The Crown Prophecy

Chapter 15.3

The vast space felt suffocating and oppressive. Even the swath of dull grey sky visible through the domed ceiling window lent itself to the somber mood. The dark paneling on the walls was reflected in the polished floor, interrupted only by a long burgundy rug. Not yet feeling brave enough to face Evander, I counted the carved marble columns along each side to steady my breaths. My distraction was short-lived; as I reached a count of sixteen lining the way to the raised dais, I met his eyes.

Evander was sitting on the throne, silhouetted by the arched stained glass windows behind him. His doublet was a deep blue that should’ve brought out his eyes, but instead made him look even more pale and drawn.

Still, he held his head with a regal air. Atop it was a golden crown with sapphires inlaid on the band. Funny, I had never seen him wear one before. It suited him.

I did my best to project confidence and positivity as I mouthed “Good luck.” In return, he gave me a sad, tired sort of smile, returning his attention to General Finch, who was explaining the rules of the trial.

Besides Evander and the contestants, there were about three dozen audience members in attendance. The group was composed mostly of guards and older nobles, likely friends of Evander’s mother. I looked around for Evalina herself, comparing the faces of the women I saw to the few portraits of her I had found hanging around the castle, but didn’t find her in the crowd.

Good, I thought sadly. She would hate this.

The Wielders were lined up in front of the dais, various degrees of petrification on their faces. Colette, calm and composed, looked back at me and winked. I covered my snort with a loud cough.

No one knew about our little experiment a few days ago, so Colette and Vanessa would be casting with everybody else. There were a little under a dozen women in the line, and I looked at their faces, wondering which one would be the kingdom’s salvation. Evander’s salvation.

I allowed myself one last pining look at him, breathtaking even when he was so tired and worn, then slammed the doors of my heart shut for good. In a few days, he would be back to his old self, leading his kingdom the way I knew only he could. Maybe his mother would even wake up for the wedding. This was going to be good. It had to be.

As Finch finished explaining the exercise, practically the exact same casting we had tried earlier in the week, the audience broke into light applause. The crowd was tense, as if everyone in attendance knew how important this moment was.

The room itself seemed to hold its breath as the first woman stepped up onto the dais. It was Satoria, the wind-Wielder. Finch showed her where to stand and Evander came up behind her. After they exchanged a few words, he nodded, assuming a casting position with his arms outstretched around her, careful not to touch.

She focused on a spot a few feet in front of them and a small tornado, only about a foot high, whirled into existence. Sweat began beading on Evander’s forehead the moment he joined her. Satoria furrowed her brows, willing the tornado to grow, but it didn’t even reach the height that I had seen her achieve in the training room.

Evander thanked her and she put on a good show of neutrality as she stepped off the dais and made her way to one of the open seats.

Anissa was much the same, her light burning as brightly as it did in the practice room, but no brighter.

By the third contestant, I started to panic. What if he didn’t find the right woman? Would he really start the whole process over again? If not one of the descendants of the founding Wielders, who would be powerful enough to help shoulder the burden?

Freya the fire-Wielder approached the dais but didn’t step up.

“Your Majesty.” She sunk into a deep bow. “King Orobas sends his regards.” Panicked sparked as I recognized the name of the Falerian king, but I didn’t have time to discern her meaning before she smirked and threw her chest back, pulling her arms behind her, and whipped them in Evander’s direction.

Flames burst out from her outstretched hands, engulfing him in an orb of fire. It was easily ten feet tall, larger than any casting I had ever seen.

That kind of power . . .

Maddox sprinted up to the dais, only to be met with a second wall of fire Freya cast without even blinking.

My heart seized in alarm as the orb began to shrink, caging Evander inside.

Finch. Finch wielded ice. He could fix this. I looked over at him frantically. He threw his arms out repeatedly, but not so much as a single shard escaped his fingertips. He was completely drained. Like Liang Like Emory. Freya had done this to all of them, and I was willing to bet she was behind the poisoned cookies as well.

I watched her in mute horror. Hatred twisted her face as she paced back and forth in front of the dais. She held the orb steady, toying with Evander as she gloated.

“Orobas thought you would be more of an opponent,” she said. “The fated Protector of Enorias. To think all it took to weaken you was your own Crown.” She tutted. Though I couldn’t see Evander’s face, I knew it must be excruciating inside her casting. Even if he wasn’t burned by the flames directly, the ambient heat and smoke inhalation were just as likely to kill him.

“Not to worry, though,” she crooned. “He’ll be a much stronger leader for your kingdom. A visionary as well as a king. He has plans beyond what you could possibly comprehend.”

She walked up close to the orb, peered in as if she were looking through a window, and sneered.

