“You keep saying that. It hasn’t been true yet, wife.”
He relished calling me that word a bit unnecessarily when our marriage was a ruse. I warmed slightly every time he said it, which was also unnecessary.
“Clan Bismyth,” he began as he lifted his glass, and the room went quiet with the silence of people who’d followed him into a diverse variety of dangers and would do it again tomorrow. Their adoration of him was a thing to behold. “We fight for a kingdom that does not yet know it needs saving. We have gone into the dark and come back out of it, which is not guaranteed and should never be taken lightly.”
Asrael raised his glass in acknowledgment. Kiegan, I noticed, was watching Fieran with an expression of disapproval, though his orcish face could manage little else, to be fair.
“And we have, against considerable odds, managed to ruin my mother’s evening.” A ripple of laughter. “Which I consider a victory.”
“There is one wildly unpredictable mortal who made that victory possible. Who has fought on our side since she stood between a school and a wyrm with nothing more than a shovel and her impressive sense of spite.”
More laughter, warmer now; they all knew the story. “She has been cornered, trapped, thrown into an arena, and, most frightening of all, has faced my mother. She has met all of it the same way. Head on. Courageously. With a few sharply pointed remarks about me and my failings.”
More laughter. A few loud exclamations regarding Fear’s failings that he took with an easy grin.
When he raised his glass to me, I studied my wine.
“She saved my plot and my liberty today. My fierce mortal protector.” His voice was easy, warm with gratitude. “And she married me to do it, which I consider the greatest personal victory of my life and also something I will carry a certain amount of guilt about for the foreseeable future.”
“Highly doubtful,” I offered to my cup, and the room laughed—they knew him and his pleasant, guiltless manipulations too—and Fear’s grin ticked upward at the corners, pleased by me.
“She’ll tell you she did it for practical reasons. I want her as my wife for reasons both practical and very much not. But I am grateful, and I will do my best to be a worthy husband.” He raised his glass. “To Cara. Who chose this knowing exactly what she was choosing and did it anyway.”
To Cararang through the barracks in dozens of voices, warm and genuine. These were the people who had welcomed me into their world, into their family. It was hard for me to let my walls down at all, but somehow they had breached them.
I was not going to cry at a toast for a fake wedding. I took a large swallow of wine, and then Anayla swept me up in a hug so sudden I nearly lost the cup entirely.
Rees appeared from nowhere and shoved between us with great indignation, nosing at my hand.
“He’s congratulating you,” said Anayla.
“He’s checking for food.”
“Both,” she agreed, and wrapped an arm around my shoulders in the easy, warm way she had that I still didn’t entirely know how to receive. “I’m glad you’re here, Cara.”
I swallowed against something that had gotten stuck in my throat. “I’m glad you’re here. You’ve helped me all along the way.”
“Of course I did.” She looked at me as if this were obvious, the same expression she had when she expected better from the world and refused to be disappointed by it. “You’re one of ours.”
One of ours.I let myself keep that for a moment before I started wondering how long it would hold.
I ended up sitting with Kiegan and Sera for a while, resting before I had to return to Clan Amber. I needed to, but I was in no rush for what would no doubtfully be a tough conversation with Ander. Rees had colonized my lap, or as much of it as his enormous head could occupy.
“He prefers me to Fear.” That still felt like one of my larger victories. I scratched his ears.
“Because you’re better.” Kiegan sounded satisfied, as if he were personally invested in my superiority since he had chosen me as a friend.
“Because I am more generous with snacks.”
Sera leaned back on her elbows. She always looked comfortable. “Kiegan tells me you’re the reason the griffins didn’t kill anyone in the second trial.”
“Kiegan is generous.”
“He’s not, actually,” she said. “Have you ever even looked twice at his plate? He’ll stab you.”
Fieran came to sit beside me eventually, as the room began to settle into that second stage of celebration where the noise dipped and people found corners. He dropped onto the stone beside me with his usual graceful ease.
Rees adjusted himself to accommodate both of us without waking up. His tail thwapped dramatically across Fear’s lap, who raised his eyebrow at his hound’s ass but allowed it.
