Chapter Four

The ceremony itself was, like everything else that day, beyond beautiful. Everyone cried, so Ari didn’t have to feel alone in her tears. After being through so much pain, so much horror, to see something so sweet and hopeful come out of it was healing. So healing.

The reception was a huge party. Will had kept an entire colony alive for over a decade, and everyone wanted to celebrate his happiness. Ari reclined against one of Charity’s decorated tables, watching the line dance with amusement. “How ya holding up?” Shane asked, leaning next to her. She uncrossed her arms so she could slide her fingers into his.

“I’m tired.” She gave him an exhausted smile. Before Richard had stolen her flames, she didn’t get tired like this. Now, though… she looked back to the dance floor. “He looks happy, doesn’t he?”

Shane followed her gaze to where Will led them all. Of course he did. “Yes, Ari. He’s happy. You’ve done a good job.”

“Me?” she asked in surprise, “I didn’t do this.”

Shane brought her hand to his lips, kissing her knuckles. “Ari, you freed him. You loved him enough that he dared love someone else.”

“Snowballs.” Hunter groaned, thunking himself into a chair next to them. Shane smirked, amused that Hunter had picked up on Ari’s substitutions. “I’m so glad our wedding is going to be small.” He pulled Charity into his lap and she leaned her head tiredly against his shoulder.

“True that,” she said with the closest thing Charity had to a smirk.

“Your mother, too, seems happier than I remember her.” Shane motioned with his head to where Ada and Charise sat on the sidelines, laughing at the line dance.

Ari nodded. “She does.”

“There’s still a sadness there, though. I feel it even when she smiles,” Charity said.

It was true, and Ari knew why. Ada had never stopped loving Christian. Over the centuries, through all the war and the blame and the madness, she still believed her Christian was there somewhere. Ari was inclined to agree. The “Tristan” she’d known was volatile and angry and bossy and dangerous, but there was a kindness underneath it all. Ada had told her that Richard’s attempt to infuse Christian with Edren flames while simultaneously taking Christian’s Carules flames had driven him mad. You can learn the spells that aren’t yours, Ada had told Ari. I trained them. They were fine. But Richard wanted to house both flames -- red and blue. To do that, he had to take Christian’s, but first he had to see if it worked. So he put his flames into Christian, and drove him mad. But my Christian is still there, Ari. I saw him in the depths of that man’s eyes.

The party wound down in the wee hours of the morning. “Let’s send them off in true sorcerer style!” Ada called, sparks rising from her fingertips. The entire wedding party lined up, with Will and Dani waiting at the far end, and as one, shot sparks in an arc. Like Normals did, but with sparklers. The sorcerer version was a thousand times cooler. Dani picked up her skirts and Will took her hand and they ran through the tunnel laughing, to disappear into the night. Ari watched them go, smiling even though her cheeks were, once again, soaked with tears. She hadn’t gotten a chance to say goodbye. “I’m not sure how much more this mascara can take,” she muttered, scrubbing at her cheeks.

“Thank you, baby sister.”

Her head jerked up so fast she nearly broke her neck. Will stood in front of her, exhausted, happy. She threw her arms around him. “I love you, big brother.”

“I love you, too.”

They stayed to clean up. Thankfully, most of the colonists did, so clean up didn’t take hours and hours, but the sun was still rising as Shane, Hunter, Charity, and Ari wandered home. Charity held her skirt up out of the dust, leaning on Hunter’s arm. Ari’s skirt was short so she didn’t have to worry about dirt roads ruining it. Will had talked about paving the streets in the colony. She hoped he didn’t. She liked it just the way it was.

“What the snowball?” Hunter growled, low in his throat like a menacing animal. Shane looked up, shading his eyes against the rising sun.

A lone figure walked toward them, silhouetted against the light so Ari couldn’t see his face.

Charity frowned, dropping her skirts from her hand so she was free to fight, which would have been amusing if Ari wasn’t so tired. Charity was surrounded by sorcerers and still she readied herself to fight. “He’s right in front of the wards. No one can walk through wards except Ari.”

Ari’s eyes widened. “And Christian.”

They waited until he was near enough to confirm that it was, in fact, the boy/three-hundred-year-old man, they’d spent much of the last year looking for.

“You are a hard man to find,” Ari called as he neared them. He still dressed in the latest fashion, his jeans torn, black boots, denim jacket.

His lips quirked as his eyes fell on her. “Am I interrupting something?” Beside her, Shane stiffened. Sure, Christian had fought off Richard and nearly killed himself trying to heal Ari after Shane had killed her, but all Shane remembered was Christian kissing her. A guy gets a girl confused for her mother one time, and Shane never lets it go, Ari thought with a smirk.

“Christian?” Ari whirled as Ada’s voice floated past her. She hadn’t even heard her mother behind them, but she stood there, frozen in the twilight.

“Ada.” Now the rest of them completely ceased to exist as Christian cut through them, taking her hands. “I know I said I had to find my own life. I tried. I did. But I—” He looked down shyly before peering through his lashes. “I can’t. I don’t want to. Not without you.”

Ada sobbed, her shaking hand against her mouth. She threw herself into Christian’s arms and cried.

“This is a tad awkward.” Shane grimaced, rubbing the back of his neck.

Ari smiled, tugging on his hand. They had only taken about fifteen steps when another voice raised above Ada’s sobs.

“Christian?”

Ari froze. How could she have forgotten? She turned as if in slow motion as Charise-Charity, Christian’s long-lost sister, came slowly from the house they’d just passed. Ari’s gaze bounced from her to Christian and back again. Shane, Hunter, and Charity — her Charity, also stood frozen, watching.

Christian raised his head, turning enough to see who approached him but not enough to have to release Ada. He stared, his face losing all color as if he’d seen a ghost, which he very well might have thought he was, since he’d been led to believe his sister threw herself from a bridge three hundred years ago. “Charity?”

She came forward, shy, her fist clenching and unclenching in her skirts. “I’ve been searching for you.”

“Charity!” Now it was Christian’s turn to sob as Ada released him, pushing him toward his sister. He grabbed her, pulling her to him in a tight embrace. “Charity, I thought—”

“Ada saved me. She’s hidden me all these years. To protect me from Richard. But now that he is gone…”

“Mother never believed you were gone! She still waits for you, Charity.”

Charity turned to Ada, who stood in the background watching as silent tears streaked down her face. She opened her arm and Ada joined them, as they all laughed and cried together, centuries of pain washed away with their tears.

Shane leaned over, kissing Ari’s temple. “Look at that. That whole tragic story that no one thought could end happily. They were wrong.” Ari glanced up at him, but he still watched Ada, Christian, and Charity. “It looks like everyone gets a happy ever after, after all.”