by Logan Jacobs
Penny wore a deep purple dress and a crown of white flowers, and as she held the train of Melia’s dress up off the floor, she looked up at me and smiled, as if she knew the sway that she still had over me. When both women reached the front of the chapel, Azure flew overhead again to block the sun for just a second, as a signal that the ceremony was about to begin.
“Today has been a long time coming,” I began once the music ended. “All of you here know Dar and Melia. Some of you have known them only in the last two years.”
I glanced at Chef Marver and Osman in the crowd as I spoke, and then my gaze looked over to include Leif where he sat among all my Elite soldiers.
“But some of you,” I said with a glance at Selius and Penny, “have known Dar for much longer than that. It’s his wedding day, so I promised that I wouldn’t embarrass him, but if you find me at the celebration after the ceremony, I promise that I’ve got some good stories for you.”
“Damn, Wade,” Dar muttered, but he grinned anyway.
“Instead, I only want to talk about how good of a friend Dar is,” I said. “How good of a friend he’s always been to me. From the very first day that I showed up at the Thief’s Guild without a copper to my name, through every step and expansion of my whiskey empire, to when he helped me conquer this kingdom, so that we could all be here today, in peace and in freedom.”
I caught Tevian’s eye where the night elf was seated in the middle of the chamber, and he bowed with a smile.
“Even now, I rely on Dar as my right-hand man to help things in this kingdom run as smoothly as they do,” I said, and then I turned to the halfling woman. “Melia, there is no one in the whole kingdom who will make you laugh like Dar can.”
The halfling woman smiled and nodded, and there were already tears in her eyes.
“There is no one in the whole kingdom who will be a more loyal friend to you than Dar,” I said. “There is not a more thoughtful or more caring person, and simply put, if you searched this whole kingdom, you would not find a better man.”
“I know it,” Melia whispered.
“And Dar,” I said as I turned toward my friend. “I think you know damn well how lucky you are to be standing up here with this beautiful woman today, because Melia is as fierce as she is beautiful, and I know that she must be one hell of a good woman to put up with you.”
“It’s true,” Dar said with a grin.
“Then I think it’s high time we get down to business,” I said and then pulled their rings out from my pocket.
After I led them through their vows and declared the two halflings to be husband and wife, the chapel erupted into cheers, and even Azure exhaled a blast of bright fire into the sunny sky outside like daytime fireworks. I joined in with the cheers and then cast a little circle of white fire around them, so they could share a private moment together for just a few seconds before it was time to start the real celebration.
Once we were done inside the chapel, the entire crowd of guests poured out into the courtyard of the temple, where Chef Marver had outdone himself with the food for the wedding. I had supplied the whiskey, of course, so as the musicians began to play again, everyone began to help themselves to a little bit of everything.
The sun was still high in the sky, but I knew that the party would last well into the night, maybe even until the next morning, and that was exactly how it should be. After all, we deserved it.
When the afternoon finally began to slip into evening and the first shadows started to appear in the courtyard, the party was still going strong, so I lit half the torches all around us with my own magic fire, while Clodia and Tevian took care of the other half between the two of them. The courtyard buzzed with warmth and laughter, and every time I turned around, one of my children tottered past me, or one of my women slipped their arms around my waist to kiss me and tell me what a perfect day it was.
After it grew a little darker, Dar found me and pulled me to one side of the courtyard, where a whole group of our friends had gathered for some surprise that the halfling had planned. Ashlin and Clodia were halfway distracted by some of my children that ran in and out of their legs, so they ended up chasing them all around, but everyone else waited for whatever Dar wanted to show us.
Cimarra and Twila stood beside each other, and Ava and Penny both laughed and whispered about something with Melia, while Skam, Selius, and Leif all stood in a huddle as they discussed the latest advances in weapons. Marver kept glancing over Dar’s shoulder to make sure that all the tables still had plenty of food, and Osman periodically sent a little burst of warmth toward the tables to keep all the food hot.
“So, I’ve got something for you,” Dar told me.
“For me?” I asked. “But it’s your wedding day, my friend.”
“I know,” Dar replied. “But this is really a gift for all of us… well, except for Clodia. Sorry.”
