Page 98 of Kazimir

“I do,” I said.

His mouth curved in satisfaction. “I shall note the date and have it commemorated.”

Taras adjusted one cuff with absent precision. “If we are collecting miracles, perhaps record that the floral team survived your revisions.”

“I revised only what required revision.”

Maksym’s eyes moved over the room once, assessing exits, lines of sight, personnel placement. Even tonight, he remained what he was. “Security is set. The final sweep found nothing concerning.”

Nikolay joined us a moment later from the stage, warm amber eyes carrying the composure that made him so effective where others inspired caution first. He would conduct the ceremony at my request. There had been no other plausible choice. He understood both the weight of ritual and the emotional dimensions I might have preferred to ignore.

“The guests are settled,” he said. “Devon is nearly ready.”

I looked once more over Obsidian. Over the repaired grandeur of it. Over the flowers and the gathered powers and the witnesses who had come to see whether the old vampire king could indeed be changed by love and remain himself. Let them see. Let them take their measure of what this night meant.

This was not merely a wedding. It was a declaration. My house would not calcify into a relic and protocol. It would endure by growing teeth where needed and mercy where earned. It would bind itself, openly, to a being heaven had named beloved. Let any who wished interpret the consequences.

“Father?” Nikolay said softly.

I drew in a slow breath I did not require, only wanted, because sometimes ceremony deserved the symbolism of lungs.

“Yes,” I said.

And for the first time in centuries, I found I was not preparing for battle, treaty, or execution.

I was preparing to meet my bride.

Nikolay stood before us, centered and calm, his broad form made formal by dark tailoring and the quiet authority he never needed to force. Beyond him, the guests settled into a hush that rolled outward in degrees. Even Obsidian seemed to inhale and hold itself ready.

Then the music began.

It was beautiful without being sentimental; strings and piano with a restrained swell beneath, enough to fill the room and guide emotion without dictating it. I had listened to samples with Devon and discovered that choosing wedding music with a fallen angel was an unexpectedly vivid exercise. She had dismissed one piece as “too eager,” another as “funeral-adjacent,” and a third with a faintly scandalized, “It sounds like a rich swan is having feelings in public.” I had not laughed in the moment. It had taken discipline.

Kyra appeared first at the head of the aisle.

She wore an iridescent gown that shifted softly between silver, lilac, and the faintest blue as she moved beneath the lights. The effect suited her olive skin and short dark hair well. In her hands she carried a bouquet that echoed the stage—white lilies, black callas, deep red roses bound with black ribbon. She moved with the confident grace of one accustomed to being looked at and entirely untroubled by it. More than one gaze followed her with appreciation. Kyra accepted this as her due. Sensible woman.

When she reached the stage, she took her place with a tiny incline of her head toward me. I returned it.

Amelia followed.

If Kyra’s elegance was smooth, Amelia’s was all sharpened intention wrapped around stubbornness. Her dress had not transformed her into something unrecognizable; I would not have trusted such a transformation from her. But the gown chosen for her—dark, fitted, and clever in its construction—honored the wiry strength of her frame and the copper fire of her hair.

Our eyes met briefly as she passed. Loyalty, fierce and unsentimental, looked back at me.

I had taken her in when others would not. She had repaid that trust many times over. Tonight she stood for Devon not because she had been asked only, but because she had claimed the role in that direct, stubborn way of hers. I found the fact quietly gratifying.

Lucia came last, before the bride.

My daughter did not merely enter a room. She established terms within it. In black and red, she could have turned heads through force alone, but tonight she wore something deeper and more ceremonial: elegance fitted over battle-earned authority. Her dark curls had been arranged away from her face just enough to reveal the precision in her features and the intelligence in those espresso-dark eyes. She walked the aisle with a queen’s poise and a daughter’s purpose, bouquet held low, shoulders straight.

A murmur moved through some of the guests at the sight of her. Not surprise. Recognition. Lucia had long since earned that from every faction that mattered.

When she reached the stage and took her place, she looked at me for one beat too long to be accidental. In it, I read more than any public speech could have contained. Approval. Protection. Perhaps a trace of that old concern she carried for me, whether she admitted it or not.

I gave her the smallest nod. Thank you.

The music came to a deliberate stop.