Chapter Thirty-Seven Aria—Tearsith
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Aria—Tearsith
They gathered beneath the great tree. Verdant branches stretched out overhead as if hands were reaching out to cover them with a blessing.
Facing each other, Aria and Pax held each other’s hands. Their bodies remained a foot away from each other, though they couldn’t be closer.
Their gazes locked, their shallow, choppy breaths meshing with the energy that glowed in the bare space that separated them.
She felt it as a weaving.
As a knitting together of their beings.
Body, mind, and soul.
Ellis stood to her left, and the rest of their Laven family sat on the grass on the other side.
Love surrounded them.
A bright, unending glow.
How strange that just weeks ago she’d harbored so much guilt and shame over her love for her Nol, guarding it like a dirty secret.
Yet here they now stood in front of them all, boasting of who they were.
Ellis had not discouraged them, but Aria had still sensed his reticence. It was hard to dismiss nearly a century’s worth of conviction. Hard to accept his own loss as his wary gaze traveled to Josephine in a whisper of longing.
Then, without a word, he had led them to this spot beneath their sacred tree.
“Dear Laven family, I stand before you today, entrusted with this commission. A commission I’d once believed would lead to devastation. To certain death. But our vision had been shortsighted. Skewed. Hindered by the lies we’d been fed—lies that I’d unknowingly then transferred to you.”
He lifted a quivering chin as he continued, “It leaves me both aggrieved and gratified. Anguished and heartened. But for now, for this one moment, I’d like to turn from the sadness and instead focus on the overwhelming joy of bringing Pax and Aria together.
As Nols. As partners. As lovers. As defenders. As everything they were meant to be.”
A rush of that joy sped through Aria as Pax squeezed her hands even tighter, the man drawing her forward another inch.
Those gray, fathomless eyes swam with their own gladness. With desperation and devotion.
With a love unending.
With everything she’d dreamed of him one day watching her with.
Ellis looked between Aria and Pax with a self-conscious grin.
“I’ve attended many weddings in my lifetime, but it is safe to say that I have never officiated.
Please forgive me, as I may not have all the right words, but my meek soul tells me that Valeen has given me the authority.
And that authority may be given here—in Tearsith—but this binding transcends all realms.”
His gaze was intense as it settled on Aria. “So, Aria Rialta, as you stand in front of Pax Morrison, do you accept him as your husband? Both here and on Earth?”
Her attention drifted back to Pax. To his striking, unforgettable face. This man the very thing that possessed her thoughts and mind.
Her throat was thick as she whispered, “I love you, Pax Morrison. Forever. So I accept you as my husband, both here and on Earth, and far into the afterlife.”
Emotion rushed from Pax. A gush of it that breached and pervaded. It wound through her with threads of reverence and need.
Their connection thrashed between them.
Ellis turned to Pax. “And do you, Pax Morrison, accept Aria Rialta as your wife, both here and on Earth?”
Pax stared at her.
Intent.
Vivid.
Stark and hard and so utterly soft.
His voice was gravel when he spoke. “I was told since I was a child that my Nol was only meant for me in one way: as a partner in a war I’d been picked to fight. But I should have known all along that she was meant for so much more than that. That she was everything that ever meant anything to me.”
He swallowed hard, and his thick throat bobbed.
“She was the light that burned inside me. A beacon. My only destination. And when I found you, Aria . . . when I saw you for the first time standing in front of me, you rearranged everything I’d thought I’d known.
Every part of me. You brought me to life in an instant, when I’d long accepted that the only thing my meager days would encompass were gore and violence and death. ”
Tears blurred Aria’s eyes, and her chest expanded as her Nol laid himself bare in front of their entire Laven family.
“And then you showed me that I had it all wrong. You showed me there was so much more to live for, and the one thing I was made to do was live this life with you. For you. So yes, I accept you as my wife both here and on Earth. Through every storm and sunrise. In the chaos and the peace. In all of eternity.”
A deep fervency swathed them all as their family watched, rapt.
The energy she and Pax shared wound and glowed.
Ellis cleared the coarseness from his voice before he again lifted his chin and said, “Then it is my great honor to declare you husband and wife. In every way.”
Pax didn’t wait to find out if Ellis would tell him to kiss her. His arms were already around her and a hand was already twisting up in her hair, holding tight as he possessed her mouth in a mind-bending kiss.
One that trembled the ground beneath her feet and rocked her to her soul.
Commanding.
Proclaiming.
A vow that he sealed.
One that could not be undone.
She felt branded by it. Uplifted and taken.
Whole in every way she could imagine. The hollowness and vacancies and loneliness that had wept inside her for so many years had been completely obliterated.
Lights flickered and flashed behind her eyes, a blinding warmth that surged through the clearing.
And she wondered if the others felt it, too, as a chorus of soft gasps echoed around them, before there were shouts and claps cheering them on as everyone began to stand.
A gathering of hearts.
The hearts they were fighting for, only she knew that number was far greater than the small group that had come to shower them with love and well-wishes.
Aria and Pax finally parted, though their spirits remained tied, their gazes entrenched in the truth that vibrated between them.
Forever.
Forever.
“Now we must descend. Our work is far from over,” Ellis said, breaking into the rapture. Pax and Aria gave him their assent.
He was right . . . they had much work to do.
They had all of existence to save.