Chapter 165 A Life Of Love

Chapter 165 A Life Of Love
Rae
Hollow Hill has been peaceful for the last few days since we returned home from Bellgrave.
The roots are quiet. The roads beneath my feet are calm. The courts do not seem to be in any immediate distress, and no one has sent word asking me to press my hands into the dirt and fix whatever ancient stupidity has been choking their world.
For a few days, I have been able to focus on the things that matter most.
My family.
My new one.
The people I have come to know and love in ways I don’t think I fully understand how to explain yet.
Today is Liora and Torin’s binding ceremony.
The women of Hollow Hill have been planning meticulously for weeks. Probably longer, honestly. I get the impression Hollow Hill started preparing for this the second Torin and Liora were freed from Bright Thorn. I think the whole court collectively decided they needed one beautiful thing to hold between their hands after so many years of blood and waiting.
I feel a little guilty that I haven’t been able to contribute as much as I would have liked to for my friend.
But today, I get to carry a very special part of it.
Torin asked me to return the necklace.
The same necklace Liora once slipped into my palm in the kitchens beneath Bright Thorn’s pretty lies—the one I carried down into the cells. The one Torin held like I had given him a piece of her instead of a little green stone on a silver chain.
He told me it is a symbol of their love.
She gave him light and hope when he needed it most. Now he wants to return it. He wants to see her wearing their love on the day of their binding.
Naturally, when I open the little wooden box in front of Liora, tears well in her eyes.
Maeve immediately swears at me for making the bride cry, and Saoirse steps behind Liora and pins the rest of her hair out of the way.
I stand there with the open box in my hands, looking at Liora, and for a second I forget what I am supposed to do.
She looks beautiful.
Her dress is soft green, the colour of new leaves after rain, fitted gently through the bodice before falling loose around her legs in layers so light they seem to move before she does. Tiny white flowers have been stitched along the cuffs and neckline, almost hidden until she shifts and the thread catches the light. Her hair has been left mostly loose, brushed until it shines dark and smooth down her back, with two small braids drawn away from her face and pinned with silver thread and little green leaves.
She does not look like the quiet girl from Bright Thorn’s kitchens today.
She looks like someone who survived grief and came out the other side wearing it beautifully.
Then Liora turns toward me.
“Will you put it on?” she asks.
My throat tightens so fast I can barely nod.
Of all the people in Hollow Hill, all the fae who knew her before Bright Thorn, before prison, before eighteen years of waiting, she asks me.
I lift the necklace from the box. The chain is cool across my fingers, the green stone small and worn and far too heavy with meaning for something so delicate. I step behind Liora and carefully fasten it around her neck.
The stone settles at the hollow of her throat.
Liora touches it once, and the breath she releases feels like something the whole room has been holding with her.
After that, everything moves quickly.
Too quickly.
Maeve is suddenly thrusting my own dress into my hands, simple and light brown, with soft sleeves and a wrap around the waist. 
Before I can argue, I am changed; my hair has been tugged into some loose half-up situation I cannot deny looks nice, and Saoirse is pressing a bundle of white flowers into my hands.
I look down at myself, at the soft brown fabric and the flowers in my grip, and something strange settles in my chest.
I am part of this.
Not watching from outside. No longer the lost human girl who stumbled into a world she did not understand. Not only the Heartroot everyone keeps looking toward when something breaks.
I’m part of it.
By the time we walk out, Hollow Hill has transformed.
The gardens have been dressed just as beautifully as Liora. Flowers trail from the branches in soft hanging strands. Pale ribbons twist around railings and roots. Lanterns hang from low boughs, their light unnecessary in the afternoon sun but beautiful anyway. Tables have been carried outside and covered with mismatched cloths, chipped cups, silver bowls, plates of food, and little flowers tucked into every spare space someone could find.
It’s not perfect, and that is what I love most about it.
It feels real.
We walk through the gardens toward the great tree where the ceremony will take place. It curves down from the hillside and arches over the clearing, huge and ancient. Beneath it, Torin is waiting, and Cian stands beside him.
He is dressed in dark Hollow Hill clothes, his hair pushed back from his face, his silver eyes finding me across the flowers.
For a moment, I forget to breathe.
Then Torin sees Liora, and everything else fades.
His face changes in such a small way that I might have missed it once. Before this realm. Before Cian. Before I understood what longing can do to a person when it has nowhere to go for years.
Torin goes still; his shoulders loosen and tense all at once. His lips part slightly. One hand lifts like his body has reached for her before his mind can remember they are in the middle of a ceremony and everyone is watching.
Liora sees it too.
I know she does, because the tiniest smile trembles across her mouth, and suddenly every nervous breath she has taken all morning makes sense.
This is not only a wedding.
This is proof.
Proof that all those years did not take this from them.
They are here.
Together.
In the light.
The ceremony itself passes in pieces around me.
I don’t catch every word, and I don’t think I need to. What I feel is enough.
There is an undying love here in Hollow Hill today.
Cian’s eyes find mine over Torin’s shoulder as he seals their commitments, and something warm opens in my chest.
I don’t know what the rest of my life is supposed to look like anymore, but standing here with flowers in my hands, watching two people choose each other in front of everyone who helped bring them home, I know what I want.
This.
A life surrounded by people I love.
A life where joy does not have to be stolen between disasters.
A life with roots overhead, gardens full, laughter too loud in the wrong moments, and Cian’s eyes finding mine in every room.