For the first time in a long time, he looked “presentable.”
They stood in front of the large, wide-framed mirror in the apartment he and Dragon shared with Rysa. Daisy, Mira, and Sister had his soon-to-be wife sequestered in Sister’s apartment for hair and primping, final dress adjustments, and whatever other activities modern brides engaged in prior to the event.
After all his down times, and his problems, she still wanted to marry him. She still cared and she stayed. Ladon ran his hand over his head again.
Derek, in his three-toned tuxedo, squeezed Ladon’s shoulder. “Are you okay, Brother?”
“With what?” Getting married? The pain inflicted by villains?
He refers to the haunting. Dragon stretched out his neck and practiced his dragon version of the tuxedo Ladon wore—metallic lines and two-toned shapes all moved slowly down his back, plus a dragon version of the snow-colored rose Ladon wore on his lapel.
Derek tapped the rose pattern moving across Dragon’s chest. “Your sister has been practicing mimicking the bridesmaids’ dresses.”
We are family. The beast also tugged on Ladon’s tie. Human is fine, Derek. We have survived worse wounds.
“Yes, you have.” Andreas smoothed his own sleeves and adjusted his own rose. “Are you okay?” He nodded toward Derek.
Ladon’s brother-in-law had been adamant about his recovery. His arm healed well, and unlike Gavin, he hadn’t been permanently afflicted with a glass splinter. His connection to the beasts had re-stabilized at the same moment as Ladon’s. Aiden Blake had not attacked him. He’d come out of the ordeal well, all things considered.
Yet his eyes had not returned to their true Romanov sky tones.
“Now I know to believe in ghosts.” Derek tugged on his sleeves.
We missed you, Andreas, signed Dragon. A complex structure followed, one that for Ladon and Dragon, had always meant “Andreas.” It flowed into Ladon’s mind and, he knew, Derek’s as well. The sense of trust, and of family. The memories of smiles and stories and brotherhood. Centuries of shared times, of heartbreaks, of the occasional bout of anger and the two distinct moments when Ladon and Andreas had gotten into physical fights.
The beast followed with his structure that meant “Derek.” It fluctuated, pulsing as if expanding, and when it settled, it resonated with the same trust and sense of family that resonated within the beast’s concept of Andreas.
Dragon now saw Derek as he saw Andreas—fully brother, Legion, family. What had taken Andreas centuries to achieve, Dragon saw in and extended to Derek in a mere seven decades.
Andreas smiled, as did Derek.
Gavin comes. Dragon sauntered toward the apartment’s door to greet his new friend, and the structure meaning “Gavin” flowed to Ladon and Derek: Newness and wonder and hope. To Dragon and his sister, Gavin Bower represented the best possibilities the future had to offer.
Gavin stopped just inside the door. He still stared at the olive tree for a moment, but, Ladon figured, the awe that constantly rolled off his young frame only bolstered the dragon’s characterization of hope. Gavin Bower saw wide open spaces in which to run free where the long immortal only saw ground to be trudged over once again.
Gavin’s point of view was now, and always would be, the better option.
“Are you ready to get married?” Gavin tapped his unadorned wrist. “Time’s a tickin’, my big dragon friend.”
Derek smoothed his own well-trimmed hair and leaned close. “Now is a time of celebration.” He rolled his shoulders and fiddled, once again, with his cuffs. “I will not lie. I enjoy the company of the young people.”
Andreas grinned a lopsided grin. “The solstice is almost upon us. Time to step into your new life.”
Ladon stepped into his new life seven months ago when he and Dragon lifted the activating Rysa from the asphalt of a parking lot off the University of Minnesota campus. They stepped through that looking glass not realizing the wonders they would find on the other side.
They knew now, and they would never give them up.
Ladon smoothed his jacket one last time. He walked toward his dragon and his dragon’s new friend, with his two best brothers at his side. Together, they would step out into the gardens of his home’s commons, all truly happy for the first time in centuries.
Rysa had kept her jitters under control through breakfast. She’d managed to eat a small lunch, and she carried her father-ordered mandatory hydration water bottle with her everywhere she went. She did her slow breathing exercises. She focused on the calm she always felt after sleeping between Ladon and Dragon and did her best to use it to find her center.
