Twenty-Eight
Kyrundar
As Zidra landed, I broke into a run. I raced past Sajen, Rouven, and the corpses without a glance, although I held my breath for a moment as I passed the smoldering remains of the gryphon shifter. Zidra shrank from a towering creature of heart-stopping awe down to her usual beautiful self with tan skin and a gorgeous halo of frizzy brown curls.
Remembering her reticence to kiss me, I started to slow. But the moment Zidra finished shifting, she sprinted toward me. My soaring emotions lent speed to my legs, and I wished the skittering pebbles weren’t slowing my progress.
We collided, our arms going around each other, and she squeezed me just as tightly as I embraced her.
“Zee—”
“Wait!” She pulled back a little, although she didn’t release me, and tilted her face to meet my gaze. Her eyes glistened with unshed tears, but a wide smile made her face nearly glow. “I was wrong, and I’ve been foolish and ridiculous and rude, and I don’t know why you’ve put up with me for so long, but I want you, Kyrundar Ilifir. I want this heartbond and I want the stupid Kyrmaris moniker and I want to know you’ll be with me on my next mission and every mission after that. And I want to kiss you. Iskyr above, I want to kiss you, and I’m done pretending I don’t.”
That was an invitation if ever I’d heard one, but I couldn’t act on it just yet. Still, it took me a few moments to stop staring at her with a boyish grin.
“I want all of that, too,” I murmured. “But first, I need your answers to two questions.”
Her honey-brown eyes danced with a wildness that made me want to release the dam of my resolve and kiss her until I couldn’t think straight. She nodded. I licked my lips, nearly crumbling when her eyes tracked the movement.
“Zee, do you love me?”
She jolted in my arms and blinked. “Did I not actually say that in my speech?”
I shook my head.
“I love you,” she said, her voice quiet and warm and slightly rough. “I’ve been blind not to have seen how much I love you.”
I drew her closer and dropped my forehead down to hers. “Zidra Eilmaris,” I murmured as my eyes drifted shut. “Will you marry me?”
Her arms tightened around me. “Yes. ”
My heart danced in my chest, and if I hadn’t been holding her, I might have jumped up and whooped in a decidedly un-elvish way.
I loved Zidra, and she loved me. Nothing had ever felt more right.
Then her lips were on mine, and all rational thought fled. I moved a hand up to cradle the back of her head. My fingers tangled in her curls. I couldn’t draw her close enough. Her fingertips traced up and down my back, sending pleasant shivers down my spine.
Suddenly the realization that we were standing on Rouven’s beach in full view of both Rouven and Sajen broke through, and I eased away, reluctantly breaking our kiss. She started to pull me back in, but I moved my hands to rest on her hips so I could hold her at arm’s length.
“We have an audience,” I whispered, my amusement barely contained.
She leaned to the side to peer around me. Her eyes widened, and a blush spread over her cheeks.
I released her and took her hand instead, and we walked back to the others. Sajen grinned, a sparkle in his eyes that said he was barely restraining himself from teasing us. He held one arm against his torso, and dark blood stained his sleeves.
“Sajen,” I exclaimed. “Are you all right?”
He waved his other hand. “A bit scratched and bruised, but fine. Rouven already agreed to stitch up the worst of it.”
For his part, Rouven looked thoroughly grumpy, the old goat .
Zidra surveyed the bodies and winced. “We made a mess of your beach. I’m sorry.”
Rouven shook his head. “This is probably for the best. With their archon and best warrior dead, the Laedresh conclave will be in disarray and have to retreat into the shadows to lick their wounds.”
“Best warrior?” I asked.
“Perhaps best assassin would be more accurate,” he said. “Kane had boasted about the night elf, called him their prized weapon and the envy of several other conclaves. The League as a whole will probably feel the sting of this defeat, but the loss will also make them angry. Their Sovereign will be most displeased.”
“I’m sorry to make things harder on you—” Zidra started, but Rouven held up his hand.
“Actually, this will likely help. I can’t identify their archon anymore, so I’m not as big of a threat.” He looked around the inlet. “And this hiding place is discovered, anyway. I think I’ll find my wife. We’ll do what she always wanted and make our way together.”
Zidra lightly squeezed my hand, and I returned the gesture. Now that I had her, I wouldn’t ever choose to part with her.
Rouven sighed. “Now I have to wait for the next ship to come by.”
“Only if you want to take your things,” Zidra said.
“Are you…offering to carry me?” Rouven’s jaw went slack.
“Only if you’re comfortable with that. ”
Sajen and I both gaped at her. Shifters rarely allowed someone to ride them, but wyveri never did.
“What happened to ‘no one rides on my back’?” I demanded.
“I owe you my life,” she said to Rouven, ignoring me. “This is the least I can do.”
“There’s nothing here I’m overly attached to. Let me stitch up your friend and grab a pack with some clothing and my coin, and then we can depart for Gamnica.” Rouven hurried inside.
