Epilogue: Dara

It was snowing outside.

Dara watched with a pleased smile as snow kept falling from the sky in big flakes. She’d hoped it would snow again this weekend—after all, she’d planned to organize a snowman contest for the visiting children this afternoon, and they could certainly use some fresh snow for that. And this snow seemed to have just the right consistency to build some amazing snowmen.

One year had passed, and in the meantime, Dara had learned more about snow and ice than she ever thought possible. But even after a year of living with her very own Christmas dragon, she couldn’t help but watch the falling snow with the same joy as all the happy children down in her courtyard.

Sudden laughter made her lean forward to see what was going on below on the ground.

Together, she and Henrik had worked hard to rebuild. Now, slowly, the snow castle was becoming the winter attraction it had used to be. So far, they had only reopened one of the old wings—but already there were plans in motion to follow with other wing next winter. One of Mrs. Henderson’s nieces had offered to help out with the food stalls this winter, and she’d been so successful that Dara and Henrik had sat down with her last month to discuss the opening of a restaurant in the empty wing.

This year, they had reopened the ice rink where even now, people were skating to the soft sounds of music. Every weekend, one of Mr. Henderson’s friends would organize sleigh rides around the castle. He didn’t own one of the huge Clydesdales Henrik remembered from his childhood, but instead his sleigh was pulled by four tiny, shaggy ponies, which delighted the visiting children even more.

Mrs. Henderson had helped them with the guest rooms—not that Dara had needed the help for long. She’d soon found out that running a big tourist attraction wasn’t so different to keeping order in her old boss’s office.

In the end, all you had to do was to keep the chaos under control—and there was always something that went wrong, even here in her dragon’s snow castle. But no matter whether the wrong flavor of ice cream had been delivered, one of their helpers called in sick or a child spilled cocoa all over a dress, as long as Dara stayed calm, every catastrophe could be dealt with.

It was her own magic, Henrik said. Secretly, Dara thought that she preferred it even to dragon powers. After all, the ability to make ice follow commands didn’t help much when they desperately needed someone to cover a shift out at the ice rink.

Not that Henrik’s powers weren’t useful. He’d spent a lot of time out at the snow castle and the ice maze, which had both been reopened for their visitors this year.

At the heart of the maze—at least the heart meant for tourists—there was now an ice cream stand, and a large ice sculpture of a dragon. Meanwhile, the true heart of the maze, the part that led to Henrik’s hoard, was inaccessible for anyone who wasn’t a dragon. Henrik had made sure that no tourist would accidentally come close to it by hiding it behind a sturdy wall of ice, which would melt away only at his—or Dara’s—touch.

“Should we go outside?” Henrik murmured and stepped close enough to her that he could rest a hand on the gentle swell of her belly. “I think your friend is waiting for us.”

From the courtyard, Miranda gave them a wave. She’d arrived yesterday with her husband in tow, and even now Dara could hear the barking of an overexcited golden retriever.

As she watched, the dog came bounding up to Miranda, a ball between his teeth, dancing around her until three small children had caught up with him. Only then did he drop the ball, and with squeals of delight, one of them grabbed it to throw it again.

“I can’t wait for our little dragon to arrive,” Dara said, still watching the children. “I thought nothing could top last Christmas—but I think this year will be the best yet.”

Henrik was laughing softly against the skin of her throat, nuzzling her as he looked outside over her shoulder.

“Just wait for next Christmas then. There’ll be three of us by this time next year.” There was still a touch of awe in his voice, and his hand curved tenderly, protectively around her belly.

“And the Christmas after that, maybe we’ll already be thinking about another…” Dara closed her eyes for a moment as she leaned back in his arms.

She’d always been grateful for how much her mother had done for her. All the same, she’d always felt that small hope that one day, she’d have a large family to share the holidays with. A real Christmas morning with a decorated tree, wide-eyed children, and long walks in the freshly fallen snow with a man by her side who’d never grow too old for a snowball fight with the kids.

And now she had that. No—she had more than she’d ever dared to dream of.

Out here in the snow, she’d found her very own Christmas dragon. And she knew without a doubt that from now on, every Christmas would turn out better than the last.

 

 

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