She wanted to run around and climb the olive tree anyway.
“Hold still.” Daisy primped yet another braid and curl on Rysa’s head. Daisy’s stern frown reflected her concentration more than any annoyance, but it still poked at the jitters trying to surface in Rysa’s stomach.
“Sorry.” Rysa tried her damnedest not to bounce on the stool.
Her mom adjusted the only lace on Rysa’s dress—the inset flowing over her back. Her mostly white silk gown shimmered with subtle rainbow swirls and patterns that only truly showed when she stood in a beam of sunlight. Like the bridesmaid’s dresses, her dress had simple, elegant lines, long sleeves, and a scoop neck. No lace covered the front, though a few crystals sparkled on the small drape across her lower belly, along with three Legion insignias.
Her dragon talon talisman and her insignia hung around her neck, as they always would. For the wedding, she’d replaced their leather cords with shimmering, delicate silver chains.
Her dress’s colors concentrated as the fabric flowed away from her upper body and rippled into full-color, brilliant, dragon-like patterns along the hem. A few beads and crystals in her hair also picked up the blues, reds, purples, and golds stitched onto the end of her train.
You look beautiful, Rysa, Sister-Dragon signed. Slow, pewter-gray waves moved down her side—her dragon version of a bridesmaid gown.
All the women, Rysa’s mother included, wore simple and elegant, long-sleeved, scoop-necked dresses similar in cut to Rysa’s dress. Their full-length hems swept along the ground as they moved, and swirled with a beautiful twist as they walked. Each dress was a slightly different metallic shade of gray. Anna’s carried a hint of golds and browns, to reflect her role as dragon, earth, and autumn. Daisy’s dress shimmered with hints of green, red, and purple, to highlight her role standing in for Burner, fire, and summer. Rysa’s mother’s dress gleamed with hints of blues and whites, to symbolize Fate, air, and winter. Andreas’s tux—and Dmitri’s, if he had stayed—carried hints of pale greens, blues, and lavender in their pocket squares and ties, to symbolize Shifter, water, and spring.
Everyone wore Legion insignias, her mother and Gavin included, at Anna’s request, a gift as wonderful for Rysa as Derek’s brilliant gazebo.
Anna knew nothing of eyeliner or blush, so had left that detail of Rysa’s primping to Daisy. As it turned out, Sister-Dragon was just as much an expert with fine braiding and twists as Dragon, and had Rysa’s hair in a full up-do in no time flat. Daisy now added a few final bobby pins here and there for extra insurance.
Anna tapped Rysa’s elbow. “My brother is a lucky man.”
The jitters broke through as a big, loud gulp. “Anna.” Rysa popped off the stool and hugged her soon-to-be sister-in-law. “Thank you.” She hugged Sister-Dragon. “Both of you.”
“Hey hey, no crying until after the ceremony.” Daisy smoothed the shoulders of Rysa’s dress. “Okay?”
Rysa wiggled her fingers to keep from rubbing at her eyes. “Wow. Okay.” She looked up at the lovely swirls covering the ceiling dome in Anna and Derek’s apartment. Theirs was a mirror image of the one she shared with Ladon, with the bed and its open arch into the nesting shaft on the opposite side from what she was used to. Their tree was larger, as well, reflecting Anna’s longer time in the cave.
Birds sang and flitted here, too. The
air moved just the same, if backwards. This apartment was just as much Rysa’s home as any of the rest of the cave.
Gavin ducked in his head. He’d been running interference since breakfast, making sure the gazebo was ready, managing Rysa’s parents, and keeping everyone on track. “It’s time,” he said.
Rysa nodded and gathered her dress. “We’re ready,” she said, and walked toward the gardens, and Ladon and Dragon.
Rysa’s father held out his arm. “Ready?”
Gavin held out her dragon-designed bouquet. The two beasts had worked on it together all morning, cutting, curling, and wrapping flowers and foliage from the cave’s fields. They both asked if it could be a surprise.
Yellow snapdragons and lavender flowed out the bottom of the bouquet as a soft cascade. Dark green ivy and holly poked out between scattered sunflowers and smaller, delicate violets. Lily of the valley added a summery perfume and mixed perfectly with the dark, violet-blue roses.