Sajen started to follow but then paused in the doorway. His mouth twitched as he fought a grin. “You two worked things out, then?”
Zidra leaned against my shoulder. “We’re getting married.”
An idea occurred to me. As members of a holy order, all rengiri could officiate weddings. “Would you do the honors in Gamnica?”
Sajen snorted. “Absolutely not.”
My mouth fell open. “What?” I demanded at the same time as Zidra sputtered, “Why ever not?”
“I’m not letting Kyrmaris have a secret wedding in travel-worn clothing in a random sanctuary in Gamnica. You’re getting married in a proper ceremony in Vairdros Cathedral with a crowd, as is right for the only co-recipients of the Emperor’s Merit and the darling couple of the empire.”
Zidra and I looked at each other, the indecision I felt mirrored on her face .
“I would like to see you in a wedding dress…”
“Don’t say you can’t afford one,” Sajen interrupted. “Announce you’re getting married, and the dressmakers in Laedresh will be climbing over each other to have the privilege of making your dress. Let them keep it for display afterward, and I’m sure they won’t charge.”
“Are you coming, rengir?” Rouven shouted grouchily.
Sajen rolled his eyes and entered the cabin.
“The idea of you not keeping your wedding gown makes me sad,” I said.
Zidra shrugged. “It’s not as if I can carry it around on missions, so I wouldn’t be able to keep it, anyway.”
“Then are we doing this? Getting married in a crowd, with everyone staring?” I couldn’t imagine that sounded appealing to her, even though it did to me.
She bit her lower lip as she thought it over. “We’ll hear so much complaining if we don’t.”
I laughed. “Agreed.” I could already think of several rengiri, friends, and family members who would never let me hear the end of it—Sylathria included.
She kicked the pebbles, her gaze fixed on her boots. When she spoke, her voice was tight and scarcely audible. “My family won’t come.”
I squeezed her hand. “You want to marry me, right? There’s no moral or ethical reason we shouldn’t get married?”
“Of course not!” She frowned up at me. “I did very much mean it when I said yes.”
That pulled a crooked smile from me despite the serious point I wanted to make. “We’ll be wed before Iskyr and the people who believe in us, like Sajen. You have nothing to be ashamed of. If your family won’t honor what Iskyr himself has blessed, that is their wrong choice to make. Their opinions or approval don’t change the reality that you are a great rengir, an Emperor’s Merit recipient, and the woman I love with every beat of my heart.”
Zidra nodded, and I felt her painful sense of insecurity and shame ease into calm. The heartbreak didn’t fully fade, but a quiet acceptance filtered through the heartbond—along with a deep love and fiery longing that set my heart racing.
She swayed closer. “After our big public wedding, we have to go to a remote location for our honeymoon and tell no one where we’re going.”
“Deal.” I bent down and kissed her but had to end the delightful experience far too early when Sajen emerged from the cabin.
Zidra placed a light peck on my cheek, then withdrew to shift.
Sajen rolled his shoulders. “Well, I suppose I had best carry you, or you’ll never keep up with Zidra.”
“Are you in good enough shape to shift?”
“Oh, certainly. In fact, the magic involved in shifting will help me heal faster.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Seems a little unfair, though. I should go with my betrothed. You can carry Rouven.”
“Ha!” Rouven burst out of the cabin with a massive bag he could barely lift and slammed the door behind him. “ This is my one chance to ride a wyvern, and I am not passing on that.”
Sajen slapped my back. “I think you’ll have future opportunities for Zee to carry you. And it’s still an honor to be carried by me, you know.”
“Yeah, sure.”
We parted ways with Rouven in Gamnica, then returned to Lighthouse Haven for much needed rest and baths. The next morning, we finally had time to wash our clothing. While everything was drying in the sunshine, Sajen bought food for our journey. Zidra and I took the opportunity to sit in the garden and care for our weapons.
“How are we traveling back to Laedresh?” I asked while oiling my swords.
Zidra looked up from running a sharpening stone down the edge of her blade. “I suppose I’ll carry you. Wyveri have more stamina than gryphoni over long distances.”
I narrowed my eyes. “On your back…right? Not in your claws?”
She shrugged and returned to sharpening her sword.
“Zee. On your back, right?”
Even with her head bowed, she couldn’t hide her growing smile. I plucked a withered blue flower and tossed it at her, and it bounced off her shoulder.
Zidra laughed. “Of course, Kyr. I’m not going to let my fiancé dangle from my claws all the way to Laedresh.”
Once we were outside the city, though, I discovered mounting and riding a wyvern was tricky. Her scales were slicker and the space between the ridges on her back narrower than I’d realized. She bobbed up and down during flight more than Sajen did. Truthfully, riding a wyvern wasn’t as glorious as I’d imagined, but it was thrilling and fast.
