I expect him to crack a joke about how he’s always serious, but his expression remains intense and entirely focused on me.

“More serious than I’ve ever been in my life.

I love you, Brynla. And I want to be with you for the rest of my life.

Whether that means at Stormglen or wherever our adventures take us, I want to be your husband. I want us to be a family.”

I try to swallow the knot in my throat. “Even though I might not be able to have children?” I whisper.

“We don’t need children to make a family,” he says gravely. “You are my family and we are all we need. Now, please, my knee is getting very wet and very cold.”

I let out a laugh, joy rising up through my body like a flock of doves. “Yes. Then yes, I will be your wife. I will marry you.”

He breaks into the most beautiful smile and gets to his feet. He comes over to the side of the horse and reaches for my hand. He holds it and slips the ring over my finger. “Thank the goddesses it fits,” he comments in relief. “I was a little worried there.”

I pull my hand back to admire it. “What is it made of?” I ask, turning it around, watching the blue glow of the sparkling crystal.

“Diamonds, from Esland,” he says to me. I look at him in surprise. “I wanted to give you something that reminded you of where you came from. So it would be a part of you always.”

I shake my head. “Our diamonds don’t glow like this.”

“Ah, well that’s from the cave right there,” he says, nodding past me.

“I took the glowferns to Steiner and asked him to make another cube but one that would ensure that it would never lose its glow. He was able to melt them down and amalgamate them in with the diamond. Turns out his latest hit of suen turned him into an alchemist.”

“What can’t he do?” I mutter, still admiring the ring.

“Well, he doesn’t get to marry you, that’s for sure,” Andor says, a wicked gleam in his eyes. “Now come here and kiss me.”

He reaches up and grabs me by the waist and hauls me off the horse. I giggle and kick at him, and though I know I’m heavier to him now than I once was, he still does it with ease.

Until I lean on him and we both collapse back into the snow.

“Will you yield?” I say to him, grinding my body on top of him.

“You’re the one who just yielded to me,” he says, and with a grunt, he flips me back so I’m pressed into the snow. “My fiancée.”

Then he kisses me.

Deep, sweet, and full of joy.

A kiss full of hope.

The first kiss of the next chapter of our lives.