Chapter 50

CHAPTER 50

W e waited for the ship to come into view on the horizon. Seeing the tip of a sail, Esta and I both took off, beating our wings and racing toward the ship.

I flew fast. The more I flew, the more I understood my wingspan and how to weave in and out of the breeze, what little movements were needed to alter my course. I was much faster than I used to be, but still not even close to Esta's skill. So I wasn't surprised when she got there first and flew a full lap around the ship before I arrived.

Warrick was waving and jumping up and down from the deck of the ship, excited to see us.

Without asking Krew or Jorah, I swooped down and scooped him up, carrying him in my arms to the shore. I may be relatively new to this uncle thing, but I'd learned it was easier to ask for forgiveness sometimes.

"Best. Day. Everrrrrr!" he yelled.

I held his back to my chest, and Warrick put his arms out like he was the one with wings. I could feel and hear his joy, immediately thankful that he was here .

We flew a large loop and landed on the shore, Kian there waiting to meet Warrick. It was there we waited for Krew and Jorah and the ship to dock while Kian and Warrick discussed the sport of wave riding, Dra Skor style.

Not only was my twin brother arriving, but so was Jorah. And Warrick. My family had all braved the trip to be here for me for the formal wedding with Esta. Owen was serving as king in Krew's absence, so he was the only missing piece.

As the Wylan ship finally docked, Esta's large dragon head snapped in the direction of the ship and I felt her surprise.

"What is it?"

She shook her head. "I can't believe they would still come."

"Esta?"

Krew was jogging our way, and Esta immediately shifted to run to Jorah.

My eyes were on them, even as Krew hugged me. Esta whispered something I couldn't hear, and Jorah put up a sound barrier to speak to her privately. Within seconds the two of them were laughing together, Jorah wiping at her eyes. A sight which healed another small corner of my heart.

Es, I snapped. Everything okay?

Jorah is pregnant, she informed me.

What? How'd you know?

Dragon senses, she responded. I've ruined more announcements than I care to admit. The best way I can explain it is that dragons can sense a flame of life in another.

Anything you cannot do? I asked her as I looked to my brother and grinned. "Congratulations are in order, I hear?"

He looked to me, wide eyes going to Esta and Jorah. "We—we had agreed we weren't going to say anything yet. Didn't want to take from your day."

"The dragon figured it out. And nonsense, I'd rather we celebrate together." I hugged him hard. He was quiet a few beats while Warrick kept chatting with Kian, so I pulled back to look at him.

He let out a sigh. "It wasn't exactly planned. We were going to wait. Bringing a child into this world with all that we need to do, with everything that our father has done, it felt too dangerous a time."

I slapped him on the back. "Things are looking up, Krew. Agria and Brakken are on the way to being healed and then much of the hurt our father inflicted will be removed. Not forgotten but removed. The largest of steps in the right direction."

"Dammit I miss you," the king of Wylan admitted, "but look at you."

"It's the wings."

He laughed. "The wings are going to take some getting used to, but it does my heart well to see you this way."

"In what way?"

He smirked. " Happy , Keir. You are happy. And whole."

I swallowed hard.

He continued, "Neither of us had been happy nor whole for long before our Assemblages were called. I found mine first, now you have yours."

I ignored the pricking sensation in my eyes. "I love you, brother."

He hugged me again. "I love you back, brother."

Thinking of all that had recently happened in Dra Skor, I considered how Krew and I could have been. We could've been enemies. We could've finished destroying Wylan in our selfish pursuits for the crown. Instead of competing, we had chosen to love one another. Love the antidote to our jealousy. We had teamed up together to take down our father, and we would never be torn apart again.

Speaking of that, I had to warn Krew. "You are going to meet Queen Aurelia from Corsha soon. She calls us the brother kings. "

He let out a laugh. Then another. "Only you would give away a throne in an honorable fashion and then wind up being set upon another."

I cocked my head. "It's the way she says it though. Entirely creepy."

Esta was there, wrapping her arms around my waist, tucked under my wings. And as we readied to fly to the castle, I had the fleeting thought that Krew was right. I never remembered feeling this whole. Not even in my childhood because all of that had been marred by my father and the tension of who would become king.

The joke was on my father. Both of us would be king. One king and one king consort. A scheme so great that only love itself could have accomplished it.

I knew my family couldn't stay forever, but trips like this could happen more often now that Morana was gone. It was now safer for them to be in Dra Skor and safer for us to go to Wylan.

Being a sea away from my twin would not be easy, but we would make it work. We might both be sitting on thrones, but first and foremost, we were brothers.

Krew stood next to me on Dra Skor land. Neither of us were currently being threatened nor tortured nor were we locked in a cell. Instead, we stood in the massive cathedral in the castle while I formally wed the dragon queen. An alliance between the realm's greatest rivals. A love that bridged the gap.

Not only were the king and queen of Wylan in attendance, but Queen Relia had accepted her invitation also. The alliance of our countries, the royalty of our countries, all celebrating together. Agria still hadn't signed their treaty, Brakken had signed theirs with Wylan but not with Dra Skor, but we were all gradually working toward peace. And knowing all those letters I had to write for my father, all the years of correspondence which had gone unanswered, I was in disbelief of the realm I now found myself living in. One in which we lived life alongside one another, not separate and shrouded in secrets.

