Princess Elodi's Arc

Chapter 27 of 55

The morning after her mother sailed home, Elodi walked the halls of Bloomspire and felt something strange. Her mother had freed her. No locks. No riders. Yet she owned nothing here. Every room she passed belonged to Damon's family. She was a guest with a bed, not a woman with a life. She stopped at a window wrapped in pink blossoms and wondered where her freedom would actually live. Damon found her there. He had been gone all morning, down among the market stalls beyond the castle gates. Dust still clung to his blue tunic. He held something small in his fist, and he would not open his hand. He looked at her the way he did before he distracted her mother at the ball long ago, like a man about to leap. "I walked the whole market," he said. "Every table. I was looking for one thing." Elodi crossed her arms. "And did you find it?" He opened his hand. A ring sat in his palm, a slim gold band with a pale blue stone. It caught the light through the window. Her breath stopped. She knew what a ring meant. She had run from cages her whole life. Marriage could be one more. "I know what you fear," Damon said. "You just won your freedom. I won't take it. I'm not asking you to be mine. I'm asking to be yours, if you choose it. No locks. Ever." Elodi looked at the ring, then at his face. She thought of the tunnel, the sea, the storm, the fire she lit with her own hands. She had chosen every hard thing. Now she could choose this too, or not. That was the difference. "Say it plainly," she said. Her voice shook. "No pretty words." "I love you," Damon said. "I want to marry you. But only free. Only your choice." Elodi felt the old fear rise. Then she pushed past it. She stepped forward and pressed her lips to his. She wrapped her arms around him and let herself fall into it, warm and sure. The ring stayed in his fist, forgotten between them. When she pulled back, she was smiling. "Yes," she said. "By my own choosing." Damon laughed and slid the ring onto her finger. It fit. She looked at it and felt the truth of it settle in her chest. She had said yes. She had wanted to.