“Goodbye, King Evander.” The orb began to shrink even faster. It must be close to touching him now.

“No!” I let out a scream, piercing and shrill, and threw my arms outward as if I could somehow reach him from across the room.

I couldn’t lose him like this.

A life I could never have flashed before my eyes. One where we had lazy Sunday mornings and walks in the village, where I learned his favorite songs by heart and played them to him before bed. A life where we were safe.

Freya’s head snapped back to me, her lips curled in a mirthless smile as she witnessed my devastation.

Then the world erupted.

The orb of fire shattered outward, knocking her to the ground, and her conjured wall collapsed as she hit her head on the dais and lost consciousness. My eyes flicked over to Maddox only long enough to see her jump to action, pinning Freya’s unconscious body to the ground, before I broke into a run.

Smoke filled the air, and I couldn’t make out Evander, couldn’t see if he was all right. I ran straight into it, my lungs protesting, and groped around blindly to try to find him.

Not for the first time since I had come to the palace, something impossible happened. Evander stepped out of the smoke, a shimmering blue-grey orb, smaller than the fire orb and completely free of pollution, surrounding him.

His eyes found mine and he looked at me as if he were seeing me for the first time.

“Quinn,” he said my name so softly I could barely hear it. “Lower your arms.”

I slowly drew them down to my sides and the orb dissipated as if it had been waiting for my permission.

In seconds, Evander’s lips were on mine, the kiss bruising and desperate. I pulled him in tight, desperate to feel the solid form of his shoulders, his chest. He was alive.

Pulling his head back a fraction of an inch, he threaded his hands into the curls on either side of my face, drawing our foreheads together. I didn’t care who was around us to see or what they might think. Everything that existed outside our embrace faded from the room.

Evander’s eyes were glistening with tears. He held my face as if it were the most precious thing in the world.

“You’re a Wielder, Quinn,” he said. “You’re a Wielder.” The second time he said it, his face split into a dazzling smile. “It’s you. It’s always been you. That pull we’ve been fighting–it’s the music. Can you hear it too?” I nodded, breath catching in my chest as I remembered a dozen unthinkable miracles . . .

The uncanny sense he had that I was in danger, the breath I took in the evaluation room. Even my fight with Vanessa and the way I managed to remain hidden from Satoria just a few days prior. But I hadn’t dared to hope.

Now I could dream freely, not about using this power to remain hidden or protect myself, but about what I could create with it. The life it opened up for me, for us. A disbelieving laugh bubbled up from my throat as Evander beamed at me.

He kissed my forehead and took my hand in his, kneeling to the ground.

In a booming voice, he announced, “I have found my queen. The one whom my magic sings to and whose power answers in return. She is braver, fiercer, and more worthy than I could ever hope to be.”

His next words were quieter, meant only for me. “I love you. I will love you until my last breath and I will keep loving you in whatever world comes next.” The tears were coming in full force now, sobs wracking my body as I took in the impossibility of this man on his knees for me, proclaiming his love in a burning room.

“Quinn Parry, will you do the honor of marrying me?”

I was on the ground with him without knowing how I got there, his face in my hands as I kissed him once, slowly.

When I looked into his sapphire eyes, I found the old familiar sparkle waiting for me.

With everything in me, I threw my arms around his neck and uttered the easiest answer I had ever given in my life.

“Yes.”

. . .

I had a vague sense that the room was cleared and Freya escorted to the dungeons, but I felt like a sleepwalker, disconnected from my body as I moved around in a dreamlike haze. Refusing to let Evander out of my sight for any length of time, I clutched his hand tightly in mine even as the healer assessed him for injury.

All the while, he beamed at me, stopping every few moments to press a kiss to my knuckles.

Years seemed to pass before everything was settled and we retired to Evander’s chambers at last. Once inside, he closed the doors and turned to meet my eyes. It was the first moment we had alone since before our experiment with Colette and Vanessa.

“Quinn,” my name tumbled from his lips as he strode over to me, twining his arms around my waist.

“Is this real?” I whispered into his chest. “It feels like a miracle.”

“It is,” he said. “Because of you. If it weren’t for your bravery, I wouldn’t be here now. The kingdom would be floundering, poised for Falerin to invade at any moment. But instead, I get this. I get you.” His tone became more emphatic with every word as he searched my eyes for understanding. “I couldn’t be more grateful.”

“I’m afraid to believe it,” I admitted, casting my gaze downward again. “It feels impossible.”

So much had happened at once, one unbelievable event after another, and I couldn’t reconcile the disparity between where I now found myself and what I had been bracing for. I had expected to spend tonight quietly trying to hold myself together as I helped prepare a feast to celebrate his engagement to someone else. Now, my mind struggled to absorb this new reality.

