Chapter 23 #3
I hurried to my bag, kneeling and dumping its contents onto the floor. Clattering out last was my mother’s knife, its four-inch blade set in a damask handle, embedded with a round citrine.
I ran my thumb over the stone as I stood.
Lonnie peered over my shoulder. “That’s lovely.”
I nodded. “Do you think we could refit this?”
“Let me ask my mother . . .” She held out her hands, and I gently laid the knife across her palms. “. . . But I definitely think we can.”
Night had long fallen by the time Lonnie guided me into her modest front room, where a shrine to the gods—featuring Hem—had been set up on the mantel. Renn, dressed in a clean and pressed military uniform, a cincture of white low on his hips, spoke softly to the priest, and turned when I arrived.
Adoration overwhelmed our bond and made my eyes water. I smiled, even as I masked a tremble in my hands. Even as I feared that, at any moment, something would go awry. The dragons would find us, or Renn would realize the political disadvantages tying himself to me would create.
He clasped both my hands in front of the shrine.
Already it was farther than any man had ever taken me.
Mr. Swiftmore began singing the song of matrimony, a lilting tune that came from deep in his throat.
Using a cincture of all colors similar to the one he wore, he bound our hands together, starting at Renn’s elbow and ending at mine.
Then, placing one hand on my forearm, his other on Renn’s, the priest spoke the ritual words.
“By Hem, I deem this union just. By Salm, I bless you to be nurtured. By Rolys, I gift you light and joy. By Evat, I wish you wealth and surplus. By Alm, I give you health. By Zia, I grant you children. By Hem, I seal these promises.”
I blinked away a tear, my gaze never leaving Renn’s face. His never left mine. Heat pinged between the two of us, back and forth. If I looked down, I was sure I’d see a flying ember.
Mr. Swiftmore unwrapped our hands. Took the cincture and laid it over his neck. Nodded to Renn.
Releasing me, Renn pulled a long chain from his pocket, gold, the links nearly microscopic, with a circular gold disk at its end. Set into the disk was the largest pearl I’d ever seen. White, but in the candlelight it shined opalescent.
My lips parted. I knew a humble village priest did not keep necklaces like this in storage. “Where did you get that?” I whispered.
He pressed his lips against a smile, stepped closer to me, and set the pearl beneath my collar. “I commissioned it when you were in Sesta,” he murmured.
I blinked back new tears. Even then, without any promise we’d ever see each other again . . . he’d wanted this?
The priest took the ends of the necklace; Renn pressed the pendant over my heart so that Lonnie’s father could cut the chain at the appropriate length. I found myself mesmerized by Renn, lost in the sapphire of his eyes.
The clasp set. Renn stepped back, and my wedding pendant hovered exactly where it ought to. Right where the agate necklace he’d gifted me once lay. As if the gods had known, even then.
Throat thick with emotion, I turned to Lonnie, who approached with a folded cloth in her hands.
Pulling the soft cotton aside, I retrieved the necklace hastily constructed.
It had only a pewter chain—it was the finest option available to me—but my mother’s citrine stone, a rich honey color with the faintest glimmer of chartreuse, had been set into a large square mount.
Perhaps not a necklace for a king, but certainly one to make my own father proud.
Renn recognized it immediately. “Your mother’s.” Astonishment pinched his forehead and glided across our link.
I met his eyes, warmth blooming from my stomach down to my toes at the marvel I saw there. “She would have wanted you to have it. I want you to have it.”
He nodded nearly imperceptibly. As he had, I closed the space between us and draped the pendant before giving the ends to the priest. Pressed the citrine stone over Renn’s heart. I felt his pulse beneath it, heart hammering as hard as mine did.
The pendant set, I stepped back, and Mr. Swiftmore took up our other hands, binding them as he had the first, repeating the vows under each god’s name, starting and ending with Hem.
No cries went out through the village.
No arrows flew through the window.
No messengers arrived to bellow a threat.
No storm raged, no monster struck, and no doubt filled our linked hearts.
The priest stepped back, the cincture still binding my hand to Renn’s. I gazed at him, wondrous, sure this was a dream—
Clearing his throat, Lonnie’s father said, “You seal it with a kiss, here.”
Renn laughed. I cried. Tugging me to him, Renn pressed his lips to mine, sealing the priest’s administrations.
Marrying us.
Renn. My husband.
When he pulled back, I embraced him, a hug made awkward by our still-joined hands. Lonnie and her mother chuckled; Mr. Swiftmore graciously unbound us. Mrs. Swiftmore handed us each a flower and kissed my cheek.
