Penthos: The Guardian Sea

Chapter Twenty-six: Old Wounds Erased

Arielle was sitting on the sand, her back to him. It was near her 84th birthday, and the Realm was preparing to celebrate not only Arielle, but the queen’s new pregnancy as well. The queen was due to give birth soon to a daughter, LeReia. Jarissein knew Arielle’s feelings on having a little sister. She was so jealous that her mother was bearing a child. She tried not to let it show, but Jarissein had known her long enough to see it in her eyes, emotional connection aside.

     It had been decades since Germaine had attacked her and ripped from her the same happiness the queen was feeling now. Jarissein knew she was thinking about it. She kept her eyes on the ocean, but it wasn’t the ocean on her mind. Jarissein watched her shoulders shake as she cried.

     Her body had healed without a scar, proving the Shaman true to her word. Her mind, on the other hand, was far from whole. When she thought her knight wasn’t looking, she cried for what she had lost. He was sad for her, both because of the knighthood and because he was genuinely sorry he hadn’t reached her in time. He felt it was his fault, but Arielle never let him confess so without yelling at him or crying and hitting him for it.

     Aside from the connection through the Oath he had taken for her, he knew they shared something. Something that went deeper than just the Oath. It went so deep that sometimes they even finished each other’s sentences, predicted their thoughts, and spoke the same words at the same time. Jarissein smiled at the thought, but he hadn’t given up what he thought the reason was. She still had to heal the scars her last lover left.

     Jarissein finally unearthed the courage and walked up to her, sitting on the powdery sand beside her, setting his gaze out at the ocean. She sniffled and leaned against him, her head resting on his shoulder. “Hey,” she said, her voice vaguely nasally, courtesy of her stuffy nose. She had her hair braided in a complicated knot that flowed into one large braid resting over her left shoulder. Her bangs were cut neatly across her forehead, just below her eyebrows. She still looked like she was sixteen, even though she had outlived most humans born in her year. Well, that, and the fact that she was trying to do anything different, be anything different than the person she was when she actually was sixteen. He suspected it was to suppress the memory. She even dressed differently. She wore long-sleeved dresses with corsets and floor-length skirts. None of the sundresses and leather archer’s equipment he had been so used to seeing her wear.

     Jarissein looked at the top of her head, taking her hand in his. He drew a shaky breath, and kissed her hair.

     Arielle looked up at him in wonder, her eyebrow quirked up in the way that always made him laugh. One ear was cocked, like she was confused. “What was that for?” she demanded to know. “What are you playing at, Banviete?”

     “Arielle . . .” he trailed off, his stomach suddenly filled with butterflies, and he questioned whether he could go through with it or not. He cleared his throat, and set his jaw. He had to go through with it, he thought. “Arielle, I don’t know if you feel the same way or not, but I don’t care, because I have to tell you. I love you. I have for a long time, since I first laid eyes on you at the fountain all those years ago.” He was talking too fast to stop now. “You are the best thing that’s ever happened to me, and I don’t want that to go away. You make me happy. It’s like you’re a piece of me, and I would die if you ever left me. I know, you’re probably thinking right now how I’m such a terrible man to ask you to trust another one of us with your heart again, but, Ari, I would never—”

     He hadn’t realized he was talking quite that fast until she put a finger to his lips to silence him. He looked up from where his eyes at been—on the ground—to find that she was smiling at him. He was utterly and completely bewildered. She was . . . happy about it?

     “You’re a big idiot, you know?”

     Jarissein nodded, smiling against her finger.

     Arielle removed her finger, wrapping her arms around him. “I love you too, you big idiot,” she said, nipping his wolf ear with her teeth. “I have since I saw an angel rescuing me from a demon trying to kill me. The angel was you, Jarissein.” He could feel the purrs vibrating through her chest as she spoke. She was really happy. And he was the cause.

     “Arielle,” he said quietly, “do you mind standing? I have something important to do.”

     She looked confused again, but stood anyway. Jarissein moved to face her, and lifted himself into a kneel. “I’ve already spoken to your father, and he has granted me permission to ask you.” He held her left hand in his, taking a deep breath. “I want more than the knight-and-lady relationship we have, Arielle. So,” he said, slipping a thin silver ring onto the third finger of the hand he held. “Will you marry me?”

Arielle’s eyes widened. She felt her cheeks flush as the cold silver—the purest and rarest metal and the favored of wedding bands and all jewelry in the Realm—was pushed onto her finger. She stammered, trying to think of something witty to say in reply to hide her shock. When she failed she stopped, took a deep breath, and smiled. “Yes,” was all she said.

     Jarissein looked utterly relieved. He stood and hugged her tight to his chest. “I love you, sei arielle. You are mine.”

     Arielle smiled. Only her parents and Iressa had ever called her sei arielle, ‘my little light.’ She couldn’t ever remember being this happy before Germaine . . . But she would never have to think about that again, would she? It was over, and she was going to start a new life. “I love you, too,” she said. She pulled away, and she noticed that they were both crying. But they were tears of joy. Not pain and sadness and anger. Tears of happiness and the certainty of their future together. She was going to love and be loved. For the rest of her life, she would be happy.

     He leaned forward, and they kissed in the retreating light of the sun.