"I reshaped the world that mattered most." I watch Ryaed discover that dandelions turn to seed-globes at her touch, then squeal with delight as the wind carries her magic-touched seedsacross the garden. "Besides, I wasn't meant to be a goddess. I was meant to be a mother, a queen, a partner to someone who needed to remember what love actually costs."
Thorian appears at the garden gate as if summoned by my thoughts, and my heart does the same flutter it's done every day for the past year. Even without divine enhancement, our bond pulses with contentment that feels deeper than anything I experienced as a goddess.
"How are my girls?" he asks, crossing the garden with long strides that make Ryaed babble excitedly and reach for him.
"Causing chaos," I reply, rising to accept the kiss that's become our daily ritual. His lips are warm against mine, and through our bond I feel his satisfaction at the peace we've built together. "She made the tea roses bloom out of season again."
"My clever daughter." He scoops up Ryaed, who immediately makes his hair sprout tiny flowers. "Teaching the plants that seasons are merely suggestions."
"Speaking of which, the agricultural reports came in." I settle back onto the bench beside him, our daughter contentedly destroying his formal appearance with enthusiastic magic. "The outer settlements are reporting record harvests. Crop yields are up forty percent across the board, and several villages are dealing with surplus for the first time in decades."
"Restored fertility magic," he says with satisfaction. "Your sacrifice didn't just save reproductive capabilities—it supercharged the entire agricultural foundation. We'll have the most prosperous year in living memory."
"Good." I lean into his warmth, marveling at how perfectly we fit together now. No overwhelming divine power creating imbalance, no desperate mate bond withdrawal threatening death. Just two people who chose each other and built something lasting from that choice. "The harvest festivals should be spectacular."
"They will be. Lady Rosemary is already planning celebrations that will last for weeks." His arm tightens around me. "She wants to name them the Restoration Festivals, honoring what you gave up to save the court."
"Absolutely not." The idea makes me uncomfortable in ways I can't fully articulate. "What we gave up. You sacrificed your fertility magic first, remember? And besides, festivals should celebrate life returning, not what we lost to make it possible."
"As my queen wishes." His voice carries the affection that still makes my chest tight with happiness. "Though I reserve the right to privately celebrate the woman brave enough to trade divinity for wisdom."
"And I reserve the right to celebrate the king who chose love over duty." I press my face against his shoulder, breathing in the scent of cedar and earth that means home. "Even when that choice seemed impossible."
Ryaed chooses that moment to grab a fistful of her father's shirt, and the fabric immediately begins sprouting tiny vines with heart-shaped leaves. We both dissolve into laughter at her determined destruction of royal dignity.
"She's going to need training soon," I observe, watching our daughter turn formal attire into a garden. "This level of unconscious magic could become problematic."
"Lady Elvinia has offered to begin instruction next month. Basic control, learning to direct rather than simply release power." He attempts to extract flowering vines from his collar without much success. "Though I suspect our daughter will prove as stubborn about magical education as her mother was about everything else."
"Stubborn gets results." I rescue him from the worst of Ryaed's enthusiasm, gently coaxing the flowers to retreat. "Speaking of which, I've been thinking about my next project."
"Oh?"
"The memorial garden." The words come out more serious than the rest of our conversation. "I want to expand it. Add sections honoring not just the seven women who died, but all the choices that led us here. The risks people took, the sacrifices that built what we have now."
Thorian goes very still. "Maya?—"
"Not as penance," I clarify quickly. "As celebration. Those women died trying to achieve something unprecedented, and their courage made my survival possible. I want to create a space that honors their memory while celebrating life returning to the court."
"You want to commemorate our entire journey."
"I want to commemorate love that's strong enough to choose wisdom over power." I meet his eyes directly. "All the forms that love can take—sacrifice, forgiveness, hope, the willingness to risk everything for someone else's future."
He's quiet for a long time, his gaze moving from my face to our daughter, who's now making grass grow in intricate patterns around her feet. When he finally speaks, his voice carries centuries of emotion.
"I think that's beautiful. And fitting." He shifts Ryaed to one arm so he can take my hand with the other. "A garden that tells the story of how love can rebuild what power destroys."
"Exactly." I squeeze his fingers, feeling the rightness of the idea settle into my bones. "Something that shows future generations what authentic partnership looks like, what it costs, and why it's worth everything we give up to achieve it."
As we sit together in our restored garden, surrounded by the evidence of sacrifice transformed into hope, I feel a peace I never knew as a goddess. The divine power was extraordinary, but this—this quiet contentment built on choice and shared purpose—this feels like real magic.
Ryaed babbles something that sounds suspiciously like "mama" while making daisies sprout from the bench beneath us, and my heart swells with joy that needs no supernatural enhancement to feel profound.
Some love stories begin with conquest or destiny or magical compulsion.
Ours began with lies and manipulation and the desperate hope that power could solve impossible problems.
But it became something real when we learned to choose each other over and over again—through betrayal and forgiveness, through crisis and sacrifice, through the daily work of building partnership from the foundation of earned trust.
