Page 151 of Enchanted Crown
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 fromyourday.”
“The dragon figured it out. And nonsense, I’d rather we celebrate together.” I hugged him hard. He was quiet a few beatswhile 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. Notforgottenbut 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 stoodnext 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 towrite 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 Estabegan 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 wasmy wife. My soul mate.