When we arrived in Laedresh, we visited Archon Aekyrdra first. She had already notified the Council of Archons and the imperial advisers, who had dispatched an imperial investigator to Rupich to investigate Nevros and Malvoy. She promised to pass on our new information and send a notice about the Ascendant League to every Haven in the empire.
Then we told her about our engagement. I’d never seen an archon look giddy before.
“I’ll notify the town criers, and obviously we’ll send word to the Havens,” Aekyrdra said in a rush.
“Oh, that’s really not necessary.” Zidra curled down in her armchair, looking like she hoped the furniture would eat her alive.
“Of course it is! Kyrmaris is getting married!” Aekyrdra’s smile made her light-bronze skin nearly glow. In fact, her green eyes shimmered with forest elf magic. “Three weeks out should give guests time to travel. I’ll officiate, naturally—”
“Actually,” I interjected with an uncomfortable chuckle, “we asked Sajen to officiate.”
Her eyes dimmed. “But you’ll be getting married at Vairdros, and that cathedral is under my authority. I do of course understand if you want your friend to do it…”
Zidra adjusted in her seat. “I would also love if you officiated, but I don’t want to insult Sajen. Perhaps you could talk to him?”
With that settled, we retired to Riverfront Haven—at my insistence, as I preferred its relative seclusion, although Zidra caved quickly.
Tailors, seamstresses, restaurant owners, and decorators lined up as soon as the announcement was made. We opted for small donations from many vendors and promised we would post a sign listing their donations. Of course, we also suggested that we hoped our wedding would help the businesses secure more clients in order that their generosity could continue in the future toward others as well.
Two days before the wedding, the capital was crowded with a swell of visiting citizens and rengiri. It was so difficult to avoid well-wishers that we had to sneak out well after nightfall to pick up Zidra’s gown and my wedding tunic without getting mobbed.
“The novelty will wear off,” I promised Zidra as we walked back to the Haven in the dark, deserted streets. “At the very least, in a decade, some other rengir will be awarded the Merit, and we won’t seem as special.”
She wrinkled her nose. It was adorable. “Unless the next recipient is another couple, I’m not sure we’ll ever be not-special.”
“Good.” I draped the linen bag containing my wedding attire over my left arm so I could loop my right around Zidra’s waist and draw her against my side. “Because you’re incredibly special, and I’d hate for you to ever forget it.”
She huffed a laugh. “You’re ridiculous. ”
“Ridiculously in love.”
She opened her mouth to respond, but as we turned a corner, the streetlamp ahead of us snuffed out. A figure in a hooded cloak stepped out of the shadows, and then several more hooded people emerged from between buildings.
Zidra and I stepped apart. She drew her sword, and I drew one of mine, our bags of wedding clothing still clutched in our other hands. At least the cobblestone street was dry. If we did have to fight, our clothing might survive.
“Our archon and two of our strongest brothers go to kill you,” the first figure said in a low voice. He sounded masculine, but the hood hid his face. “You return and announce a wedding, yet our archon and warriors have not returned.”
“They’re dead,” I said flatly. “Want to join them?”
The apparent leader made a low sound of anger. “You—”
“We,” Zidra interrupted, “are Kyrmaris. The greatest rengiri to ever live. And we are going to find you. Not just those of you here, but every member of the Ascendant League, from the lowest recruit up to your precious Sovereign. We will hunt you all down and stop you if it takes the rest of our lives. You have tried and failed four times to kill us. We will not let that go. By now, every rengir in the empire knows of the Ascendant League, as does the archon of every true religious order. We are all hunting you. The League will fall, of that you can be certain.”
The other figures squirmed, and some drew back a few steps .
“Misguided pride.” The leader’s sneer sounded in his tone. “You won’t find us. We’ll retreat into the shadows, fade so far into the background that everyone will think you fabricated the League’s existence. We have been patient. We can continue to wait for the right time to strike. If that isn’t within my lifetime, so be it. But the League will rise. We will conquer. Of that you can be certain, Kyrmaris.” He said the nickname with disgust. “Farewell, rengiri.” He spat and then retreated into the space between the houses.
The others scattered in every direction.
“Do we go after any of them?” Zidra asked, but she made no movement to pursue or shift—although shifting in the narrow street would have been unwise. “These buildings are full of working-class families. I smelled shifters, elves, and humans among the League members, but I can’t say what magics they have. A firemage could be disastrous, but any fight among these old wooden buildings would endanger children.”
“Not to mention rengiri attacking people within the capital would prompt complaints and possibly an Order inquest.” I reluctantly sheathed my sword. “Besides, I don’t want to risk ruining your gown before I see you in it.”
Zidra laughed and slid her sword back into its scabbard. “Then let’s go. The sooner we can sleep, the sooner it’s tomorrow. And then we’ll have to sleep only one more time before our wedding.”
I sheathed my sword, pulled her in close again, and kissed her forehead. “I can’t wait.”