“Then marry me because I love you, and you’ll get the house either way, which will make me happy. And you can look after Zephyr for me. It would put my mind at rest, knowing someone will be there for him so he doesn’t turn into a pond monster again, running about eating people. I promise to be a good husband and always put my laundry in the wicker basket.”
She narrowed her eyes, trying to decide if he meant it. He smirked faintly. “Are you serious?”
“The most serious I’ve been in my life.”
The idea didn’t frighten Magdala—she knew it should, but it didn’t. She had already decided to remain with him forever, so why not enjoy the benefits of a loving marriage as well? Because she did love him, and she knew she always would, even when he drove her to distraction with his scattered habits, forgetfulness, and constant quips.
Magdala forced herself to consider her life if Asherton died. The royal guard would cast her out. Huxley would hunt her down. No, if Asherton did not survive, she would go to the Wildlands and run mad through the heath until her knees gave out and she became a wild woman, absorbed by moss. Zephyr could come with her, and perhaps they would make a hobby of stalking Ashkendoric soldiers and haunting them to insanity.
But if Asherton lived, they could run through the heather together. They could live at Elegy in the warm months, wading waist-deep in the ponds while Anton grew the size of a house, and then in the winter, they would go to hermother’s village and spend the short, dark days before the fire, watching the snow fall.
So yes, she wanted to marry him. They were already so entwined with one another—why not make it real in the eyes of the Only?
She tried to envision a wedding, some gold-gilt affair with a flowered trellis and crystal goblets and prawns on ice. If she were to marry Asherton anywhere else, on any other day, her father and the queen-regent and everyone everywhere would turn them into a spectacle, a fairytale—the bastard prince and his bodyguard, such a scandal.
Her love for Asherton had been forged in secret, played out in dark ballrooms and quiet caves and hidden gardens. Why not bind herself to him in silence and in solitude? What a lovely culmination for their strange love story.
And if he did not last the night, she would carry his scar with her until she joined him in the next life.
She slid down next to him. He looped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her against his body. He was bathed in sweat. The room smelled of fever. Magdala did not care.
She lay her ear against his chest, and he rested his chin on the top of her head. She could hear the congestion in his lungs, grating with each shallow inflation. And she needed him to keep breathing, and keep breathing, and keep breathing. And what if he couldn’t do it anymore, and he drifted away to some faraway place where no bond could follow him?
Perhaps she would go join the war, or help get Asherton’s brother back from the dead, just so she could tell him thatit was all his fault. That she lost the man she loved because that man loved too wildly and too deeply and too much. Because he made every sacrifice and every decision for others and never thought about himself.
“How is it done?” she whispered.
“Just say the words,” he said.
“Does someone need to be here to witness it?”
“Typically that’s how it’s done, but I don’t think it’s required. It’s just us, and the magic.”
“Alright.”
“Are you sure?” he said. “It’s not very romantic, here, like this.”
“I want you. I don’t care about the rest.”
He coughed; it rattled her like a scattershot blast. When he’d recovered, he said, “Then let’s do it.”
“I don’t know the words,” she said sadly.
He smiled. “Forgive me, but I memorized them after our first kiss in the cave. Say them after me, alright?” He took a moment to steady himself, and then said, “Before the Eyes that see all things, and the stars that are his emissaries …”
“Before the Eyes that see all things and the stars that are his emissaries …” she repeated.
“I vow now that I am bound eternally to you, Magdala Devney, until my death or yours.”
“I vow that I am bound eternally to you, Asherton Ageric, until my death or yours …”
“I cannot entangle myself with any other love, or risk death. I cannot stray to my own loneness, or risk death. Icannot willfully do you physical harm, or I will experience the same hurt in my own body.”
She repeated this back to him.
“This, my vow, is holy and eternal and unbreakable.”
“This, my vow,” she said, “is holy and eternal and unbreakable.”
