The Bound (Ascension #2)(118)

A guard escorted the Queen out of the boat, and she stood next to the priestess.

Queen Cassia tilted her chin up. “Ladies and gentleman of Eleysia, thank you so much for gathering today for the honoring of our Creator and her blessing we receive each year.” Her voice boomed over the crowd.

Cyrene glanced over at Dean and squeezed his hand. He met her eyes and shot her a half-smile. She listened as the Queen went on to talk more about the Creator and another year of safe sea travel. It was much the same as what Dean had just told her.

The priestess stepped forward. She looked so fragile, but when she began to pray, Cyrene knew she had an incredible inner strength. Cyrene bowed her head with the crowd and sent up her own prayer to the Creator, asking for help to make the right choices and for guidance in the coming trials.

Then, the priestess produced the tiny gold Ring. Cyrene could barely see it from her prime seat. She couldn’t imagine anyone else could. The Queen passed it to the King, and then it went down the line.

Tifani finally handed it to Dean, and for the first time, Cyrene could see that it was actually a very pretty ring. The gold shimmered and glittered in the morning light. The engraving was in a beautiful script that shifted in coloring, and Cyrene nearly jumped out of her skin. She hadn’t seen that flowing writing since she had given the Book of the Doma to Matilde and Vera a couple of months ago.

But there was Doma magic in that ring. Cyrene would bet her life on it. She looked around the venue and wondered how much of this had been constructed by Doma and how much of the ceremony had come from Doma.

She was lost in thought about what all this could mean when Dean cleared his throat.

She snapped her head back to him, expecting to see him pass the ring on to Brigette, but instead, he was holding a different ring. An exquisite ring with a large oval diamond held into place by gold filigree that almost looked as if it were waves. The band was intricately designed with smaller diamonds and tiny onyx pearls that Eleysia was famous for.

Her hand flew to her mouth, and she looked up into Dean’s dark eyes.

He smiled crookedly and then sank to one knee in front of her. “Cyrene, you are my light and my life. I don’t know how I lived before you or how I could ever hope to live after you. I never want to find out. Would you do me the honor of being my wife?”

Cyrene’s mouth fell open, and tears pooled in her eyes. “Yes! Yes! Oh Creator! Of course, I’ll marry you.”

Dean slipped the ring onto her finger, and tears fell onto her cheeks. She reached forward and kissed him on the mouth. Everything made sense now. Why he had been so nervous. Why he had insisted on her coming on the boat. Why he had promised that they would be together.

He had been planning his own way for them to be together while she had been planning her own means for it. Her emotions were running so hot that the boats rocked in the water.

Dean laughed and held on to the side of the boat. “The waves even seem to agree with us.”

She laughed, too, and looked down at the ring in shock. She had never thought about this moment or whom it would be with. She had always just assumed it wasn’t going to happen for a long time.

Dean handed the Bride’s Ring to his sister, who stoically stared at him. “Sorry to surprise her in the middle of the ceremony.”

Brigette took it from his hand. “I hope you’re happy.” Then, without a word of prayer or blessing, she tossed the ring over her shoulder into the water.

She crossed her arms and looked away from the crowd. “Can we leave now?”





When they were back on solid ground outside of the palace, Cyrene and Dean were bombarded with congratulations. Most of his siblings weren’t around much and didn’t know that tensions had been running high among the court or the fact that Cyrene was supposed to be getting on a boat to head back to Byern tomorrow.

But the ones who did know what was going on held back from the group. Brigette seemed indifferent, but Cyrene suspected she was nursing a broken heart. The very thing Cyrene and Dean were trying to avoid. Alise looked furious. Cyrene still didn’t know what her problem was, but she looked ready to spit fire at Cyrene. And she was very glad that Doma blood didn’t run in the Eleysian royal family.

The Queen, however, ushered everyone away from Dean and Cyrene and stared them down. “That was a very clever thing you did today.”

“I’ll take that as congratulations,” Dean said.

“I am happy for you both, but marriages of royalty are a matter to be determined by me and your father. If you think that by proposing in front of half of the queendom will change my mind about sending her off to Byern tomorrow, you’re wrong. Expect a long-distance engagement. I refuse to let this stand until I’ve had word from King Edric that he will allow this. His Affiliates are his to give away as much as my son is my responsibility.”

Cyrene’s heart sank at the words. That couldn’t be true. Consort Daufina had said that her father had married someone against the wishes of the court. But Cyrene highly doubted that, if she went back to Byern to ask for permission, it would go over very well…or at all.

Dean seemed to come to the same conclusion. “You can’t ship her back to Byern!”

“I at least need approval from King Edric for this marriage. He wants her back, and we don’t need a war over one girl,” the Queen said. “We have a celebration to get ready for tonight. I expect you to be on your best behavior after that debacle.” Queen Cassia left them standing at the docks.