by J. S. Morin
To the right of the aisle, there sat the brick and mortar of Scar Harbor—the butchers and drovers, the dockworkers, the shop assistants, the seamstresses, and those of indeterminate profession. These guests awaited the ceremony with less dignity and more open joy than their social betters. They gossiped and joked, smiled and shook hands, and gave every impression that they were adept at the skill of living life.
Kyrus stood before them all, dressed in a tunic of muted midnight blue, dark enough to be somber without being grim. His hair was freshly trimmed, his face clean shaven—he even smelled a bit like lavender from his morning bath. Heavens Cry, his stolen prize, was belted on his hip merely as decoration.
His glance met Juliana's. She stood not three paces away, and could not help but look around her. She wore a strapless gown that matched the color of his tunic, cut demurely just below her collarbone, with silken gloves to match. Her gown brushed the grass, hiding from all but Kyrus the knowledge that her feet were bare beneath. There was some jest at play which she had not explained, but Kyrus took it for the whimsy it appeared to be. Her hair shone like firelight reflected on brass, and she wore it curled into a swirling knot atop the back of her head, pinned in place with a pair of wooden skewers.
This is all so peculiar, Juliana's thought traversed the space to Kyrus's mind.
Of course it is, he replied in kind, it's Hearthwatch two paces above our heads, and you've got snowflakes melting on your eyelashes.
And no one is saying anything about it, she added.
The magic of the day, I suppose, Kyrus replied, a sly smile accompanying the thought.
A woodwind quartet played the opening bars of The Wedded Mystery, a song so old no one knew the composer, and both sides of the aisle settled themselves for the ceremony. Kyrus straightened himself, and tried to hide the fact of his wandering thoughts from the audience. He turned his attention back to the two-tiered podium to his left, and the figures standing upon it.
Tomas was dressed in a style that had gone out of fashion before Agga's time. He wore a long-tailed green coat with sleeves that stopped before the elbow, with white sleeves of a thinner fabric beneath. He had on matching knee-length trousers and hose as well, tucked down into low boots with buckles on them. A short-brimmed black hat with a turkey feather stuck in the band completed the ensemble. In any other venue, he would have been laughed at, but on his wedding day, no one would have expected him to be dressed otherwise.
Tomas stood on the lower tier of the podium, which only brought him just a bit taller than Kyrus. The upper tier of the podium belonged to King Gorden. While the elderly monarch was frail and looked emptied of most of what had once resided within him in youth, the podium still had the privilege of bearing his royal gravitas. The egalitarian king had eschewed his more humble garments for the day, and looked the part of king from boots to crown.
The crowd squirmed and twisted about in their seats, and Kyrus turned to follow their gazes as everyone watched Abbiley approach. Her guileless grin spoke of wonderment, showing off pure white teeth with a bit of a gap in the middle. Her dress toed the master seamstress's line between immodest and stunning with a corseted bodice that just covered enough of her bosom to avoid scandal. The skirt of the dress flared out like a bell and ended just below her knees, showing off a petite pair of bare feet as she strolled through the wet grass. She wore a circlet of white roses in her unbound hair. Having no father to escort her, her brother Neelan took her by the arm, and seemed to be going to great lengths not to look at her.
Bare feet? Whose idea was that, I wonder, Kyrus remarked.
I see you staring, Juliana shot back. If Tomas happened to keel over, she'd be yours, you know.
I'm his second, not his Oathkeeper. It doesn't work like that in Acardia, Kyrus explained. I just hold the rings. If Tomas died before the end of the ceremony, there would be a scandal, a panic, and no wedding at all.
Is that all that's stopping you? Juliana asked.
Be nice. She asked you to be her second; it's an honor, Kyrus scolded her.
I was nice. I helped her clean up those teeth a bit before she spent a whole day smiling at everyone, Juliana replied.
Their silent argument ended when Abbiley was finally brought to the podium and stepped up opposite Tomas. Her eyes were fixed on Tomas. To look at her, you could never have guessed that a hundred and more folk had their eyes fixed upon her, nor that she had the sole attention of her king. Tomas appeared to have his wits a bit more sorted, but still stood beaming like a lighthouse.