The dragons constructed a bouquet of the seasons for her. They dotted it with all the colors of the rainbow, to enhance reflections from her dress—and of them. And they’d pulled it all together into a sculpture of flowers for her to hold.
Daisy touched a rose at the edge of the bouquet. “That’s amazing.”
Sister-Dragon ambled by. We are glad you like it, Rysa, she signed.
“I have your rings right here.” Gavin patted his pocket.
Rysa took her father’s arm. Gavin waved and Andreas, who was at the gazebo already, started the sweet, joyous music playing over the speakers placed around the gardens. She couldn’t quite name the instruments and suspected they were older than anything modern. When and where Anna and Ladon acquired the recording—or made it themselves—she didn’t know. Ladon only smiled and kissed her temple.
She liked it. The notes flowed like water and resonated inside the cave as if they had been written for the space—which they might have been. The music made the already magical place even more magical.
Gavin took Daisy’s arm. They took their place under the summer arch, Daisy lifting her small bouquet of roses and daisies off the gazebo rail as they passed. More roses and daisies in all colors swept over their heads and down to the gazebo floor.
Her mother already waited under the winter arch, a small bouquet of holly and evergreen in her hand and a bough over her head. Derek waited under the fall arch—the one through which she and Ladon would pass under as they entered the gazebo—holding his wife’s bouquet of sunflowers, red oak, and small oranges. Andreas stood opposite the fall arch, a wrapped sprig of spring snapdragons and lavender over his head. He smiled his megawatt smile, and waved them forward.
Anna and Sister-Dragon walked toward the gazebo but stopped across from Ladon and Dragon, who waited on the path.
Rysa, her arm around her father’s, walked into the garden to the grand gazebo built with love and great care by her soon-to-be brother-in-law. She walked through the fresh winter crops, the kale and the carrots, and under the orange tree.
They stopped before the two dragons just as the music faded. The beasts, mirroring each other, arched their great necks and touched their snouts. Their hides moved through the seasons, from the ice of winter, to the rebirth of spring, to the full bloom of summer. Then they moved into the harvest of fall, and back to the winter outside.
Ladon extended his hand. A pulse moved between him and the dragons—a bright pulse as richly textured and lovely as the many flowers covering the arches. Sensations of rose petals touched Rysa’s skin. Warmth filled her mind and soul. I love you, too, she pushed, hoping this once the man and the beast would hear her thoughts.
Ladon’s eyes and skin brightened. He smiled his brilliant smile, and all the hurt, all the pain and poison that had been inflicted on them were suddenly, completely pushed into the past. This, now, with him, with her family, was all that mattered.
She walked with Ladon under the arch of dragon, and took the first step up to the gazebo, Dragon following.
Anna, Sister-Dragon, and Derek closed rank behind them. Ladon led Rysa to the bright spot under the open roof of the gazebo.
Rysa handed her bouquet to Gavin. He grinned and stepped back, and took Daisy’s hand once again.
Andreas stepped forward. “We are here today, on this winter solstice, to witness the marriage of this man, woman, and dragon.” He grinned and rubbed Dragon’s head. “I have been at your side, my brother, for years, decades, centuries, and millennia. We have witnessed the rise and fall of civilizations, and the births and deaths of many we have loved.”
They all lowered their heads.
“The past honors the present.”
Ladon and Rysa raised their clasped hands. Andreas stepped forward as he pulled a leather cord and Legion insignia from his pocket. “Let the present honor the future.” He wrapped the cord around their hands.
“We offer you our world, Rysa Lucinda Torres,” Ladon said, “You make the space we walk a home again.”
“I offer you my home, Human and Dragon of the Dracos,” Rysa said. Here, out there in the snow, some shack on a hillside, it didn’t matter. Ladon and Dragon were her home now. “The space I walk between you and Dragon is my world.”
“We offer you our soul, because you have given us back our life.” His hands tightened around hers.
“I offer you my life, because you have awakened my soul.”
Ladon smiled. He glanced up at the hole in the gazebo roof, then back to her. “We promise to love you as we do now, unconditionally and with all our hearts, through all that the future holds. We take you as you are, Rysa Torres, and we accept all that you offer.”
