My eyes dart to my stone-faced fiancé. “Oh, you going to be like that?”
“Maybe if you paid attention more during my training in Harrogate, you would know the answers to your questions.”
“We never went over weddings. I would have remembered that.”
“We did. You passed out twice while I was reciting the information you needed to know.”
I prop my hands on my hips. “Well, whose fault is that? The student is only as good as the teacher.”
The vein in his jaw ticks. It’s the only response. Ugh, freaking frustrating man.
I turn back to Adela. “Glad to hear the swords aren’t seven feet. That’s a relief because it would have been a real show, seeing me yank a seven-foot sword around, horsehair dangling near fire-burning candles, twenty-foot train tangling in my legs. Could have felt more like a circus than a wedding.”
* * *
“Now the onlyreason we’re going to Frigga’s Sanctuary is because I feel like it could fit more of an ancestral vibe rather than what we’ve used in recent years,” Adela says as we drive through one of the very few forests in the country.
“It’s beautiful but not big enough,” Katla says.
“Agreed, but we could do some finagling. It would take more time and precision with planning, but I do believe we could make it work.”
I stare out the window, taking in the fading greens of the trees and the fall colors starting to bloom. Green moss still covers the ground, while little red berries are scattered throughout the picturesque scenery. As if someone took the land where fairies live and imported it in the middle of Torskethorpe, it feels like a fantasy rather than reality.
“Have you been here before?” I ask Keller.
He shakes his head as he stares out the window as well. He’s been silent most of this trip, quietly taking everything in. Discussing the sword exchange was the only time he’s really opened his mouth.
I reach over and take his hand in mine. He offers three squeezes, our secret sign to tell each other “I love you,” and that little gesture eases the tension growing in my chest. There are moments when I have a difficult time reading him, if he’s happy, angry, sad . . . turned on. They all mesh together. So having him tell me he loves me so subtly shows me that he might be quiet, but he’s okay.
“Ah, here we are,” Adela says. “This is as far as we can go with a car.”
Lara opens our door, and Ottar stands to the side, alert.
Keller once again steps out first and helps Katla, me, and Adela. I cling to his side, and before looking toward the building, I lift on my toes and press a quick kiss to his lips. From his gentle smile, maybe he needed that as much as I did.
He wraps his large palm around my back and pulls me in close just as we turn to face Frigga’s Sanctuary.
And wow . . . consider my breath stolen.
In the middle of tall birch trees is a glass structure, angled like a cathedral but completely transparent, only held up by wooden beams.
Unlike Norse Temple, there’s nothing extra to this building. There’s no stained glass, no rich, luxurious fabrics, no precisely laid stone. It’s Mother Nature and glass.
And it’s positively stunning.
Unlike anything I’ve ever seen before.
We take the rock pathway toward the sanctuary. Moss overthrows the straight lines of the path, while freshly fallen leaves sweep up into the air with the briefest of gusts from the wind. Crystal-clear glass gives us an unobstructed view from one end of the sanctuary to the other. And as we approach closer, wooden benches carved from birch trees extend up the aisle, offering minimal seating, probably for no more than one hundred people.
“It’s breathtaking,” I whisper as Ottar and Lara hold the sanctuary doors open for us.
Silence falls as we all take in the space at the same time. The quiet cracks from the wind, the soft, gentle whispers of nature floating by, it’s peaceful.
Calming.
A space I want to get married in.
Nothing about it is ostentatious.
