Page 176 of The Last Hope

The wreath in mine is more methodical. I went to the babbling brook he loves and plucked wildflowers along the bank. I spent weeks weaving.

He eyes the wreath for the first time, and his breath deepens as his chest swells.

Our friends are gathered in a circle around us. Each one rattles a stone in a wooden cup, the sound belonging in nature, but it’s created for Mykal and me.

I can feel Franny smiling already. Out of the corner of my eye, I see our lifeblood shaking a cup with a face full of happiness. She has flown an aerovan. Many times, and yesterday Franny said that she’s less afraid of death. Each day is easier, better.

And we are safe. All of us.

Thanks to the baby. Zima Bluefall has grown quickly, andin three years, she looks like a sprightly green-haired child but she’s intelligent beyond her age. We all dote on her and offer wisdoms passed down from those who raised us. My future self was correct in the hologram. It took time to find the coordinates to a safer galaxy and gain permission from neighboring planets to reside there.

Just last month, Zima teleported Earth to theLalli KaiGalaxy. When she’s older, she’ll know just the enormity of the role she’s played. Until then, she is just a child bouncing in the woods. Playing with a wooden bird that Stork poorly whittled and rattling a stone in a cup at his feet.

He curves his arm around Franny. The fleet has given Stork time to rest for a few more years, as he should. His other arm and hand, a bronze prosthetic, grips a wooden cup and stone. He makes music with many more who are circled around us.

My honest brother. Kinden is smiling, brimming with pompous arrogance and also encouragement. Padgett rattles the cup beside him, their hands clasped together.

Young Gem has an arm around Nia, and beside them, Arden and Barrett play flutes while a little girl strums on a fiddle. They each spent three months learning the instruments and Grenpalish songs.

Mykal grins wide as the tune carries with the wind and birds chirp overhead, all in harmonious unison with the shaking of stones.

There are more friends around us. More people that we’ve met on Earth. People that Mykal says are too good to hate.

Love flutters inside my chest, and Mykal blows out a lungful, his heartbeat racing in anticipation.

I only look at him.

He’s only ever had eyes for me. Even when I couldn’t appreciate myself, even when I lost all belief in everything. He still loved me.

I wipe a tear that drips down my cheek.

He laughs and rubs beneath his eye. “Gods bless, yer gonnamake me start cryin’ already.” The more he smiles, the more my nerves subside.

I wanted today to be perfect for him, and I already feel that it is and it’s only just begun.

Melted snow squishes underneath my boots, and I capture Mykal’s hard-hearted blue eyes again. They fissure through me. Pure joy swirls through him. But the emotion is mine too.

“Just like you imagined?” I ask, only a foot away from him.

His lopsided grin overtakes his face. “More.” He nods to me as light starts to bleed from the sky, the sun rising. “You ready?”

I nod back. “I’ll go first, then.”

“I imagined that too,” he says. “You know what that means. Yer still predictable.”

“But never as predictable as you,” I quip.

Fondness passes strongly and beautifully and wholeheartedly between us, and as the sun crests, I take the next step.

“Mykal Kickfall,” I say and watch him kneel at my feet. His homeland runs in his blood, no matter how far away we are from Grenpale. There is only one way I wanted to wed him, and it’s the way he knows. “With my heart. My spirit. My strength and my soul. I will love you through eras. You’re mine, as the gods see it, as I feel it, as you will it.”

He rubs a fist at his cheeks.

I place the crown of wildflowers atop his blond hair, and then as he rises, I kneel at his feet.

The berried wreath is still in his hand. He takes a big breath. “Court Icecastle.” He says my name with so much pride.

My throat swells.