“I promise to love you as I do now, unconditionally and with all my heart, through all that the future holds. I take you as you are, Human and Dragon, and I accept all that you offer.”
Andreas wrapped his big hands around theirs. “Do you, Human and Dragon of the Dracos, take this woman to be your wife?”
“I do,” Ladon said.
Behind him, happy, affirmative symbols flowed along Dragon’s side. I do, signed the beast.
Andreas looked to Rysa. “Do you, Fate and Shifter of the Draki Prime, take this man and this dragon as your husband?”
“I do,” Rysa said. Now and forever.
Andreas unwrapped the cord from their hands. “Rings, please.”
Derek fished in his pocket for the ring Ladon was to give to her, and Gavin in his for the rings she was to give to Ladon and Dragon.
All three were cut from the wide end of the same talon as her talisman. Ladon had used Stab to shear off rounded lengths, and had placed the shimmering, opal-like talon into bands of silver.
Ladon took the first ring from Derek. He looked up at the hole again. Then he smiled just as the sun outside hit its lowest noon elevation of the year.
The light streaming into the gazebo split into an array of rainbow beams. They fanned out over Ladon and Dragon, over Rysa, over the flowers and their family, just as another pulse of warmth and love from Ladon and Dragon filled the gazebo.
Rysa touched her lips. Across from her, under the summer arch, Daisy’s eyes brightened. Gavin gawked. And behind Rysa, a joyful laugh sprang from her mother.
She had no idea that the mirrors and the fenestra draconis could add so much to the already perfect world of the cave. That, somehow, the dragons had built magic into the air.
Ladon slipped the silver-encased dragon talon band onto her finger. “With this ring, I thee wed.”
The light streaming in over Ladon and Rysa split into a diamond-like oscillation pattern, and Rysa wanted to dance. Dragon dipped his head into the beams, his body wrapping around his humans, and he played the pattern down his hide. He danced for her.
Gavin handed Rysa the rings.
“With these rings, I thee wed.” She slipped Ladon’s onto his finger first, then Dragon’s ring over his first knuckle. The beast could not wear his outside the cave—it could not vanish with him. But his happiness at bei
ng included filled the gazebo just as much as his lights.
Andreas held his arms wide. “I now pronounce you husband, wife, and dragon! You may kiss the bride.”
Ladon pulled Rysa into a tight embrace. His lips met hers as if they kissed for the first time, as if the ceremony meant the world to him and to Dragon. He and his beast were stepping out of their old life, into their new, and it was now official. He was a married man.
The beams of light dissipated. Dragon’s hide returned to his normal soft, flowing greens and golds. Their family clapped and hugged, and the three halves of the Dracos stepped together into their future.
Chapter Fifty
“I Want to Know What Love Is” blasted from wall-mounted speakers in The Land’s Reception Pavilion. Gavin leaned his tulle-decorated chair toward the wall behind him as the other members of the wedding party—Mr. Sisto sat to his left, with Mr. Torres beyond him—leaned forward. Daisy’s empty chair sat to his right. She’d gone off to freshen up.
Gavin, along with the rest of the guests, watched Rysa, Ladon, and Brother-Dragon dance their first dance out on the hall’s floor.
He’d been met at The Land with yet another new pair of hearing aids. This latest set countered the whipping velocity of the universe and, for once, he could fully enjoy an evening. Rysa, Ladon, and Brother-Dragon most definitely were—all three had already spent a good amount of time showing off their dragon-talon wedding bands. The beast, in particular, liked to make a grand show of his ring, and would splay his huge claw-hand out for anyone and everyone who wanted to see.
Gavin’s newest aids carried no reverberations, no whistling or static. He heard language well enough that he didn’t need to read lips, which would have been difficult in the reception hall’s ambience anyway. It was nice to know, though, that almost everyone here could sign if, for some reason, his aids stopped working.
Mr. Pavlovich’s people went all-out. The entirety of The Land of Milk and Honey—the bar, the hotel, the barns, the pavilion, and all the trails—had been decorated to look like one immense Norse fairy wonderland. The staff turned down most of the property’s normal lights, and the warm glow of millions of tiny white bulbs, plus a few red and purple ones thrown in for highlights, had become the main source of illumination. Boughs of evergreen, oak, and holly decorated every surface.
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