King Gorden began a longwinded speech—pontificating being a privilege that extended beyond academia to include monarchs as well. He spoke of marriage in general, and the social necessity of good families. He waxed poetic on the subject of love and how greatly he missed Queen Wendra. He rambled on a tangent about societal progress that seemed to go rather far afield from wedding invocations before he brought it back to course by telling Tomas and Abbiley of the world they would help shepherd in. Royal rhetoric aside, there were common elements that all Acardians knew to expect in their due time.
"Tomas Harwick," King Gorden spoke. "Son of my friend, Dunston Harwick, and scion of House Harwick, your family has served the Acardian people for over thirty generations. I see before me that you would begin a new generation of the Harwick family, and seek my blessing."
"Yes, Your Majesty," Tomas replied, bowing his head.
"This maiden I see before me, Abbiley Tillman, is this the woman you would take for a wife?" King Gorden asked.
"She is, Your Majesty."
"Do you swear, upon your honor, to love and protect her, to think of her before yourself, to stand by her until the end of your years?"
"I do, Your Majesty," Tomas replied.
Kyrus had only been to two weddings before, but to keep hearing "Your Majesty" after each response sounded odd.
"Abbiley Tillman," King Gorden spoke. "Daughter of the Acardian people and fairest blossom I see before me, you have heard this man, Tomas Harwick, declare his intent to marry. I see you standing before me, prepared to bear a new generation of the Harwick family, and seeking my blessing."
"Yes, Your Majesty," Abbiley replied. Kyrus wished that he had rigged up a runed speaking circle so that the guests might hear. Her voice had disappeared down within her; he doubted that few besides himself, Juliana, and Tomas had overheard.
"Do you swear, upon your honor, to love and care for him, to think of him before yourself, and to stand by him until the end of your years?"
"I do, Your Majesty," Abbiley replied, this time loud enough for all to hear, as if she had realized—no, as if someone had pointed out her prior shyness. Looking closely, he spotted the tendril of aether between Abbiley and Juliana.
Kyrus shot a covert glare across at Juliana, and was met with rolled eyes.
"The rings?" King Gorden asked in lowered tones. Kyrus realized the king meant him. He fumbled quickly in his pocket and found cold metal. He fished it out and slipped it into Tomas's waiting hand. They were a pair of gold rings, held fast to one another by a tacky substance.
It took a moment, but Abbiley and Tomas managed to slide the rings over a finger each, binding their hands lightly together.
"Two hearts join today," King Gorden pronounced. An attendant pressed a pitcher into his waiting hand. "Though they may part in body, ever shall the bond remain." King Gorden poured the pitcher over their joined hands, and a trickle of wine dissolved the tacky gum that had kept their rings conjoined.
The newlyweds kissed, and the gathered guests erupted in applause.
* * * * * * * *
The feasting and drinking lasted the rest of the day. Kyrus's pardon and newly granted knighthood might have made him acceptable in social circles, but it did not make him feel any more a part of the merriment.
Davin and Grueder were both among the guests, and Kyrus spent most of the afternoon and evening conversing with them. There had been so much he wished to tell them, and so little that h
e felt he could. They were friends still, but more as memories of a former life, and even they seemed more real than the throngs of nameless familiar faces from Scar Harbor and total strangers from the far flung noble holdings about Acardia.
King Gorden knew of the twinborn, and of magic in the general sense. Tomas and Abbiley had learned some of their secret by a mixture of accident and polite necessity. Lord Harwick was the only one who understood completely what had befallen when Kyrus and Juliana had returned, but he was scant company. Caladris's twin was into his cups as soon as the ceremony ended, and only sank deeper as the night wore on.
Kyrus had at first imagined that they would fly the Starlit Marauder over Scar Harbor and set it down in the middle of Darrow Park. Folk would have seen them arrive in all their newfound glory, and magic would be known openly throughout Tellurak as word spread. Juliana had laughed at the notion, thinking it would be great fun. After all, who could stop them?
The flight back had been quick, but not so quick as to not allow time for reflection. Kyrus realized he could not bring himself to shatter the world so many people believed they lived in. He had convinced Juliana, and the two of them had sworn Tomas and Abbiley to secrecy.
