Chapter 170: The Queen of Dravengard
Inside Kai’s room in the main mansion, Jessica still held his hand, her eyes fixed on his face.
The tangle of tubes that had run him to the ECMO machine were gone now.
They had been removed early that morning, once Dr Lorenzo confirmed that his heart had proven it could beat strong and steady on its own.
On the television mounted across the room, clips from the coronation played softly. Jessica half-watched it while she talked to Kai, speaking to him as though he could hear every word.
"You know," she said softly, thumb brushing across his knuckles, "I’ve had hours to sit here and stare at your face. Really stare at it. Properly, with nothing else to do."
She tilted her head. "And I have to confess something. You’re a very handsome man, Kai. Annoyingly so, actually. It’s almost rude."
His face stayed still on the pillow. The monitor machines beeped their gentle rhythm.
Jessica gave a small, wet laugh.
"You scared me half to death, you know that?" she whispered. Her voice cracked on the words.
"When I saw you lying here like this, I thought, that’s it. That’s the end of him. And do you know the first thing I felt? Not grief. Regret."
She wiped quickly at her eyes. "Because I never told you. From the very first night, I knew. I knew you were my mate, and I was too scared and too stubborn and too proud to say a single word about it. I kept thinking there’d be time. Until suddenly there isn’t."
She drew a shaking breath.
"So you need to wake up quickly. Because I miss you. I miss your terrible jokes and your stupid grin and the way you call me your wife to wind me up."
She laughed again. "And I promise. I promise I won’t hold back anymore. I won’t be harsh with you, or pretend I don’t care, or push you away to protect myself. Not ever again."
She wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand.
"You always call me your wife," she said quietly. "Like it’s already decided. Like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. And the truth is, there is nothing in this entire world I would love more. To be your wife. To have you as my husband."
Her tears spilled over freely now, and she let them. "So please. Please let the goddess heal you. Wake up and call me your wife again and I won’t even argue. Not once."
She lowered her head and rested it gently on the edge of the bed, beside their joined hands, her eyes squeezed shut.
"So," came a voice, weak and rough and unmistakably amused. "We’re getting married then?"
Jessica’s head snapped up so fast she nearly gave herself whiplash.
Kai’s eyes were open. Barely, and heavy with exhaustion, but open. And glinting with that exact brand of mischief she had been mourning for two solid days.
"Oh, goddess!" Jessica shot upright in her chair, both hands flying to her mouth. "You’re awake! You’re awake, you absolute menace!"
"Mm." Kai’s mouth tugged into his signature lopsided smirk, the one that had no business being that charming on a man who had been at death’s door hours ago. "Did you miss me?"
Jessica opened her mouth. Nothing came out. She was too overwhelmed, her chest heaving, her eyes streaming, her hands shaking against her lips as she just stared and stared at him like he might vanish if she blinked.
Kai watched her, clearly enjoying every second of it despite barely having the strength to keep his eyes open.
"So," he rasped, his eyes drifting half closed and then fighting back open just to hold hers. "You’re my forever girl?"
***
Back in the great hall, every eye tracked Brian as he strolled up the aisle, that smug smile still firmly in place.
Kira felt Derek’s hand close tighter around hers. Her pulse roared in her ears. Was he going to do it here? In front of everyone? In the middle of her crowning?
She braced for it as Brian reached the front of the hall. And walked straight towards the front row, the seats reserved for the Wolfe family, and dropped himself down into one with a careless flop.
"I suppose I’m late," he said, with a pleasant smile, stretching one arm lazily along the back of the bench. Then waved his other hand at the elder. "Well? Get on with it. Why the sudden pause? Don’t stop the whole show on my account."
Kira let out a breath she had not realised she was holding.
And around her, she could have sworn the entire hall exhaled with her, hundreds of held breaths releasing all at once in a single great wave of relief.
Nana, who had paused with the crown halfway off its velvet cushion, narrowed her eyes at Brian for one long, flinty second. The look she gave him could have curdled milk at fifty paces. Then she sighed, lifted her chin, and decided he was not worth a single second more of her ceremony.
She cleared her throat and lifted the crown high in both hands.
"As the Matriarch of Dravengard, and by the powers vested in me by the goddess," she said, her voice ringing clear and proud through the hall, "I, Lady Genevieve Wolfe, do hereby crown you the official and irrefutable Queen of Dravengard."
She lowered the circlet onto Kira’s chestnut hair, settling it gently into place.
The hall exploded.
Applause thundered through the room, cheers rising over it, the howls echoing up into the rafters once more. And for one single, suspended moment, Kira forgot everything else.
The photographs under her mattress. Brian lounging ten feet away like a snake in a silk jacket. The suspicion and the war gathering at the borders.
For one moment there was only the weight of the crown on her head and the roar of an entire kingdom on its feet, and she smiled. A real smile. The first one all day that came from somewhere true.
Then she and Derek turned together to face the crowd, and the two of them bowed.
When they straightened, Derek turned to her and offered his hand, palm up, his eyes never leaving hers.
"Shall we, my Queen?"
Kira looked down at the offered hand, then back up at his face. She slipped her hand into his. He closed his fingers around it and led her toward the ancient throne of Dravengard, the seats that had held kings and queens for generations before them, and together they took their places upon them.
"All hail the King and Queen of Dravengard!" the announcer cried out across the hall.
The entire room rose to its feet as one and bowed low, hundreds of voices lifting together to repeat the words back, the sound of it filling every inch of the soaring space.
"All hail the King and Queen of Dravengard!"
Derek turned his head and looked at Kira. Kira looked back at him. And through the noise and the bowing and the thunder of a kingdom welcoming its rulers, the two of them simply sat there, looking at each other, smiling.
