Page 51 of Modern Romance Collection February 2025, 1-4

Heart and body and soul.

A great many years later, Dioni and her husband walked with their fingers interlaced through the grounds of the castle, the gardens long since planted, and these days, bright and vibrant with flowers.

They walked down the hill together, though their knees ached and they laughed about how much more slowly they moved these days. Just as they laughed about Alceu’s habit of issuing proclamations that made the children clasp at their chests and claim they’dbeen cursed at last. Just as they laughed at the fact that Dioni was as clumsy and bedraggled now, with her hair white, as ever.

Nothing changed and everything changed. There was a party up at the castle that night that their children, their children’s spouses, and their own grandchildren were throwing for them.

But together, alone, they walked down and stood in the tiny chapel where they had said those vows so long ago.

Because fifty years was a happy ending no matter how they looked at it.

“What can possibly be left?” Dioni asked her love, gazing up at him as they held each other on that old altar.

“The only thing that matters,” Alceu replied. He kissed her, with all the love and passion, hope and wonder, desire and longing they had always had between them and always would. Because happiness really was the best curse of all time. “Forever, my dearcamurria. Together, just like this.”

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