The coronation had been first. The black crown which had belonged to Esta's grandfather was on my head, though all of it was a formality. I already was a prince. I had been before I stepped a boot in Dra Skor, yet now I was a Dra Skor prince, the prince consort. The fact that I didn't wish to be king still remained, but what had changed was that I would step into whatever role needed if it meant I could be with Esta. The title was insignificant compared to being soul bound to her.

She was still Queen Estalena Rhea Mallick. I was still Prince Keiran James Kairos Valanova. But together we were so much more than queen and prince, titles, and crowns. We had chosen each other despite all the rest of the noise. Despite the push back. Despite the pain and hurt. Together we were strongest, our heartbeats melding into one rhythm which could not be stopped.

I had honestly blacked out for most of the coronation, during the proper and fanciful words being said that granted me this title in both places. As the coronation wrapped up, I thought of the juxtaposition of my coronation with Jorah's. While my coronation as Dra Skor royalty was filled with hope and promise, hers had been tinged in evil intentions and jealousy brewing in my father.

I had once wondered if Esta and I would ever get to this place, if Dra Skor would ever accept me. Ever see me as anything other than the dead king's son.

In fighting for and alongside the people of Dra Skor to get rid of the inner threat, Morana, I found that I was more accepted than I thought I'd be. That likely had everything to do with my wife and the positions she put me in to lead them. To prove to them the type of man I strived to be.

Every thought in my head vanished, even my breath, as Esta began walking down that long, long, entirely too long, distance between us. She was wearing white. This was not her mother's gown she had borrowed; this was one designed just for her. The train of the gown somehow started between her shoulder blades, which reminded me of her wings.

She was breathtaking. She was my wife . My soul mate.

What I had done in this life to deserve her, I wasn't certain, but I would use every day to remind her how much I adored her. How much I believed in her. I didn't complete her, nor did she complete me. Rather, I covered her weaknesses like an armor while fortifying her strengths. Just as she did to me.

The simple truth was the dragon queen didn't need me at all to lead Dra Skor. She was a damn fine queen all on her own and had been, without me. So I would stand behind her, beside her, in front of her, wherever she needed me to be.

My moon, she sent me.

My wife, I responded.

Spring in Dra Skor had arrived, as well as a hope and promise of an amazing year to come. One quite unlike the last. Large bouquets were bursting around every corner of the cathedral and all around the backdrop where we stood. And as we repeated the vows we'd already said in private, this time in front of a large mass of people, as we went out on the highest balcony of the castle to wave to and meet the people who had come from all over Dra Skor to celebrate our wedding, I found my soul to be more content that I ever imagined it could be.

I fought against every urge to whisk her away from all the people wishing us their best, knowing that our first wedding, the one with only John officiating, had been for us. But this large and ostentatious one? It was for the people of Dra Skor.

Our people.

So we danced and laughed and met more people.

And finally, well into the early hours of the morning, when she asked me if I was ready to go, we flew out the ballroom roof, together.

As we landed on my balcony, she reminded me as she shifted, We have to send off your family and men back to Wylan tomorrow, then our week-long honeymoon begins.

"I'm not sure a week is going to be enough, Es," I said out loud as I ran my hands along her bare back.

"I—" she stopped and dazzled me with her grin. "Me neither. The amount of lust and love I have felt down the bond in recent days has me questioning the same."

I caught her laugh with a quick kiss to her dimple.

She pulled back, a hand on each lapel of my jacket. "But you get a week with me all to yourself. Nana is taking over, Morana is gone, we are working on finishing healing Dra Skor and starting to heal Agria."

I wasn't fool enough to believe all the evil was gone from the realm. It still lurked. The difference was now it knew better than to attack. And when it did, Dra Skor and her army would be ready. We were now more than strong enough to handle it.

"There is something else that we need to do for Dra Skor though," I told Esta, doing my best to sound serious.

"What now?" she groaned. "Don't tell me. Not until after our week away."

We were going to a cabin outside of Arava, though we had only told a few guards who had needed to know.

I brushed a kiss to her temple. "Dra Skor needs more heirs. That was the entire reason your father was going to give the throne to Jagen in the first place."

"I—" she closed her mouth. Opened it again. "We don't have to get to that right away. When Charlotte and Jagen wed next month, if not before, word of her pregnancy will spread. It will help ease the pressure on us."

"Esta," I scolded. "We both know we want children. We both know there will never be a time either of us is fully ready. There will always be a never-ending to-do list. Things will never be perfect. So let's practice, often , and whenever it happens, it happens."

"Knowing you, that will be in a month or less."

I grinned. "Then it's in a month. I don't care. I knew there would be pressure to produce heirs when we married the first time. And I still chose you. Fiercely. Wholly. Without inhibition." She moved to kiss me, so I finished down the bond, You are the sun and stars which I keep circling. I love you. And I want to start a family with you. Our family.

I love you, insufferable prince, she responded back. She added at a whisper, "Whenever it happens, it happens?"

"No pressure." Thinking of Krew and Jorah, I added, "And no guilt when it does happen. They will be loved no matter which of our Enchantments they take on. Or none at all."

As Esta made all space between us vanish, I couldn't help but think of years from now telling the story around a bonfire to our children of how Esta and I found one another. How it all began.

It was a story of great adventure. Of war. Of unlikely alliances. Of love. Ample pain and fear were to be found within the pages of that story, but so was a love so fierce it couldn't be stopped.

It was our story.

And the ending? It was just the beginning.

THE END