7. Everything Is Fine
Everything Is Fine
Timeline: Twelve hours till the Spousal Audit
Elian
Four days vanished in a dizzying, frantic blur.
Stock continued to fly off my Enchanted Matchsticks for Every Occasion stall at a ridiculous rate—partly because of the superior quality of my products but mostly because Kill’em’s presence continued to act as a huge attraction.
We could’ve rolled in silver pieces if such a whim had occurred to us.
Across the market square, my stall and my sudden marriage remained the core of daily gossip.
Kill’em possessed an uncanny knack for reading a room.
He scanned the crowd and identified high-value customers—influential lords, wealthy tourists or merchant guild masters—before they even uttered a syllable.
His total command of our booth’s logistics relieved the pressure on me, granting me valuable time to focus on my alchemical creations.
Increased demand called for a bigger inventory, requiring me to stay on top of production.
Yet, Kill’em’s finest attribute turned out to be his ability to sense and soothe my random spikes of unease. His very presence nipped my usual anxiety spirals in the bud. Whenever a customer became overbearing, Kill’em implemented his standard evacuation protocol.
“The transaction has concluded, sir,” he rumbled the previous day as he inserted his wide frame between myself and a particularly aggressive count who demanded a special discount on my smart-lock talismans.
The nobleman blinked, taken aback by the sudden wall of muscle blocking his view. “But I am still negotiating a fair markdown with the merchant.”
Kill’em frowned. His expression dropped into a look of deep, genuine offence. I imagined he’d levelled that kind of gaze at his subordinates when they fucked up. “A markdown means you think our product is failing. Our product is not failing. The price given is the price it costs.”
“I… see,” the count stammered, dumbfounded by the deadpan delivery. “But surely for a bulk purchase—”
“If you want three talismans, you pay for three talismans.” Blunt and borderline terrifying, Kill’em demonstrated what bulk meant as he locked his arms over his chest. His biceps filled out his sleeves, the seams nearly groaning in response. “Full. Price.”
Despite appearing a tad affronted, the count still didn’t forgo treating himself to a proper gander at the impressive physical display before him. Flustered, he stuffed his hand into his coin pouch, counting out the exact amount for three separate talismans with remarkable speed.
These zero-nonsense routines thrilled the watching crowd, which I found downright gobsmacking.
But the punters couldn't get enough of Kill’em’s firm-handed take on customer service.
They kept surging forwards, throwing their silver at us, desperate to be pushed around by a well-built, gruff stall attendant whose patience ran in short supply.
I realised that his curtness in our world often stemmed from absolute bafflement rather than a sour disposition.
He had a good, dry sense of humour, yet at times he treated trivial, whimsical things with life-or-death seriousness, his practical streak uncanny.
I couldn’t help but joke that he was the sort of fellow who looked at a delicate, woven flower crown and calculated its weight distribution and camouflaging potential in a forest terrain.
However, when a heavy, enchanted anvil became vexed and wedged itself inside a neighbouring stall, defying all spells and manual lifting attempts, Kill’em dislodged it himself.
If a disorderly queue for candyfloss blocked a strategic pathway, he marched over and reorganised the civilians into two perfect unobstructive lines.
He directed the city guards to maintain safe space and improve the infrastructure for the benefit of customers and other traders—such actions earned him the immediate respect of the entire market.
Inefficiency offended his core principles.
Steady as a rock, unflustered and always with a solution at hand, he radiated a raw assurance that made people follow his authority without question.
And with business thriving, we tended to clear our inventory early.
After work, our domestic routine offered little rest. Nights belonged to deep sleep after a passionate bout of anchoring between the bedsheets—or on the occasional kitchen table—strictly to satisfy Morrigen’s magical theories, of course.
Our late afternoons and evenings passed split between three distinct tasks: preparing for the looming Spousal Audit, teaching Kill’em the elvish script of Everend and engaging in various social activities.
The marriage interview had me anxious. We traded questions about our past and daily habits, trying to predict whatever bizarre metrics Cholerius might use to test us.
Settie only complicated matters with her helpful suggestions—which were ludicrous, filling my head with nonsense I obsessed over long afterwards.
We’d started from knowing very little about each other's waking lives. Time spent talking had been scarce in our dreams. Now, however, the more I discovered about the real Ke?lhem, the more I liked everything about him.
He had been a brilliant military strategist from a young age, climbing the ranks of the Elven Armed Forces through merit.
He had paid for that success with many jagged, pale scars from several serious wounds.
But apart from the physical scars, he also bore the invisible weight of brutal, remote deployments.
