Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 71403 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 286(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71403 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 286(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
I giggled the whole way there. We passed Harpa as we traveled. She was drinking champagne, celebrating our victory, and saluted us with the bottle.
I loved that woman and decided, right then, to find a man worthy of her heart. Someone who would teach her love made life better.
The room was empty, cleared of every servant, every guard, the whole long, gleaming hall silent.
“Where is everyone?” I asked when he set me on my feet.
“Dismissed for the day.” He led me up the dais, a warm hand on my back. A look flashed over his face, and I would swear it skirted the edge of… nervous. “There’s something I want to give you. And I want you to see it before anyone else does, in case you’d rather throw it at my head.”
He turned me toward the thrones. On the cushion of the queen’s chair sat a crown. Gold, curved into sweeping arcs that echoed kraken tentacles, each one closed around a dragon’s scale.
Kraken and dragon, forged into one. My throat constricted. “Sebastian.”
“Look at mine,” he urged.
His crown, the plain dark circlet he’d worn since my arrival, had been remade. Faint scales had been worked into the metal. Rubies set deep in it, red as fire.
“I have already signed the decree,” he said, his voice not quite steady. “This morning. Every royal in the faction has a copy, and Jon’s people, and the mers, and your sister’s court. It’s done and it cannot be undone.”
“What decree?”
“Krakenströnd has two rulers.” He took me by the shoulders and turned me so that I faced him. “Not a king and his consort but two equal seats, with equal veto and voice. No treaty, no war, and no convergence will ever again be enacted by one alone.”
My heart swelled with joy. Hands trembling, I lifted his crown. “I am yours and you are mine.”
He knelt, allowing me to place the crown on his head. Then he straightened and gently placed my crown on me, saying, “Brona, I have always been yours.”
He carried me out of the throne room, and the whole palace saw it. Freyja frozen mid-clipboard, Soley with both hands over her mouth, Adelaide leaning in a doorway typing furiously into her phone.
“My sister is summoning the others,” I said into his neck. “Something tells me they’ll be here within the hour.”
“Let them come.”
“Olyssa will want a wedding and a meeting of the royals.”
“I don’t care what she wants. Only what you want. And I think you want them too, so you will get them.” He kicked our chamber door shut behind us and set me on my feet. He cupped my face in both hands and looked at me for a long moment—my husband, warm, whole, storming, here—and the tension in his shoulders finally, finally came down.
“Would you like to hear something funny?” I wrapped my arms around him. “I always thought I’d end up with a soft, gentle poet.”
“Brownie Bites, you would have chewed up a soft, gentle poet and spit out his bones,” Sebastian said.
I laughed as he drew me onto our bed. Because he wasn’t wrong; I just hadn’t known it until I’d met a ruthless king willing to tear through oceans to reach me.
I had come to Krakenströnd with a mission. Win the vote. Find my firebrand. I had crossed a sea and given away the only heart I truly wanted, but I had gotten it back, and I would spend the rest of my endless life treasuring it.
Ash and embers. Bring on the happily ever after.
Epilogue
Bane
The traveling stone vibrated with a low, ancient hum. I remained on watch, ready to end anyone who came after my king. I’d make the death fast, but I’d make it painful too. I wasn’t afraid to admit I was in… a mood. And it was only getting worse.
Tonight the new kraken queen would dance for every berserker royal. A feat the wolf and turul queens had not stopped cheering about for the past hour. Loudly. Both were humans, and neither feared a thing. Why would they? They’d already tamed their ferocious husbands.
My hands balled.
I shouldn’t even be here. It was a total breach of protocol. I was second-in-command of the griffin army, not royalty, and I usually waited on the other side of the stones. However, Malachi, the griffin king, was going through some things, and he couldn’t be left alone.
Currently, he stood propped against a stone, massaging his nape. “When will this evening end?” he muttered for my ears alone.
“Soon,” I said as King Sebastian finally escorted Queen Bronwyn to the center of the circle. The firebrand mark glowed on her chest.
Ethereal music filled the airwaves. The new queen seemed to float as she danced beneath the stars, every movement as effortless as breathing. Fire curled around her wrists with each graceful turn, weaving ribbons of gold.