“Oh, then I think I can guess what it might be,” the night elf said as she ran by us again and then bent down to look underneath a tablecloth. “But don’t mind me. You all enjoy yourselves. I’ve got a twin to find around here somewhere.”
Dar reached into his waistcoat and pulled out a single glass bottle of whiskey.
“It’s from the very first batch that we ever made,” my halfling friend said. “I wanted to save it for… well, I didn’t know what I wanted to save it for, but I knew that it would be something special.”
“Today certainly seems appropriate,” I said with a smile.
“I thought so,” Dar said. “But all this time that I kept it, I would just pull it out sometimes to look at it, and every single time, you know what I thought about?”
“I’m sure you’ll tell us,” Penny teased.
“Yeah, well, every time I looked at it, I thought about the vow we all took,” Dar said. “Until death claims us, remember?”
I glanced at the scar on my palm that I knew my friends who had been with me from the beginning also shared, and I remembered the blood-oath that we had all taken together. That we would do whatever it took to win our freedom, until death claimed us.
“Anyway,” Dar said. “I might have lost track of where I hid it in all the chaos of the war two years ago, but I found where I had hidden it when I was going through the attic of the old Thief’s Guild the other day.”
“Of course, that’s where you hid it,” I laughed.
“And it just seemed right to take it out today, you know?” Dar asked. “We’ve worked so hard, and now we have everything that we’ve always dreamed of. We have everything that you always dreamed of, Wade. You’re the one who believed that all this was possible, and you’re the one who led us to victory.”
“I couldn’t have done it without you, my friends,” I said with a smile.
“Then let’s drink to that!” Dar said.
Ashlin suddenly caught the toddler that she’d been chasing, and as soon as she bounced him on her hip, she disappeared and returned a moment later with a whole tray of glasses for us.
“I think that’s one for everyone but Clodia,” Ashlin said.
“Oh, I don’t mind,” Clodia said as she popped her head out from under a different table, just before she grabbed one of Penny’s daughters that she’d been playing with.
Osman grabbed the tray of glasses and held them steady, while Dar opened the bottle and began to pour us all a shot of the first whiskey that we’d ever distilled together. It was a beautiful fucking gift, and I couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate my oldest friend’s happiness.
As soon as Dar poured us all a round, we each took a glass and raised it high.
“What should we toast to?” Twila asked.
“How about everything?” Skam chuckled.
“That’d be a good place to start, anyway,” Penny said.
“Then let me raise the first toast,” I said. “To Dar and Melia!”
We all drained our glasses, and Dar immediately poured us another round.
“Then I’ll take the se
cond toast,” Leif said. “To our family and to the kingdom!”
We all drained our glasses again, and as the warmth of the whiskey spread through my stomach, Dar poured us each one more shot.
“I think this last round belongs to me,” Dar said. “We don’t have to vow anything until death claims us, because we’ve already won. Instead, I propose we drink this last round to something else.”
“Alright, then let’s hear it,” Penny said.
“To the king,” Dar said as he raised his glass to me.
“To the king!” my friends shouted, and then we all drained our glasses once more.
While the smooth whiskey warmed my throat all the way down to my stomach, I looked up at the sky and smiled as Azure soared overhead again and unleashed another burst of fire into the air. As the fire glittered against the night sky like millions of stars all thrown together, it hissed out and disappeared before it could fall to the ground.
I had told the Rainbow Keys once that I had wished to be a king, but I had never imagined that it would actually happen, and I had certainly never imagined that I would get all the rest of my dreams, too. I had met my closest friends, I had made the best whiskey that this kingdom had ever known, and most importantly, I had found all of my beautiful women along the way, and they had given me my perfect children.
My kingdom was peaceful and prosperous, and so was every single one of my citizens, but what really satisfied me wasn’t just that we all lived in a goddamn paradise together.
It was that finally, after all this time, we were truly free.
THE END
End Notes
Thanks for reading Skulduggery 10! That’s the end! You made it 10 books! Did you like it? If so, please leave me a nice review here. Thank you!
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2020 by Logan Jacobs