Kyrus shook his head. He sat perched on a banister overlooking the main foyer of the Harwick Estate. Ash lay in his lap, purring. His drinking companions had passed out some time ago. Despite mug after mug, he could not find alcohol enough to intoxicate him. He petted Ash with one hand, while the other held his mug.
"Had enough?" a voice asked from near his ear. Juliana was the only one who could still sneak up on him.
Kyrus nodded, slowly at first, but then with growing conviction.
"I think so." He set his mug down, still half full, and picked up Ash in his arms. He followed Juliana out through the remainder of the partygoers in various states of drunkenness. Neither of them spoke a word as they snuck out through the gardens.
* * * * * * * *
Scraping and thumps from the spare cabin told Kyrus that he was not the one delaying their departure. As he studied the interior hull of the Starlit Marauder, new runes appeared, burned in by careful application of aether. When the last few had been carved, the new system of wards was complete. It had taken weeks, but he had almost completely refurbished the ship along a new design. The hull remained the same, but the runes that controlled it were decentralized, broken into multiple subsystems, each of which could be empowered separately. With her combined Source, Juliana was certainly strong enough to refill the aether in any of them.
Kyrus stuck his head into the cabin where Juliana was working. She was stowing more gold than he had seen in one place in his lifetime, in either world. Had the Marauder been a seafaring ship, it would have sunk beneath the weight, but the gold was the least of the wealth they had aboard. A pair of armor racks stood in adjacent corners. The one bearing Soria's armor held nothing but a keepsake, but Brannis's armor was fit for an emperor. The daggers displayed on the wall were made of dragon teeth, a mythical creature by local standards. Avalanche was securely lashed into its sheath where it hung, and as Juliana worked, Kyrus drew Heavens Cry and placed it back in its own display.
Ash curled up on a Kheshi rug that looked more at home in a palace than a ship's cabin.
"Ready when you are," he told her. A hollow fear gnawed within him, small, but worrisome for having no clear cause.
Juliana turned and smiled up at him. She stood and brushed the dust of moldering old crates off her pants. "Let's get going then."
He followed her up to the deck, trying to pin a name to the feeling that was growing within him. The hold of the Marauder was a potpourri of smells from across Tellurak, with a hint of Veydran metals mixed in, but above it was all briny, cold Acardian sea air, fresh from the Katamic. They were tucked away in a rocky inlet just south of Scar Harbor, within walking distance. The hour was well past midnight and the stars shone off the water, the afternoon's storm clouds having departed. Neither was tired, nor ever likely to feel fatigue again.
"Well, Brannis, I can't think of any other lingering business I've left unfinished," Juliana said. She began inspecting the ship's new controls. In place of the captain's wheel and harness, Kyrus had built in a pair of comfortable, sturdy chairs, with the controls accessible in the arms of them.
"Me either. This was the last obligation I—" That was it: obligation. I've followed a path set before me for as long as I can remember. There was no distinction between Kyrus and Brannis in the thought. Always a task, a client, a need, an order, a threat, something forcing me to act. He thought to mull the question over in his head, but chose to give it voice instead.
"So, what's next?" he asked.
Juliana turned, and the smile she gave promised him that wherever he went, whatever he did, he would never be lost, or lonely, or bored again.
"Everything."
* * * * * * * *
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About The Author
Born in New Hampshire in 1977, J.S. Morin found himself captivated by the wonders of fantasy novels at a young age. He was introduced to the genre via the works of R.A. Salvatore, Ed Greenwood, and Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman. He loved exploring other people’s worlds, from Shadowdale to Hyrule. He also quickly found Dungeons and Dragons to be a creative outlet for stories, characters, and new worlds of his own creation.
His other passion was for building and designing things, and when it came time to choose a career, he went down that road. A Mechanical Engineer by day, he spends his evenings with his wife in their New Hampshire home, enjoying the simplicity of life in a quiet state.
By night he dreams elaborate dreams of visiting fanciful worlds, performing acts of heroism, and solving intriguing puzzles, which inspire him to craft stories that he hopes will help shape the lives of the next generation of fantasy readers. He hopes to avoid finishing growing up.