Would I wake up at any moment to find that this was all a desperate fantasy? It might break my heart in two. Evander must have sensed my anxious thoughts, because he held my chin, tilting my face up so I was looking into his eyes as he spoke his next words.

“If you’re asking if my love is true, let me assure you: You are everything good in my world. No one has ever challenged me the way you do. I love your temper almost as much as I adore your incomparable mind. Every time I look at you, it feels as if my heart is beating for the first time. You have made me an immeasurably better man and I will endeavor to improve still in an impossible effort to deserve you. I love you, Quinn Parry.”

Tears blurring my vision, I lifted onto my toes, brushing my lips against his.

When our mouths met, I could hear that music again, sweet and tender. I pulled back to look at Evander’s face and traced the line of his jaw, my touch featherlight. Life had never felt so fragile or so important.

I had come so close to losing him. So close to never being able to hold him like this again. A bit of desperation crept into my movements as I kissed him again, more firmly this time. I poured all of the longing, the despair, and the love I had been fighting for months into the embrace. Evander tightened his arms around my waist as he kissed me back, his movements becoming greedy and desperate.

“I am yours, Quinn” he said against my lips.

“And I yours.” A twinge of nervousness stirred as I contemplated what I was about to say, but I pushed it aside. “In all ways.”

Breaking our kiss, I looked at his bed before catching his eyes once more.

A fire lit in his gaze as he grasped my meaning.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“Yes. Are you?” It was a challenge, and he knew it.

Without any hesitation, he swept me up into his arms, carrying me to the bed and depositing me delicately on the plush coverlet. Settling over me, he swept my hair off my face in adoration. The moment between his eyes flicking down to my mouth and the kiss drew on for lifetimes, but at last our lips met, and the last of my reservations melted away. The way his hand cradled my face was so soft, so reverent, but still the most real thing I’d ever felt.

Reaching down, I grabbed the hem of my shirt and pulled it over my head, separating us only momentarily. Evander’s eyes widened and he shifted back, pulling me onto his lap. Deft fingers unclasped my undergarments and cast them aside.

His hand slid to my breast, thumb lightly tracing its peak, but the teasing sensation wasn’t enough. He was being too gentle, and I wanted more. I wanted all of him.

Capturing his mouth again, I drew his lower tip between my teeth, and his answering moan had me grinding against him. The desire I could already feel underneath me lit a fire in my core.

“Take what you want,” I reminded him.

A strong arm snaked behind my waist and guided me back to the bed as Evander paved a path down my body with his mouth. The sensation of his lips against my throat, my chest, my stomach already had me panting. He made quick work of his trousers, then slipped my skirt down past my ankles, laying me bare before him.

Leaning back to stare at me, an expression of pure male hunger overtook his face.

“Gods, you’re so beautiful. I imagined this moment so many times, but nothing compares to the reality.”

A blush crept up on my cheeks as I took in his words.

“You thought about me like this?”

“Gods, yes. I had to satisfy myself with fantasies every time I let you leave these chambers instead of taking you straight to my bed. You have no idea how much I’ve thought about this,” he said. “Thought about you.”

“I’ve thought about you too,” I breathed, thinking of nights when, even in my denial, my hand had slid under the covers as I thought about what it would feel like to feel his touch.

He growled in approval, kissing me hungrily. The muscles in his shoulders strained as he lifted himself over me.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

I nodded, shifting to spread my legs wider. Something clenched low within me and another whimper escaped my lips.

“Let me know if anything hurts, and I’ll stop.”

But it didn’t.

He sunk into me slowly, giving me time to adjust to every inch, and the sensation of fullness that overtook me was like being consumed by my own pleasure from the inside out. I bucked my hips, begging for more, and he started to move within me.

This. This was transcendent. Our very souls collided as our gazes locked, sharing breaths of gasps and moans as our hips met again and again.

The sounds that came out of me were more animal than human as he whispered in my ear, “Oh gods, you feel so good. You’re doing so well. Look how good you’re taking me.”

I tilted my pelvis, giving him even deeper access, and when he moaned, the sound threatened to undo me.

My release was building, and I searched wildly for his mouth again. Capturing mine with an equal passion, he shifted so his pelvis ground against that sensitive bundle of nerves as he took me.

“Come for me, Quinn.”

My legs spasmed as I shattered into a million pieces, his name on my lips. I continued rocking my hips against him, wringing out every ounce of pleasure I could, until he buried his face in my neck and fell off the ledge with me.

Then he lifted his head up, searching my face.

“Are you all right?”

I nodded and kissed him again, softly this time. It was a lazy morning kind of kiss. The type of kiss that feels like a soft space to land. One that relays all your feelings without the need for words, full of passion but unhurried. For once, we had time. So much time.