“Who will hear me?”
“I will.” His tone brooked no argument. “And the cruel stars within their devious pattern.”
“Very well.” I fought gratitude. For I did not wish to say it either. “Well?”
“Fia of the Sept of Antlers, pulse of my heart. Mo chroí. I will gladly marry you again.” His eyes roamed my face. He clasped his hands before him, as if he were a penitent. “But how? When I may not touch you? When I may not kiss you?”
I swallowed and withdrew the little packet I’d stashed in mypocket that morning. The long silken ribbons—one green, one black, embroidered all over with delicate vines and sharp feathers—had been easy to acquire. The same surly darrig who’d made my gown had charged me double her usual rate, but I’d gladly paid it. The ring had been more complex. Wayland had studied me closely when I plunked the starstone on the table and awkwardly explained what I wanted.
“This is for him,” he’d asked, carefully, “isn’t it?”
There was nothing for me to do but nod. A week later, Wayland had handed me the ring, still buzzing and warm from his magic. When our fingers almost touched, I could smell the scent of his flesh sizzling from my star-touched heat. He’d held on to the jewelry a moment too long.
“Bed him well, Thorn Girl.” His smile danced on the edge of mischief, but his turquoise eyes were serious as drowning. “Bed him well.”
Now Irian watched with perplexity as I held the circle between us.
“I have heard humans wed each other with rings, mo chroí,” he said, with a laugh. “But I was under the impression it was the men who bestow the jewelry upon the women. Is this for me?”
“It is for me.” I held it by the band, a slender loop of cold metal glossed with an iridescent sheen. I was careful not to touch the plain cabochon of dark, pitted starstone Cathair had let me take from his workshop. “From the moment I touch the starstone, all the celestial magic imbued within me will be channeled into the ring. But the effect will not last long.”
Understanding gusted over Irian’s features, carrying with it a complex mixture of hope and desire and loss. “How long will we have?”
“An hour, perhaps.” My research on the material had been inconclusive. “Maybe a bit longer.”
Irian exhaled. “Then let us waste no time.”
He plucked the ring from my grasp. Examined it, though there was not much to see. Then carefully slid it onto my finger without touching my skin.
The cool band glided over my knuckle; the weight of the stone rested upon my skin. Cold numbness gathered at my crown, sliding down my face in rivulets, as if someone had dumped a bowl of ice water over my head. I gasped, and the tingle intensified, coursing over my shoulders and pooling in my stomach before being pulled like a magnet toward my left ring finger. My flesh began to glow, my veins lucent as all the starshine in my body concentrated into a cascade of heat and light. I whimpered, the intensity of the sensation almost unbearable.
Light flared from the ring, a fierce corona of starlight slashing outward. Irian and I both covered our eyes as it blurred through the garden, then sizzled back inward. Slowly, I dropped my hand. The ring on my finger now glowed with white-hot radiance, too bright to look at but cool to the touch. At least, to my touch.
Tentatively, Irian reached for me. The tips of our fingers brushed. He inhaled but did not pull away. His eyes lifted to mine, silver as moonlight on dark water. He pressed his palm to mine, his rough, calloused hands dwarfing my smaller fingers. Then gently—so, so gently—he slid his grip to circle my wrist. I mirrored the gesture, his arm beneath my fingers, corded with sinew and fletched with feathers.
“Fia.” His voice was a low rasp.
I swallowed. “Irian?”
The barest smile touched his perfect lips. “The ribbons.”
He took the black one; I grasped the green. Beneath the Ember Moon, our handfasting had been rushed and unplanned—the black ribbon had been a skein of Irian’s feathers, stolen from his anam cló; the green ribbon, a length of thorny vines, torn from my dress. These were but an echo of our memories embroidered upon the fabric of our intent. Who we had been and who we would become layered into one, even as we, too, were joined.
Irian wrapped the black ribbon around his wrist and over our joined palms, then looped it over my arm.
“Blood of my blood, and bone of my bone.” A breeze leaptaround us, rustling flowers and rocking lanterns. Lilac and lavender made a posy for the wind. “I shall not permit thee to wander alone.”
Six months ago, I had been wild with sorrow and hesitation. Tonight, I felt only a certainty that bordered on inevitability—as if Irian and I had always stood here. Would always stand here. In this perfect moment, forever.
“Give me your heart and let it be known.” I murmured the next verse of the vows, even as I looped the green ribbon in counterpoint to Irian’s. “That then, now, and after, you are my home.”
Magic rippled between us, sweet as a long-awaited homecoming. For the briefest moment, our skin seemed to fuse, our bodies becoming one. Blood to blood, bone to bone, heart to heart. My forearms buzzed as elegant black feathers took wing along them, settling in loose, harmonic circles between the tangled vines of my markings. At the same time, briars snaked between Irian’s pinions, delicate but sharp.
Whatever magic I had spoken into ruin that wintry night in Emain Ablach had been repaired. Nothing was ever lost so completely it could not be found again… nor broken so deeply it could not be reforged. The fractures we’d borne had not vanished. But time, light, and love had healed them, turning fragile seams into gilded lines of strength.
Irian’s grip on mine tensed. He pulled me closer, gentle but inexorable. The ribbons fell away from our hands as his palm slid around my waist. His other hand cupped my jaw, fingers light as feathers as he drew my face to his.
“My wife.” His breath on my lips tasted like cold steel and frosted dawns. “My world. My heart.Mo chroí.”
