Chapter 166: Choice

Rae

Night falls over Hollow Hill as the celebration begins. The shadows deepen beneath the tables, beneath the roots, beneath the skirts of children who are still running long after every adult has told them to slow down. Then the lanterns are lit, one by one, until the whole clearing glows in soft amber light.

Someone has hung them from the branches and the great tree, from low roots and crooked poles and the backs of chairs. They sway when people pass beneath them, little pools of firelight trembling over flowers, food, faces, hands reaching, cups lifting, mouths laughing.

The music has changed now too.

Earlier, it was bright and loud, all drums and cheering and people clapping hard enough to make my palms ache. Now it is softer, though no less alive. Strings hum and a pipe sings low over them, winding through the night air in a way that makes the dark feel full instead of empty.

Liora and Torin sit together near the centre table, their hands still loosely wrapped in the flowering vine from the ceremony. It has slackened now, the little white blooms resting over their fingers, but neither of them seems interested in removing it.

I take another sip from my cup and lean back against Cian’s chest where he stands behind me. His arm rests around my waist, solid and warm, and for once, neither of us is doing anything important.

We are only here under the lantern light. In a garden full of people who are laughing because they can.

That alone feels like a kind of magic.

Then the children start bringing out the flower crowns.

I watch a few girls crouched beside a basket near the edge of the garden, heads bent together as they twist green stems through their fingers. A boy sits with them, looking very serious as he passes flowers from one pile to another, though I am fairly sure he is mostly choosing whichever ones look least crushed.

Soon there are more of them. Children gathered on blankets, making crowns from bluebells and white blossoms and soft purple flowers, threading ivy through the rings, tucking in tiny gold leaves that catch the lantern light.

Then they begin handing them out.

One to Maeve, who immediately complains that the flowers are uneven and then wears it anyway.

One to Saoirse, who stares at the child long enough that he almost takes it back before she lowers her head and lets him set it over her dark hair.

I laugh into my cup.

Then a little girl comes toward me.

She is small, with round cheeks, solemn eyes, and a flower crown held carefully in both hands. This one is not as messy as some of the others. The stems are woven tight and neat, with white blossoms tucked between little blue bells and sprigs of green. Tiny gold flowers sit near the front.

She stops in front of me and lifts it.

“For you,” she says.

The words are simple, but the night around me is not.

Because I remember.

I remember another child, another crown, another celebration beneath Hollow Hill when I did not understand enough. I remember flowers being placed on my head while people watched closely. I remember laughing, thinking it was a sweet decoration.

I remember Cian going still then too, just as he is now.

Now I know a flower crown in Hollow Hill is not only flowers.

Not when it is given in a celebration of love. Not when it is worn before the court. Not when one person takes it and offers it to another with full understanding.

It is not a binding ceremony.

But it is a choice—a visible one.

A way of saying, I know what stands between us. I see it. I accept it.

The little girl waits with the seriousness of someone carrying something far heavier than flowers.

I take the crown from her.

The stems are cool and slightly damp against my fingers. The blossoms tremble with the movement, fragile and alive.

I look at the crown, and I think of the first berry I held to Cian’s mouth in Bright Thorn’s dungeon, having no idea that feeding a fae male meant anything more than basic manners. I think of the bargain I did not understand. The road I could not see. The bond that had already wrapped itself around both of us while I was still trying to work out whether I had died in a mushroom-related incident.

So much of the beginning was chosen around me.

By fate.

By magic.

By Cian’s fear.

By my own ignorance.

But this is different.

I know what this means. I know what the court will see. I know what Cian will feel if I offer it.

And I know what I want.

I turn to find Cian watching me, his silver eyes fixed on the crown in my hands.

The lantern light catches the sharp lines of his face. He looks carved from shadow and old sorrow and something softer he still does not seem to know what to do with. His hand remains at my waist, but only just.

Around us, the celebration keeps moving, but not quite as loudly. The music still plays. People still speak. Cups still lift. Children still weave crowns in pools of lantern light.

But Hollow Hill notices. I know they’re watching.

Cian says nothing. He waits, still and patient, lips parted slightly.

I step closer and lift the flowers between us.

“I know what it means now,” I say.

His throat moves as he swallows.

My fingers tighten around the woven stems. “I know what they saw when I wore one before. I know what it means if I give it to you.”

His voice is rough when he finally speaks. “Rae.”

Only my name.

Only that.

But it sounds like pain and hope have caught on the same breath.

I smile, though my eyes burn. “Will you accept this crown?”

The flowers tremble in my hands.

So do I.

That feels right somehow.

Love should probably shake a person a little. Especially this kind. Especially love that began in blood and stone and somehow brought us here, to lanterns and music and children with flower crowns.

“I choose you,” I whisper.

The court goes very quiet.

Cian looks at me as if the words have gone straight through his chest, through every scar, every wall, every careful place he has learned to hold himself back.

I lift the crown higher, offering it to him with both hands.

Then, slowly, carefully, Cian lowers himself to one knee before me and bows his head.

My breath catches as I place the crown upon him.

The flowers settle against his dark hair, soft and impossible, and when he lifts his eyes to mine, I see it there.

Not triumph or possession, but wonder.

Like I have handed him the whole realm and chosen to stand inside it with him.