Epilogue

Cathal

"Dádhi, if you don't stop fussing with your collar and hair, I will magick away your hands," Fallon warns as she refastens the top button on my stand-up black collar before smoothing a lock that my restless fingers tore out of alignment.

Cruaih winds her long, agile body around my ankles. As I drop my fingers into her fluffy coat and caress, I ask, "What if your mother finds me lacking?"

Fallon laughs. When I don't, she squats in front of where I sit on the opulent, legged sofa Zendaya had designed for our bedchamber.

For me .

"Dádhi"—my daughter has to spread her knees to accommodate her swollen abdomen—"not only are you and Mádhi mates, but she adores you—tetchy side and all."

I arch an eyebrow and grunt, " Tetchy ?"

"Yes. Tetchy . Thank the Cauldron that trait of your personality didn't bleed into mine." Fallon pats my knee before rising and readjusting the skirt cinched high around her ribs with a jeweled ribbon.

I still cannot wrap my head around the fact that I'm about to become a grandfather. I'm far more eager for this milestone than I am for the one looming ahead. Though I want nothing more than to live with Zendaya for all of eternity, I want nothing less than to profess my passion for this woman in front of a rowdy horde while she crowns me her king.

I was entirely satisfied with being just her mate.

"Isla," Fallon suddenly murmurs.

"What?"

"That will be her name."

It takes me a moment to understand whose name, but when I do, my gaze perches on the hand Fallon lovingly strums across her stomach.

"It's the last thing I saw when I flew. The island of Shabbe." She swallows, blinks. And then she smiles. "It's perfect, isn't it?"

I, too, swallow and blink, but even though I try, I cannot muster a smile. Though I'll forever be grateful to the Cauldron for not only bringing my mate back but also my friend, Erwin—after weeks of canvasing Shabbe with a frantic Liora—a part of me will always grieve the cost of curse-breaking.

"Shall we?" Fallon holds out her arm.

"I love you, ínon," I blurt out, unsure whether I ever spoke the words out loud.

Fallon smiles. "If this is some underhanded way to placate me so I don't lead you out there, then?—"

"It's not. I was just?—"

"I adore you, too, Dádhi. And I couldn't have dreamed of a better father."

My throat bobs. My nose stings. Goddess below, I cannot be about to weep. Can I?

"Up." Fallon joggles her forearm to remind me to stand. As I comply, she adds, "You'll be so practiced for next week."

"Next week?" I ask, linking our arms.

" My nuptials, Dádhi. Don't tell me you've forgotten? Then again, you live here and not in the Sky Kingdom, so you haven't been exposed to the whirlwind team of party planners that is Arin, Phoebus, and Sybille. You'd think an infant would've slowed her down, but it just upped her vitality and efficacy. She is exhausting—in the best possible way. Do you know that Bottom is turning such a huge profit, she's asked to buy a concession on Isolacuori to open a fancier tavern?"

My daughter's cheerful rambling chips away at my crackling nerves.

"Oh, and on midsummer, we've all been invited to Eponine and Gia's nuptials. Can you believe Giana's going to be a royal?" Fallon snorts. "I do believe she wants a crown as much as you do."

There goes my calm…

"So many weddings and births. Can life get any better, Dádhi?" She gives a happy sigh as we step out into a courtyard… not overflowing with people.

Only three women and one man darken the sunset-lit sunstone—Meriam, Behati, Lorcan, and my mate.

I tried to keep it small, but you're in possession of a surprisingly large number of friends, my love. Zendaya nods to the sky, to the swarm of Crows carrying riders. And even though my gaze isn't done stroking over the magnificent body she's cloaked in pleated bronze, I glance at the fiery sky and the familiar collection of faces—some in skin, some in feathers.

The twins, Enzo, Agrippina, Asha, Ceres, and Justus sit astride my people, hovering, waiting. As do Antoni and Abrax. Then again, both men are part of my mate's den now. The only two souls Daya brought back to life with her magic.

Though I hadn't enjoyed watching her tongue ribbon over their skin, I'd suppressed my jealousy by reminding myself that she was healing them, not pleasuring them. Nevertheless, I had begged her to entrust Serpent-making to Agrippina and Enzo. Agrippina had yet to add someone to their growing numbers, but Enzo had—he'd healed a human who'd wandered too close to the Chayagali and had lost her arm to a tendu.

"Could you walk any slower, Dádhi?" Fallon murmurs, towing my attention off the airborne gathering.

"I'm just taking it all in, ínon."

As I penetrate underneath the circular arbor, I peer past the frolicking honeysuckle at the golden sky, and I picture Cian and my mother. I imagine them watching over me. Mórrígan, how I miss them…

I massage the skin over my heart as I finally join my mate beside the Mahananda.