“A blessing on this household.” She spoke through falling tears. “I am so grateful to you. To the both of you.”
“And we to you,” Renn replied. “Truly.”
“You will take our room,” she continued. “We’ve gotten it ready for you.”
I started. “We couldn’t possibly put you out—”
“I’ll share with my daughter, and there’s an extra bedroom for this old fool.” She weakly gestured to her husband. “I insist.”
“But—”
Pulling me close, Renn pressed his mouth to my hair near my ear. “It would be rude not to accept, Nym Noblewight.”
The name dropped my organs into my shoes. Noblewight.
Gods above, I was a Noblewight.
We spent another quarter hour in thank-yous, accepting a toast of mead to our union, before retiring to the largest room of the house, which was about the same size as my parents’ room in Fount.
The one I’d shared, until a little over a year ago, with Lissel.
It was modestly decorated, with a bed just wide enough for two, a wreath of juniper branches on the wall, a simple table with a single drawer, upon which rested a clay pitcher of water, two lit candles, and a well-worn copy of scriptures.
A woven maroon rug covered the center of the wooden floor.
It felt . . . strange . . . being ushered into this unknown place as husband and wife. Expectant. Awkwardness dripped down the bond.
Renn rubbed the back of his head. “I admit I didn’t plan this far in advance.”
I played with the sleeves of my dress. “We march tomorrow, yes?”
He nodded, solemn. “We have to stay ahead of them.”
Through the wall, I heard the Swiftmores in conversation. Not clearly enough to make out their words, just their voices. They sounded jovial.
I barked a laugh. “Goodness, they’ll hear everything, won’t they?”
Chagrin down the link. The lightest dusting of pink crossed Renn’s nose as he chuckled.
The gods-touched king of Cansere and heir to Sesta, bashful over a consummation jest. I ignored the way my heart started pounding, blood running quick enough to make me lightheaded. My skin felt too tight. I told myself it was the dress and recognized the lie straightaway.
An idea came to mind, and the more I turned it over, the better I liked it.
“We don’t—” Renn began.
Ignoring him, I grabbed the neatly made blanket off the top of the bed and pulled it free.
Confusion tickled the bond. “What are you doing?”
“Fold this.” I chucked the blanket at him.
He hesitated, then obeyed as I stripped off the next blanket, a scratchier gray wool, and rolled it up.
Then, going to my bag, I retrieved one of the simple dresses I’d been given after my return to Cansere, set it on the mattress, moved my hair aside, and presented my back to Renn. “Would you untie these?”
He did so without comment, but that perpetual link whispered something heady. Something that warmed the pit of my stomach.
I swallowed. “I’m not going to tear Lonnie’s sister’s dress.” With the laces loose, I carefully tugged it off. Renn had seen me in my shift dozens of times, and yet now it felt different. His gaze was a physical thing, forming prickles against my skin.
I pulled my simple dress over my head, buttoning it in the front, then went to the window.
I felt Renn’s amusement before I turned to see his half smile. “You are a creature, Nym.”
I sat on the sill and swung my legs over. “Bring the blankets.”
I winked, then dropped down, wild grass and a few flowers breaking my fall. I winced at the latter and hoped Mrs. Swiftmore would forgive me.
Two blankets under one arm, Renn followed after me, his landing graceful as a cat’s. Yet he paused a moment, appearing dizzy. I supported his elbow, but the vertigo passed quickly. So instead, I took his hand.
“Our last walk through aspen woods was cut short,” I whispered.
“Happy to make it up to you,” he replied.
A grin splitting my face, I pulled him away from the house, away from the village, to where the beautiful, white-barked trees grew thickest, ensuring I didn’t follow any previously cut trails.
Deeper and deeper into the wood, away from roads and people, until I found a quaint little grove dotted with mushrooms and ringed with green-crowned trees, the moonlight overhead half hidden by lazy clouds.
I took it in, inhaling sweet-scented air, absently touching the pearl of my wedding pendant. I turned back to Renn, the moonlight making his hair white, his eyes pale. Closing the space between us, I stood on my toes and kissed him.
The press of his lips flared that deep warmth within me, eviscerating all my hesitations.
Peasant and noble, unmarried, too broken .
. . all of them ceased to exist. I wore his pendant over my breastbone, mine over his, our lumie and hearts fitted together like pieces of some divine puzzle.
It was bliss. It was light. It was fire.