“I do,” I answered as clearly as I could.
Grandmother nodded once, releasing our hands and stepping back to allow us to speak our own words if we wished. I took Celeste’s other hand in mine, holding both of them and facing her in front of the crowd. She took a bracing breath and raised her eyes to mine.
“I, Celeste, vow to you, Victor, to turn my face to you every morning just as the sun turns to us, to go where you go, to take your people as my own, and to support you as your wife, ‘til d—” She faltered for half a beat, clearly about to speak her people’s traditional, “’til death do us part” before catching herself. “Forevermore,” she finished instead, the word sounding breathy and uncertain.
I spoke the words of my own people, hoping they were enough. “I, Victor, grant you, Celeste, my shelter, my protection, my service, my immortality, and my commitment to be yours in my entirety, from now into eternity.” In whatever way she wanted, be that as a friend or a husband. Whatever pleased her and made her feel safe.
I released her left hand, reaching behind me to take my wedding gift from my sister, and noticed immediately that Celeste leaned more of her weight on me where she held my left hand in her right. I abandoned my attempt for the box, stepping closer to Celeste so that I could brace her up without being noticed as easily.
“Open it, Lena,” I murmured to her.
And bless her, she did, opening the box and retrieving the necklace for me so that I could hang the Twilight Star around Celeste’s neck with only one hand. Several people in the audience gasped as I held it aloft, but I couldn’t tell from where because I was trying to focus. I was careful, so careful, not to disturb her hair or pointed ear tips as I looped the golden chain around her head and settled the stone below her collarbone. The blue diamond gleamed even more brightly than the wearer’s eyes.
She gave a shallow curtsy, gripping my fingers even more tightly as she did, and then reached to accept something from her sister. It was a thin golden diadem, a match for the one she currently wore, and I bowed to accept her placement of the circlet on my head. When I rose, she seemed a little more at ease, admiring the diadem she’d placed on me and watching my face for my reaction.
“Thank you,” I murmured with a shallow bow. I didn’t miss the way her left hand wandered up to touch the Twilight Star where it hung on her chest, and I couldn’t help the hint of a smile that formed at the sight of her timid show of appreciation. I could shower her with any number of gifts if they were something that brought her joy.
I glanced up when my grandmother turned away to the large stone altar behind her to prepare the knife and binding cloth. I removed my outer jacket and handed it to my sister as swiftly as I could, careful to make sure that Celeste was able to remain standing on her own while I did. My sister was kind enough to step forward and cuff up the sleeve of my left arm for me, since that would leave Celeste without support for longer.
“Does it hurt?” Celeste whispered to me when Yelena had taken her place again.
I looked down at her small face, watching her luminous eyes as she watched my grandmother’s preparations. “Yes,” I answered her honestly. It would be even more painful for her than it would be for me, as my magic worked its way through her body and fought off the illness that wracked her. “Don’t look when she cuts you,” I warned her. I was prepared to catch her if she fainted, but it would be a difficult task while our arms were bound.
Grandmother turned back to us, knife in one upturned hand and the long, gold-colored strip of linen in the other, and nodded to me. I took hold of my magic, just enough to be able to control the shadows or create a portal, and saw the cloak of shadows begin stretching down toward the floor from my shoulders. She twitched the fingers of her hand closest to me upward, a sign that she wanted more, and then did it again, and again as I continued to draw in more power. I held more magic in that moment than I’d ever held in my life, feeling power beginning to rend out of me in streams of swirling darkness that made the candles around us flicker wildly. My cloak stretched down past the steps of the dais and out into the aisle, the edges of it roiling and turbulent, unable to settle into place. In the back of my mind, I heard loud gasps echoing throughout the chamber from the fae side of the room, but they seemed very distant from within my storm of magic. Reality seemed to fade in and out of existence around me as it overlapped with the spirit world.
My grandmother gave the slightest nod to tell me it was enough and reached for my exposed left arm, taking my wrist gently in the hand that held the cloth. My gaze darted to Celeste to find her staring at me with open fear. No, not just at me—at my eyes. I closed them briefly, remembering suddenly that she had probably never seen a reaper hold any large quantity of magic and wouldn’t have expected the white haze that covered over our eyes when we did.
“It’s still me,” I whispered to her gently.
She heaved a shuddering breath and seemed to come back to herself, remembering the audience and swallowing down her fear.
I waited a few more seconds for her to regain her composure and then looked to my grandmother, who stood patiently with my wrist in her hand, and nodded for her to continue.
She placed the tip of the knife against my inner forearm and sliced downward, heedless of the veins and tissue as she cut, knowing I could heal myself before I bled out. She spoke as she cut, and pain lanced through me as I refused to allow my body to knit itself back together. “With this gift of blood, you gain an equal partner to walk with as you step into the dark unknown of endless ages.” Blood welled up and dripped onto the carpet in front of me.
Celeste’s breaths came faster.
I reached under her exposed arm with my cut one to allow her to lean against me, then reached across with my right hand to touch her jaw, pulling her face toward mine. “Don’t look,” I reminded her, willing her to look at me while she trembled and shook with pain. I supported her weight as she flinched involuntarily in her body’s attempt to pull away from the pain of the knife cutting her flesh.
“With his blood you are welcomed into the gift and the duty of our people: immortality and the service of the mortal world.”
I felt the cloth loop under our arms and knew the pain was about to become infinitely worse for her. “Forgive me,” I whispered to Celeste as my grandmother turned our arms and pressed our open wounds together to allow the blood to mix. I took her right hand into my left and laced our fingers together tightly.
“May it strengthen your body and fortify your soul as you stand with your helpmate against the ravages of time. And when the worlds around you change so as to become unrecognizable, may you always turn within to find each other, a familiarity, and a comfort within the divine spark of your own souls, knit together in this moment and bound as one forevermore.”
I didn’t even wait for my grandmother to finish knotting the cloth around our arms, the symbolism less important to me than sparing Celeste even one unnecessary second of pain. I poured my energy and power through the opening in my arm into her, doing my best to throttle the flow at first so as not to overwhelm her, and finally releasing a torrent into her open veins. The shadows around me whipped and flailed, and wind howled loudly in the front of the room. My cloak was like a living thing, thrashing about as if being buffeted by a hurricane.
Celeste collapsed against me, and I stooped to hold her up while struggling to direct the final magic she needed into her, threading it through her veins, and binding her soul in it. Her sister rushed forward to take her other arm, and my grandmother gripped her waist with one hand and supported her limp neck with the other.
My task complete, I called my magic back into my body, sealed the wound in my arm, and released the excess power I held back into the ether. Every light in the room had been blown out, the sun was set, and the audience sat tensely in the sudden silence and complete darkness. Celeste immediately began to rouse, blinking in confusion at the lack of light and three people supporting her weight. My grandmother stepped back as she gained her footing again, and her sister released her with obvious reluctance.
Hesitantly, the fae began to extend their magic to the fae lights in the balconies, relighting them each slowly, one by one. The resulting glow was much softer than when the candles had been lit, lending a cozier atmosphere to the oversized room. Everyone, including the reapers, seemed frozen in their seats.
“You may kiss the bride,” my grandmother whispered into the silence.
Chapter 6
Grim