She must sense my sorrow for she reaches out for my hand and squeezes. They watch.

I think she's trying to dispel my pain until she gestures to the Cauldron. My lungs squeeze when I see my brother, my mother, and Bronwen. I don't know whether it's some generous illusion or if it truly carried them up from the underworld. I don't care. I glut myself on their smiles and exultant stares until it plugs some of the fissures scarring my heart.

Ready? she asks.

I kiss her fingers before turning toward Behati and Meriam, who've decided to officiate our nuptials together.

I'm glad there are no strangers and that the only sounds are the wind twisting through feathers and the ocean lapping at the nearby cliff. Though I would've married Daya under any circumstance and in front of any crowd.

After I've sworn to protect her, the Cauldron, the land, and all of its people, she takes the crown she's had designed for me—a simple band of blackened scales shot through with knife-sharp black feathers.

As she places it atop my head, she murmurs, When I kneel before you tonight, Cathal Báeinach, I want you in your crown and nothing else.

My heart damn near pops from the sudden influx of blood.

After supper, she adds, with a taunting smile that makes my jaw tick.

Fine, but I require a drink before we sup. I add an evocative smile so the source of my tipple isn't lost on her. "Are we almost done?"

"Almost." Meriam nods to my palm.

"I don't want blood-magic, Meriam."

Zendaya winds her fingers through mine. I know but I want you to have access to it. It will make me feel safer.

I hate that she doesn't already feel safe.

I do.

But clearly not enough.

It's my gift to you for the gift you gave me.

What gift? I grumble.

She glances at Fallon before carrying our twined palms toward her abdomen, brushing my knuckles over the taut flesh with a secret smile. My eyelids twitch. Is she saying that…? Is she…?

Zendaya keeps smiling while I keep gawping like the wee version of Erwin we found pecking at a half-eaten worm before we wrangled him into the Cauldron.

I don't realize she's given my hand to Behati, or that the seer has sliced it open, the same way I don't register the incantation ribboning out of Meriam's mouth as she loops blood around Daya's and my twined hands.

I'm going to be a father.

Again.

My vision suddenly goes gray before shimmering and filling with pink and bronze.

"Cathal?" Zendaya frames my face between her palms, the scent of our mixed bloods coiling off her skin and making my stomach heave. She growls something about what an idiot she was, believing that Crow and Serpent blood could blend, and?—

"Abi, the rings stain your palms, so they can blend." Meriam is reassuring her. "Something else must've sent your mate to the ground."

A small, coarse tongue wraps around my earlobe, followed by a fretful meow. Fallon leans over and scoops up Cruaih, then straightens and scratches her between the ears.

"Does he need food?" I hear Asha bellow from somewhere above.

Food?

What?

Can you hear me? Talk to me. When I don't, still too damn dazed by her news, Zendaya's hands slip off my cheeks and fold over her mouth. The mind link! Please don't tell me blood-binding canc ? —

Are you sure?

Daya blinks so hard that her lashes resemble my wings when Aodhan suggests tagging along on one of my hunts. But then her hands drift off her blood-stained lips, which part around a bolt of laughter that's as glorious as every single thing about this woman.

"May we learn the reason for your hilarity, Mádhi?" Fallon asks.

"I laugh because of why"—another throaty chuckle—"your father"—laugh—"fainted."

"Is it the blood that made him woozy?" Fallon asks.

Lorcan snorts. "Doubtful considering his fondness for…justice."

Fallon grimaces. "You make it sound as though my father bathes in blood on the regular."

"Well, there was a time?—"

"Lore," I growl, shooting him an eloquent look as I roll up to sitting. "There are certain things that children need not be told."

My fellow king smiles.

As I readjust my crown and roll onto the balls of my feet, I level him with a matching grin. "I cannot wait to fill my granddaughter's ears with all her father's exploits."

Lorcan's grin dims an iota.

Fallon rolls her eyes. "How old are the two of you. I swear."

Zendaya holds out her hand to me, the one that bears two interlocked rings. I study the matching symbol on my palm before slotting my fingers through hers. I don't rise, though. Not yet.

I press my lips to that place where my seed has taken root—once more—and whisper a promise of forever-love to our unborn child. And then I rise and repeat the same promise to the mother before kissing her under thunderous applause and booming caws.

As our hearts pound as one, I murmur into Zendaya's mind the story I will tell our children and grandchildren, and though she shakes her head at me, her lips curve against mine: Twice upon a time, the fairest princess in the land fell in love with the coarsest beast in the sky.