Page 27

Marriage is rare. It means you are bonded for life and can never officially take another to partner unless your spouse dies within a week of your marriage ceremony.

I was so touched when I realized how thoroughly Veyrion had committed to me after only three days. He knew . He knew, like I now know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that we were fated from the start.

And now I rush to tell my beloved king, “ No . I regret nothing. You could have told me before the ceremony that this baby wouldn’t hatch for fifty solars, and I wouldn’t have changed a thing.”

I cup his beautiful, cracked stone face with my soft human hand above our egg.

“I love you. And I love our baby, no matter how long it takes to meet him or h?—”

Before I can finish my declaration, the egg lets out a huge cracking sound.

And that’s when we all find out that humans may be physically weak, but even when we’re only half the DNA, we are ridiculously determined.

Less than five minutes later, we meet our purple, half-Stone Fae baby.

And that’s how the first baby in the Stone Lands Mountain Kingdom came to be born.

Two things could not be more certain.

One: I love this half–Stone Fae baby with all my heart.

And two: I am never doing that again.

With that, Princess Vivyrix finished reading a highly redacted version of her mother's diary entry to her half-lion son, who was born without an egg casing six solars ago. Lately, he had been asking why he didn’t have wings like his older sister and brother.

“So… our grandmother never flew either?” he asks, his little lion shoulders slumping in disappointment.

“No,” Vivyrix answers. “But Grandma Sallie Rose had something better than wings.”

She smiles. “Do you know we Stone Fae never wore the flower crowns we’re now famous for before your grandmother?

There were no flowers here. I’ve heard rumors that many of the older fae didn’t even know what a flower was!

But from the start, she had the love of her king.

And of course, our people adored her. They even let her build that temple to the Sylvos moon on the neighboring mountain to honor her father before his death.

Though, of course, your grandfather had a temple to the Eryx moon, who allowed him to marry a human without consequence, constructed right beside it. ”

“Grandfather loved her. Is that why he had the statue built?” Kaanan asks, peeking out the arched window of their family’s villa in the now much grander lakeside enclave of the Stone Fae.”

In the distance, there stands a statue of the king and queen, taller even than the one in Elephim, with an ever-blooming garden of perennials at its base.

“Yes,” Vivyrix says softly. “Father was incredibly sad after she died. But it’s said she lived to the age of one hundred because she loved him so. And that he didn’t make it even a solar past her death… because he felt the same.”

Kaanan frowns. “But wait… if she never had children again, why is your name Five in the Stone Fae language instead of One ? And why is Uncle Ereon the king instead of you?”

“Because love often makes you forget the pain and uncertainty of childbirth,” Vivyrix answers with a wry smile. “In her case, four more times after my eldest brother was born.”

Vivyrix sets aside that first diary.

“She was in her late forties in human solars when she had me. And I didn’t know until I read her journals after her death that she’d even been a little upset that her ‘surprise baby’ didn’t hatch until I was twenty, unlike my sisters and brothers.

It must’ve been so strange for her to receive one last fully grown daughter at that age. ”

Vivyrix chuckles. But Kaanan doesn’t.

“So all of her children had wings, but not her,” he says, “and she was still able to be happy?”

“So, so happy,” Vivyrix assures him. “Honestly, Kaanan, I don’t think she ever once wished for wings.”

She pulls her son onto her lap. “I remain ever proud to be her youngest daughter. And having a wingless youngest turned out to be the greatest gift I could’ve received in a last child. You’re able to walk in the suns, and you always use your time while we’re asleep so thoughtfully.”

She thinks of the past week, when she and his siblings uncast to find woven bracelets on their wrists—each one made by him with his little clawed paws and matched to their favorite colors.

“You know… you remind me of her in many ways,” she tells her sensitive little wingless lion, squeezing her purple arms around him tight.

This time, Kaanan receives the hug fully, nuzzling his little lion muzzle into her neck.

“Then I’m glad you married a lion,” he whispers, “and that I’m just like my grandmother.”

Together, they look out the window at the great statue, beneath which Queen Sallie Rose rests alongside her Stone Fae King, who asked to be preserved in corporeal form rather than cast permanently in stone.

Their love made this thriving Stone Fae kingdom and allowed Vivyrix to find a great love of her own while serving as their diplomat. Once again, she finds herself as grateful as her mother always insisted they be.

She’s gone now… yet she still manages to save the day.

And after Vivyrix kisses her son goodnight, she whispers, “Thank you, Mom.”

Somehow, she knows the handmaiden who became Queen of the Stone Fae is still watching over them.

Thank you so very much for reading The Stone Bride . I had such a lovely time in Lunaterra with these characters, and I’m feeling totally weepy about letting them go.