It didn't take a genius to figure out that behind his impassive exterior, he’d grown weary of the blood, death and the isolation of command.
Yet, his strongest trait remained a deep-seated sense of duty and responsibility for others. He carried burdens like compulsions.
I managed to tell him a few things about my own family—not everything, since I still couldn’t get my head round opening up fully about my childhood.
I kept the details conservative, implying why I had chosen to live estranged from them.
Even with my watered-down version, Kill’em’s eyes turned to flint, his jaw locked.
He said nothing. Instead, he stood and walked across the room towards the chest where we’d stored his military gear.
When I demanded to know where he thought he was going, he tested the edge of his blade with a quick drag of his thumb, ensuring the steel still bit.
“To Emberleigh,” he barked. “To teach people not to fuck with my husband.” Even though my insides melted with a secret, inappropriate thrill at the intention, I had to work hard to disarm him.
A slaughter of the whole Fountenblym clan wouldn’t add any extra points to our spousal interview score.
As for our daily literacy sessions, to my total and utter shock, Kill’em found our alphabet simple.
"Your entire written lexicon relies on a mere thirty characters?
" He stared at me with disbelief during our very first lesson.
“This is child’s play. Our runic system contains over five thousand distinct pictographs.
" He absorbed my literacy lectures like a sponge, his elegant penmanship putting my own messy scribbling to absolute shame.
I expected him to achieve total mastery within days.
Kill’em’s rapid progress made sense given his aristocratic upbringing.
He’d mentioned his noble background in passing.
I knew that, back in his realm, he’d received education in the six aristocratic arts: the sword, unarmed combat, horse riding, formal dance, calligraphy, and classical runic literature.
Furthermore, he spoke fluent Common Elven, two distinct Barbarian tribal dialects and Common Imperial.
The latter language apparently belonged to humans—a magicless, short-lived species prone to illnesses and aggression, characterised by small, round ears. All of which seemed unappealing to me.
To reciprocate, Kill’em insisted on teaching me basic swordplay for self-defence purposes.
“For when I am no longer here”, he said—a casual remark that made my heart splinter.
Imagining my world—or any world—without him in it had become impossible.
Either way, we’d given it a go in my garden using wooden practice blades.
Kill’em’s efforts, however, proved in vain.
I panicked during a swift defensive drill and my volatile alchemical aura flared.
Purple sparks exploded from my fingers and both weapons transmuted into two giant aubergines.
Fern, nearly weeping with laughter at the scene, scooped them up.
The following day he magically enhanced the oversized vegetables with an illegal stimulant.
A passing baron bought them for an obscene profit, funding three lavish dinners for our party of six.
Regardless, we discontinued any further armed combat attempts after that.
All in all, instead of suffering like a fish out of water in Everend, Kill’em had adjusted to life here with impressive speed.
My friends took an instant shine to him.
They laughed that the man had experienced three of the most stressful events—moving home, marrying, and securing a new post—in a single day, and yet it all slid off him like water off a duck's back.
Settie struck up a fast and tight relationship with him.
The two of them began playing Warlords of the Alghatran, a complex, magical strategy board game currently in fashion.
They became so engrossed in their matches that Settie began falling behind on sharing town gossip with me.
Fern and Kill’em got into a habit of drinking mead while discussing various things, from books to gardening.
Later in the evenings, Morrigen and Verity joined us at The Bold Trader for a meal and some drinks.
The latter expressed a wish to take up fencing lessons with Kill’em—I simply advised him not to think of any phallic-shaped plants while at it.
It started to feel like a happy, domestic married life.
One thing truly terrified me. It all seemed real and I loved every single minute of it.
I loved having Kill’em around. I loved the organic way in which he introduced some order into my innate chaos without ever trying to change me, nag at me or criticise me.
But knowing our marriage served merely as a legal shield with a built-in expiry date sparked pure panic inside me.
I dreaded growing even more accustomed to his constant presence, steadfast support and grounding touch, knowing he would eventually vanish from my life to return to his own dimension.
Not to mention he could be punished or killed upon arrival there. The thought of him hurt eviscerated me.
With everything happening, I secretly dropped my late-night alchemical efforts to develop a counter-formula for the contaminated summoning spell.
Granted, time ran in short supply, but a darker fear clawed at me: if I found the solution, Kill’em would leave me.
All of this would end. I felt guilt for abandoning the research that could set him free, torn between my desire to keep him safe and my terror of being left behind.
Our Spousal Audit, scheduled for the following morning, made me so restless and jittery that my cool, collected husband deemed a spot of special anchoring necessary to steady my nerves. I held no objections to the matter.