He straightened. “The honor is a first for me, your highness. I offer my congratulations to you and Prince Imriel on this joyous day.”
“He’s here to spy for my mother,” I informed her. “She’s perishing of curiosity.”
“Well, he’s welcome here today. We wouldn’t be here if not for his aid.” Sidonie took Leander’s hands in hers. “Thank you, Messire Maignard,” she said gravely. “Terre d’Ange owes you a great debt. I owe you a great and personal debt.”
“I didn’t—” Leander began in a modest tone.
Sidonie reached up to tug his head down and kissed him. There was enough ardor in it that Leander flushed to the roots of his hair when she released him. “I didn’t, I just . . .” he stammered; then blew out his breath. “Um. Thank you.”
I raised my brows at her. “Are you trying to unsettle him?”
“Would I do such a thing?” She flashed me a wicked smile. “I reckon I owed the real Leander Maignard at least that much.” She kissed him again—lightly, on the cheek. “Enjoy yourself, messire. I’m sure we’ll speak more during your time here. Lucius, I would very much like to hear the end of your tale.”
Leander stared after her.
“She’s not what you expected,” I said to him. “She wasn’t in Carthage, either.”
“No.” He gave himself a shake. Such a strange thing it was to be standing beside a man whose memories I shared, whose life I’d lived without his sharing in it. “No, I suppose she wasn’t. I guessed that much when Deimos returned and told us how you’d ended Astegal’s life together.” Leander gave me a sidelong glance. “Did she come to care for me?”
“She did.” I clapped a hand on his shoulder. “And if you wish to know her better, I suggest you ask her to play a game of chess ere you depart.”
“I’ll do that,” he said, bemused.
I laughed. “Come. There are others you should meet.”
I introduced him to Drustan and Ysandre, who received him with wary courtesy. To his distant kin in House Shahrizai, who regarded him with interest. To Kratos, who shook his head and marveled, remembering.
To Phèdre and Joscelin.
Leander gazed at Phèdre for a long, long time, as though he were seeking to memorize her features. At length, he sighed. “I have a message for you from her ladyship, my lady.” He beckoned her close and whispered in her ear. I saw Phèdre’s dart-stricken gaze shift, coming to rest on me. After a time, Leander drew back. “Have you any reply?”
“Yes.” Phèdre smiled. “Tell her she’s welcome. Tell her it was my honor and my privilege.” She glanced at Joscelin, who smiled back at her with his wry half-smile. The saviors of my life, the heroes of my heart. “Our honor. Our privilege. And we are no less proud than she.”
Leander bowed. “I will.”
Twilight into dusk, dusk into night. The revels continued. The musicians played, tireless. We danced, trampling the greensward. I could not count my partners. I only knew, as the sky began to lighten in the east, that the last one was the one that mattered. I held Sidonie in my arms. The prophecy an old Priest of Elua had spoken for me so many years ago had proved true. I had found love and lost it, over and over again.
This time I meant to keep it.
Weary-looking servants began making the rounds, handing out gilded baskets filled with rose petals. One last ritual, one last gift for the merry-makers who had stayed to usher in the dawn. There were more of them than I would have guessed. The musicians laid down their instruments. Someone—Mavros, I thought—started a bawdy chant. A hundred more voices took it up.
“Are you tired?” I asked Sidonie.
She shook her head, eyes gleaming. “No.”
“Good.” I scooped her into my arms and started toward the Palace. The crowd followed, cheering. “Neither am I.”
“Imriel!” Sidonie laughed and wound her arms around my neck. “Surely you’re not planning to carry me all the way to our bedchamber?”
“Mm-hmm.” I kissed her without pausing. “It’s not as far as the harbor in New Carthage, and you’re a good deal easier to handle when you’re awake and not wrapped in a carpet. I don’t ever want to lose you again, Princess. I might never let you go.” I kissed her again, hard and demanding. “Nothing and no one will ever come between us again.”
She kissed me back. “Do you promise it?”
The crowd swirled around us, pelting us with petals, laughing and shouting, offering traditional blessings and bawdy jests. Love. It was all done in love. I gazed at Sidonie, at the mixture of love and desire and perfect trust in her black eyes, rose petals caught in her hair. My unlikeliest of loves, found in the last place I would ever have thought to look.
My sunlight.
My heart swelled, my happiness feeling too vast for my body to contain. I felt the touch of divine grace brush us both like a mighty unseen wing, setting somewhat deep inside me to quivering, filling me with brightness.
It felt like a promise.
“Always,” I said. “Always and always.”