“The kiss. Aye, when they kiss.”
“To make it belong to the king and queen alone,” Dyadia said, her mind in synch with Crony’s as it once was all those years ago. “Perfect.” She leaned in again, about to press Crony’s fingers back into place.
Crony hesitated. “Vow to me. The realms can ne’er know the truth of it. That no king and queen alive have the power to affect the sun and moon. That it lie in me alone, through yer son’s moon-callin’ spell. That the prophecy was ne’er about a marriage reuniting the skies, but about a pure and true love reuniting kingdoms.”
Dyadia sighed. “Of all the things magic can mend, yet it can’t break through narrow-mindedness.”
“It be taken everyone’s hands to knock down walls and rebuild foundations.”
“Well, then these two will be the cornerstones. The example.”
“Aye. So let’s give ’em a fairy-tale endin’ to stand upon. A pedestal, of sorts. One they know nothin’ of. And the people will ne’er again doubt the strength behind solidarity. Be we in agreement?”
“Yes. I vow it.” Dyadia caught Crony’s hand once more. “I will see you in the heavens, Madame Cronatia Wisteria.”
“Each and ev’ry night.”
Dyadia turned Crony’s palm and pressed soft lips to what was left of the charred flesh. She then guided Crony’s fingers to revive the scene. The royal couple appeared again, standing in front of a dais covered in white silk and brimming with periwinkle flowers and ivy that cascaded down the sides. Deep lavender panacea petals, sprinkled atop turquoise moss, covered the floor and stretched all the way out the arched entrance, across a footbridge, and to the iron door.
On the other end of the dais, facing the bride and groom, stood two holy men—Eldorian and Nerezethite—each wearing vestments adorned by their kingdoms’ prospective sigils.
The vows had already been spoken, for their left wrists were bound with ceremonial ribbons and thorns, to show the unification of their realms. The panacea rose ring—that Crony had seen within the bag in the dirt room—already sat upon the queen’s hand. As for Lyra’s part, she had her nose wrinkled while wrestling a metallic-black band into place upon her king’s finger. They began laughing at the struggle, and the love and hope upon their faces gave Crony the strength to call upon the mage’s dark spell, letting it fill her thoughts, letting it chill her blood.
Lachrymosa’s voice and face were tied within it, for he’d become one with the moon, and when Crony had intercepted that bond, taking his breath and the spell, the moon had fallen, depleted and unable to stand on its own against the sun. Thus, it had stayed hidden beneath the earth where it would be safe. Now Crony would use the spell to bring the moon back to Eldoria where she waited. She would become one with it—release her spirit alongside Lachrymosa’s within—to renew the moon’s strength, yet contain its power. Together, they would help it find its place once more alongside the sun.
All she needed was the kiss . . .
As if on cue, the king cupped his queen’s chin, mimed the words “Lady Wife,” then joined their lips in a sweet, passionate embrace as everyone cheered around them.
Waiting one beat to admire the beauty of their bliss, Crony called up the moon and took her last breath.
The royal chroniclers would one day record it, filling scrolls with the miraculous event, pages upon pages of descriptions: How, when the raven-eyed king and his silver-haired queen shared their first kiss as husband and wife, the world began to shake and tremble. Nerezethites outside of the arboretum gave accounts of trees, once bowed from the blizzard’s downfall, shaking off clumps of snow and ice and stretching upward as if reaching for the moon as it slid into the reopened seam of the earth—as it magically converted to smoke and clouds, then siphoned through the crack. And just as the moon pulled Nerezeth’s province above ground—the populace, the forest, the castle, the arboretum, the Rigamort and its brumal stags, the hoarfrost goblins—the Ashen Ravine fell into the crack, sliding the opposite direction via its own bubble of magic, encapsulating and combining all the wicked and twisted residues of magic as it went: the thorns, the badlands of the Grim, the shrouds and cadaver brambles, the quag puddles and endless ash. These took form again within the belly of the earth in a new shape—dark and dangerous—before the rip in the earth closed with a magical seal, locking the evil far, far beneath the ground.
A reversal, the scrolls would say. For thereafter, Nerezeth’s forestland was seated alongside Eldoria’s mountains and hills and valleys, both surrounded by the oceans, as it had been from the very beginning.
When the dust settled, the sun, moon, and stars shared the sky for one day, with an enchanted rainbow barrier holding their light separate. The sun, warm and beaming over Nerezeth’s forests, lured out the tender-skinned people from their homes and the infirmaries. Protected by the shade, they stood within the softened rays and felt true sunlight for the first time as snow and ice dripped and melted around them. Above Eldoria, the moon and stars held vigil, their glow too tender to feed the honeysuckle. White flakes fell from the sky. Within hours, the fragrant, vine-infested plague had disintegrated beneath blankets of snow that melted away to a nutrient-rich mud. The townspeople cheered, running to-and-fro with buckets, gathering it to use for compost in their neglected gardens and fields.
The next day, the sun broke at dawn over both kingdoms simultaneously, then set at dusk, and the moon ruled the night. Balance had returned to the skies at the hands of a star-boy and a songbird girl, just as the prophecy foretold. Both kingdoms came together to rejoice and rally around their rulers with pledges of honor and fealty.
That very first evening, Queen Lyra and King Vesper sat among advisors and council members within the great hall.
They hadn’t had a moment to themselves since the event—Lyra making arrangements with Prime Minister Albous to send Eldoria’s military and council back to the ivory palace to assure all was well and at peace, and to inform the people that their king and queen would take the two-week journey there to hold open court and meet all their subjects very soon; and Vesper, sending his own military forces to round up the thieves, murderers, and marauders running amuck through the forested province now that the ravine no longer housed them. However, Lyra had given him a list of those she thought worthy of pardon for their part in freeing Crony from Griselda’s imprisonment, and upon consideration, the king found positions for them in his castle conducive to their peculiar and particular talents.
Lyra and her king had just issued a decree to bring down the walls of the arboretum and free all the wildlife when she saw Queen Nova, Luce, and Dyadia standing outside the hall’s doorway. She nudged her king, who looked up from signing the parchment.
Perhaps they have news on Crony, she said silently between them. The last time she saw Luce and Dyadia together was only from a distance—when the sun, moon, and stars stretched across the heavens like a mystical trinity. The two had been deep in conversation, but had slipped away before Lyra could break free from her responsibilities to question them.
Now, with her king in tow, she wove through the crowded candlelit room, tipping her crowned head to people who knelt as they passed.
Together, they stepped out into the corridor where Queen Nova had already cleared the way for them to have privacy.
Both Luce and Dyadia bowed at their arrival. Vesper nodded and looked down at his mother.
Queen Nova rested her palms on her son’s and new daughter-in-law’s shoulders. “You both appear weary. I’ve heard rumors you’ve yet to retire to your chambers together.”
Vesper grimaced and rubbed the stubble upon his jaw that had darkened considerably over the past few hours. “We’ve been taking turns resting. Every time we attempt to leave together, someone needs one of us to stay.”
Queen Nova frowned. “You are the king.” She turned to Lyra. “And you the queen. But you are also human. Two days hence from the marriage, and you’ve yet to share your wedding bed? It is time you let your prime ministers and advisors earn their titles. I’ll make myself available for any questions or obstacles until you’re well rested and well fed. Go now to your suite. I had a late supper sent up along with some honey mead. I don’t want to see you again until the morrow . . . well after dawn.” Brooking no argument, she ducked gracefully into the great hall and disappeared among the milling servants and council members.