"It's beautiful." Her voice comes out barely above a whisper. "Vorrak, this must have cost?—"
"Nothing costs too much for my mate." I take the cloak from her hands, spreading it wide so she can see the full magnificence. "This is a Frostbrand Cloak, woven by the Singer-Weavers of the Northern Peaks. The silver threads contain fragments ofstar-metal, fallen from the sky during the Long Winter three centuries past."
I drape it around her shoulders, fastening the bone clasps at her throat. The cloak transforms her, making her seem both more human and more otherworldly. Silver light plays across her skin, and for a moment I see her as the spirits must as a bridge between worlds, beautiful and terrible in her power.
"The runes will keep you warm in the deepest cold, turn aside hostile magic, and ensure you always find your way home." I touch the fastening at her throat, fingers grazing the rapid pulse beneath her skin. "As long as you wear this, you carry my protection and the blessing of my ancestors."
Cyra turns in a slow circle, the cloak billowing around her like captured wind. "I've never owned anything so beautiful. Thank you."
The formal words don't match the emotion blazing through our bond. Gratitude, yes, but something deeper. Something that feels likehomeandbelongingandforeverall wrapped together.
"Come," I tell her, offering my arm. "The clan waits to honor their new sister."
We join the celebration as husband and wife, accepted and celebrated. My kinfolk press forward with gifts, carved bone ornaments, luck charms, weapons sized for her smaller hands. Cyra accepts each offering with grace, speaking words of thanks that grow more confident with every exchange.
The wine flows freely, loosening tongues and brightening laughter. Stories emerge with hunting tales, battle memories, jokes that require knowledge of clan politics to understand fully. Cyra listens with the intensity she brings to everything, filing away details, building connections, making herself part of our oral history.
But I notice her hand. It keeps drifting to her stomach, pressing there briefly before moving away. A gesture so subtle Imight have missed it if not for the new awareness the soul-bond provides.
She's hiding something.
Not from malice or fear, but from uncertainty? Hope? The emotions filtering through our connection shimmer like heat-mirages, there and gone before I can grasp their meaning.
"Wife," I murmur, catching her fingers the next time they drift downward. "What troubles you?"
Her eyes widen, darting around the celebrating crowd before returning to mine. "Not troubles. Not exactly."
"Then what?"
Instead of answering, she tugs me away from the fire, toward the rim of camp where privacy waits among the supply sleds. My pulse quickens. Whatever she needs to tell me requires solitude.
We stop beside the carved mammoth tusks that mark our territory's boundary. Beyond stretches endless white, broken only by wind-carved ridges and the distant peaks that guard the deep ice. Beautiful and deadly, like everything in our homeland.
"Vorrak." Cyra's voice carries a tremor I've never heard before. Her hand finds mine, guides it to rest against her stomach. "There's something I need to tell you. Something I've known since... since weeks after our first night together."
My mind goes blank. Her stomach feels the same beneath my palm, flat, soft, warm through the fabric of her dress. But there's something else, something I can't quite identify.
"I wanted to be certain before I said anything. And then with the wedding preparations, and Aldric's pursuit, and..." She takes a shaking breath. "I carry your child, Vorrak. Our child."
The words hit like a war-hammer to the chest. For a heartbeat, the world tilts sideways. Then understanding floods through me like spring melt racing down a mountainside.
My child. Our child. A half-blood heir to bridge two worlds.
Joy explodes in me, so fierce and sudden I can barely contain it. I sweep Cyra off her feet, spinning her in a circle while a roar of triumph tears from my throat. A sound of such primal satisfaction that it echoes off the surrounding cliffs and sends ice-birds shrieking from their roosts.
"A CHILD!" I bellow to the sky, to the spirits, to any god listening. "MY MATE CARRIES MY CHILD!"
The celebration behind us falters, then erupts into chaos as my kinfolk realize what my roar announces. Brakka's war-cry joins mine, then a dozen others, until the morning air thrums with voices raised in jubilation.
I set Cyra down gently, hands framing her face. Tears streak her cheeks, but she's laughing, the sound bright as silver bells.
"You're pleased?" she asks, though the answer blazes through our bond.
"Pleased?" I press my forehead to hers, breathing her in. "Cyra, you've given me everything. Purpose, belonging, and now..." My voice cracks. "Now the future itself."
Our kinfolk surround us, voices raised in the ancient blessing-chants for expectant mothers. The Mammoth Rider appears with a cup of ceremonial wine, offering it to Cyra with hands that shake slightly.
"Drink, child-bearer," the elder commands. "Let the spirits bless the life you nurture."
