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“Papa?” Korsa tapped her father’s arm.
Farrin glanced down at his eight-year-old daughter and blinked. She looked so much like her mother in her flowing silk ballgown, overlaid with pearly gauze, and her tiny tiara. His heart clenched. “Yes, Sunbeam?”
“Would you dance with me?” Her gray eyes held that ethereal pleading quality that all small children and puppies have perfected. How could he say no?
He stood and tugged at his midnight blue, crushed velvet tunic, straightening it, and bowed. “May I have this dance, Beautiful Lady?”
“Yes, Kind Sir.”
Farrin offered his arm to his daughter as the orchestra played the first notes of a waltz. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his wife cover her smile with the tips of her fingers.
Reaching the bottom stair of the dais, he turned and took his little girl in his arms, pride filling him at the thought that this beautiful little thing loved him. When she had been small, he would set her feet on top of his and carry her through the dance, but today, she knew the steps and followed his lead as they swept around the ballroom. He blinked hard to deny the tears at the thought of his little girl growing up.
She twirled at the slightest flick of his wrist, and he smiled as her happiness leaked out in tiny orbs of golden light like hundreds of fireflies that filled the ballroom. The gathered guests caught their breath. Farrin pushed down a chuckle as Rakel could not help herself and added her magic to her daughter’s, tiny snowflakes floating throughout the space. The ballroom suddenly looked–well–magical.
“Papa?”
“Yes, Korsa?”
“I don’t ever want tonight to end.”
“Me, either, Sunbeam. Me either.”