The open door out onto the terrace provided the clue as to where they were.
As she stepped out into the night, she saw her husband holding her son up to the fullest moon of the season, the brilliant shining orb like the sun, the landscape bathed in white light.
It was as if he were making a sacred offering—
With a quick shift, Wrath turned on a dime, shielding their son with his massive arms. “What.”
Even though Saxton had brought the information home, everyone looked at her.
Stepping forward, she wished she was in something other than workout gear. A ball gown, maybe.
“Beth, what the fuck is going on?”
She tried to get the words right, frantically stringing nouns and verbs together at random in her head. In the end, though, she kept it short and sweet.
Dropping down on one knee, she lowered her head. “Long live the King.”
On a oner, the crowd behind her did the same, a chorus of those four words rising up into the night as their bodies lowered to the flagstone.
“I’m sorry.” Wrath shook his head. “I’m not hearing that?”
She got up. But she was the only one.
“You were unanimously elected for life. King of the race. Abalone led the effort, and all those commoners you helped cast the votes. Every single one of them. You have been chosen by your people to lead. You are the King.”
As the chanting started, Wrath seemed to have no idea how to respond. And it was such joyful chanting, female and male voices lifting up to the night sky, a celebration of the present and the future.
“And who knows,” Beth said as she looked at their son. “Maybe if he grows up to be like his father, he’ll be chosen, too. But it’s up to the people—you put the right to vote in their hands, and they gave the throne to you.”
Wrath cleared his throat. Again and again.
In the end, all he could do was whisper, “I wish my father and mother were alive to see this.”
Beth wrapped her arms around her husband and son, holding them both. And as she looked over her man’s shoulder and saw the face of the moon, she had a sudden sense that the realigning was over, the new era had finally arrived.
“I think they are,” she said softly. “I think both of them are looking down right this moment … and they are very, very happy about it.”
Parents, after all, were especially proud to see courage in their children rewarded by the world.
And to know that love abounded around them.
Everywhere.
Forevermore.