“Have faith in me,” he said. “Even if it seems impossible.”
“All right.” Rea rubbed her cheek against his chest. “I’ll wait. But you’re supposed to marry someone else in a week.”
“I’ll deal with that,” Sebestyén said.
Epilogue
Sebastyen
He hadn’t expected to see her like that. In a white dress, a veil covering her face, her face radiant as a thousand suns. She was a bride. His bride.
She trembled walking to the altar in careful, measured steps. Those things were new to her, those customs of Alisia, but she’d practiced the walk diligently for a week. She mastered it. Arnold held her hand, helping her.
The cathedral was filled with people—councilors, noblemen, foreign dignitaries—and they were all there to celebrate the first Suveri empress.
The last year had stolen all hope from him. The passionate summer when he promised Rea marriage had all but faded from his mind. The moment they returned from the capital, he’d locked horns with his father. He’d argued, threatened, cajoled, bargained with his father, but nothing had changed his old man’s mind. He’d lost the throne to his brother Arnold because his father saw him as incompetent.
He’d spent an entire month wallowing in self-pity and raging at his inadequacy. But she’d saved him. Again. And again with her words, her caresses, her tattoos. She’d been his support, his strength during the year when he’d been exiled and treated as a pariah.
They’d endured a harsh winter, the harshest one of his life. The melting of the last snow brought the unexpected news of his father’s demise. Out on a trip abroad, he’d been assassinated by old foes.
Even then Sebestyén hadn’t expected anything to change. But his brother had upended his expectations—one fine day he’d come to visit Sebestyén at Rea’s cottage in Crua valley and begged him to take the throne.
“I’m not cut out to be an emperor,” he said with his trademark careless shrug. “You were far better at the job than me. I want to go back to gallivanting and seducing innocent ladies. Just promise me you’ll ensure there’s always enough money in the country’s coffers to finance my expensive tastes.”
“Do you really mean…?”
“Come now, brother. Have I ever coveted the throne? Father always made politics seem like a chore, and now I realize he was only showing me the truth.”
Within the week, Arnold announced his abdication and Sebestyén’s coronation took place the very next day. But the crown he wanted the most was going to become his today. Rea was going to become his today.
Beneath the veil, her long eyelashes cast shadows on her cheek. Emotion made him weak in the knees. He wanted to lift the veil and see her. He’d been so occupied with his new duties that he’d neglected her for weeks and there, before him, he realized how much he missed her.
“If you marry me, I promise I’ll pay attention to you every day, day and night,” he whispered.
“And I promise to never pay so much attention to you that it goes to your head,” she replied. “I also promise to do this all my life.”
Ah, there it was. Her quicksilver temper. Her wit. Sebestyén grinned, once again amazed by that stunning woman.
All was well in the world.