My gaze slips past Amriel. My father sits atop his throne, his expression stormy. Torchlight deepens the crags in his face and makes his eyes look darker than they are.
“Sariah completed the labyrinth,” he says to Amriel. “She’s no longer bound by the terms of the treaty. As a Graced member of this family, her place is here. I won’t marry her off to the fae. Not even to their king.”
My breath catches, molten emotion piling inside my chest. “Marry…?”
Amriel snorts softly. He’s looking at me, though he directs his words at my father. “You misunderstand me, Edmond. I’m not asking foryourpermission. I’m asking for your daughter’s. I couldn’t care less what anyone else has to say about it.”
Fresh murmurs ripple around the room. Still, Amriel doesn’t look away from me. My father makes to come toward us, but someone steps in to restrain him—Calen, maybe.
Amriel takes my hands in his. I squeeze, gratified by the feel of his fingers, so callused and warm and rough. By the way our bond sighs to life, untainted now by pain. It grows and expands and sings, and when I look into my mate’s eyes, I see both halves of him peering back, those twin pools of gold deeper now, richer,more.
He’s whole now. Healed.
Amriel lowers himself to his knees. Shocked exclamations ripple around us, but they might as well be happening on the moon.
“What…” I falter, try again. “What’re you doing?”
That cocksure smile slides across his mouth. “Begging. The first time we stood in this room,youbegged atmyfeet, so now it’s only right that I do it at yours.”
A tender barb snags in my throat, emotion pricking at my eyes.
“I thought I knew pain,” he says. “Before. But these past few days… Well. I can only laugh at myself, now. Because true pain is not being able to touch you. Not being near you. It’s failing to catch your scent in the hallways. It’s knowing an entire mountain range separates me from the sound of your voice.”
I blink and blink and blink, but everything has gone fuzzy, my vision blurred.
“Which is why I’m begging you to come back to Velindra,” Amriel continues. “Stay with me. Always. Be my mate, or my wife. Whichever one of those words means more to you. And I know I should’ve asked you before. I realized it when I was dying. Funny how you only know what you should’ve done with your time when you have none left. But I see now. And I’ll do better. Every day, if you’ll let me.”
I can’t help it. Tears overflow. Happy ones—joyful little streaks that charge down my cheeks.
Amriel waits, hope swimming in his eyes, even though he must feel my answer etched in the roots of my soul. Must hear me shouting it down the bond at him.
But he seems to want me to say it out loud, because he doesn’t move, just kneels at my feet in front of all of Aethrolia.
“This is an outrage,” my father cuts in. “Sariah’s neededhere.”
I scoff, not even sparing him a glance. Needed? I wasn’t needed as a child, when Carina earned her Grace and Ishanna passed me over. I wasn’t needed as a teenager, when I craved nothing more than my father’s approval and he refused to give it. Or as an adult, when the fae king wrested me from my family and my father did nothing to stop it.
He didn’t need me then. And now I don’t need him.
“I Claim you,” I blurt at Amriel.
Gasps fill the room. Amriel’s eyes widen. “You what?”
“Amriel of the fae,” I say, thinking back to the words he used that night. “I hereby Claim you, by the rights granted to me by…well, myself, I guess. Because I don’t need a treaty. Just the truth in my heart. And in yours.”
Love and devotion swell in his eyes, and a whole host of other emotions—everything at once, all I’ll ever need.
“I Claim you,” I say again. A smile tugs at my lips before blossoming in full. “So stand up. We’re going now.”
He laughs. Actually laughs, and then he’s surging to his feet, gathering me close, his gyre emerging from his pocket, already pouring light.
My father breaks into a shout. But Calen holds him back as I snuggle my face against Amriel’s chest.
“I’ll be back,” I call. I still have plenty to attend to here—conversations to be had with Carina, amends to be made with my sisters.
But not right now. Not today.
All around the room, gyres appear, filling fae hands. Only Varian stays behind, looking longingly at Carina. It’s the last thing I see before reality rips apart.
