Page 83 of The Kraken Bride

Wonder lit his features. As he watched, rapt, I danced. I danced a throne room and a man who played with fire, eager to get burned. I danced our ups and our downs, a ball and a garden game where a king laughed out loud for the first time in decades. I even danced a monster’s dinner.

And then I danced the rune. I felt the exact moment he understood what he was watching, because the tether went white-hot and his hands closed on the edge of the bench hard enough to splinter it.

Next I danced what came after. The things he didn’t know. Days spent inside a cave, observing the man I loved leave slaughter in his wake. A woman who willingly entered a monster’s house. A husband, cold as the bottom of the sea, crossing twelve feet of rising water to reach for a wife he couldn’t remember loving.

And then I stopped dancing the past. I danced what came next.

A woman who stayed. Who knew exactly what her husband had done and exactly what had been done to him. Who understood that guilt might follow, that healing wouldn’t happen in a single night, that some wounds would ache long after the blood disappeared. A best friend who would be missed and buried with honors.

Sebastian flinched at that one but didn’t look away.

I danced mornings in Krakenströnd. Arguments neither of us won. His ridiculous piles of treasure appearing whenever he thought I looked sad. Music drifting through these rooms while he pretended not to watch me rehearse.

I danced years.

Decades.

Centuries.

A life neither of us had to earn. Only choose.

I danced a family we cherished. When I finished on my toes with both arms open, chest lifted, my whole heart on display, I invited him to join me.

Sebastian stood, eyes storming and wet. He crossed the studio, and he did not stop until he was close enough that I had to tip my head back. Then he was kissing me, because he had wordless things to say too.

At the top of the list? You are mine.

Hours later, my body ached, my heart sang, and my beloved husband carried me to the throne room, draped over his shoulder. Because “I’m told it is the dragon way.”

I giggled the whole way there. We passed Harpa as we traveled. She was drinking champagne, celebrating our victory, and saluted us with the bottle.

I loved that woman and decided, right then, to find a man worthy of her heart. Someone who would teach her love made life better.

The room was empty, cleared of every servant, every guard, the whole long, gleaming hall silent.

“Where is everyone?” I asked when he set me on my feet.

“Dismissed for the day.” He led me up the dais, a warm hand on my back. A look flashed over his face, and I would swear it skirted the edge of… nervous. “There’s something I want to give you. And I want you to see it before anyone else does, in case you’d rather throw it at my head.”

He turned me toward the thrones. On the cushion of the queen’s chair sat a crown. Gold, curved into sweeping arcs that echoed kraken tentacles, each one closed around a dragon’s scale.

Kraken and dragon, forged into one. My throat constricted. “Sebastian.”

“Look at mine,” he urged.

His crown, the plain dark circlet he’d worn since my arrival, had been remade. Faint scales had been worked into the metal. Rubies set deep in it, red as fire.

“I have already signed the decree,” he said, his voice not quite steady. “This morning. Every royal in the faction has a copy, and Jon’s people, and the mers, and your sister’s court. It’s done and it cannot be undone.”

“What decree?”

“Krakenströnd has two rulers.” He took me by the shoulders and turned me so that I faced him. “Not a king and his consort but two equal seats, with equal veto and voice. No treaty, no war, and no convergence will ever again be enacted by one alone.”

My heart swelled with joy. Hands trembling, I lifted his crown. “I am yours and you are mine.”

He knelt, allowing me to place the crown on his head. Then he straightened and gently placed my crown on me, saying, “Brona, I have always been yours.”

He carried me out of the throne room, and the whole palace saw it. Freyja frozen mid-clipboard, Soley with both hands over her mouth, Adelaide leaning in a doorway typing furiously into her phone.