The resonance blazed.
Pip laughed. Breathless, shaking, tears still drying on his cheeks, flower petals in his hair, his body still trembling with aftershocks. He laughed, pressing his face into my neck to ask, “Did you just make the whole corridor orgasm?”
“That’s my magic during resonance.”
“Oh,” he whispered, then his eyes widened. “You made it seem like that was just your magic while horny.”
“It has never done that with anyone else.”
“Oh. We’ve been resonant almost from the beginning, then?”
“Yes.”
He beamed at me, pulling me down for a kiss as he held my softening cock inside him. I tasted his tears, and maybe some of my own, too.
Chapter 27
Aeldryc
“Andbytheauthorityvested in the Royal Crown of Qoksmere, by the grace of the Well that flows beneath all things, by the ancient covenant of the binding of resonant souls, we do hereby declare this bond consecrated.”
The Queen’s voice rang across the palace gardens like a bell. She stood above us on the ceremonial dais in a gown of deep gold, the Crown of Qoksmere gleaming at her brow, and she spoke the old words with the weight of her authority.
I watched Pip’s lips twitch every time she said “Qoksmere.” I wanted to reach for his hand and give it a squeeze, but we were being elegant and formal. Even if Pip was doing that in shorts, which he still insisted were the most versatile garment ever invented. I wondered if other people in his realm agreed with that notion; I was beginning to suspect it was somethinguniquely Pip. But like all things uniquely Pip, even his obsession with letting his legs breathe was something I cherished dearly.
“Let it be known throughout the Seven Counties and all lands beyond that the resonance between the Lord High Commander Aeldryc the Ironstorm of the Grey Guard, Warden of the Peace, and Pippin Crane of—” She paused, slightly. “—San Jose, is recognized by the Eternal Throne as a bond of true and lasting union, forged not by decree but by the will of the Well itself, witnessed this day in the sight of gods and sovereign and all assembled.”
“You look hot in uniform,” he whispered, eying me up and down.
“And you look… radiant in shorts.”
He beamed up at me, his cheeks turning a little pink.
Radiant was not a word I used lightly. The dawn breaking over the Greymere River in winter, the iron forges of Ironfast at full blaze, the Queen herself in her war crown on the day she took the throne. But none of it compared to the creature standing beside me in an outfit that had been a near-diplomatic incident.
I hadn’t argued when Pip and Lyriel had set about making his wedding costume. I knew he hated having his legs confined, and I had never in my life met anyone so cheerfully, relentlessly impossible to refuse. And the shorts were beautifully cut, at least, but that was a given. Pip had made them himself. They were crisp white silk and far too short, paired with a jacket of sorts, a questionable concession to modesty. It tucked in at thewaist, then flared out behind him into a long, flowing cape that hung down to the ground with white lace details.
A flower crown sat on his head, dahlias again, because Pip had decided the Queen’s dahlias were his signature and the Queen had decided to allow it. She indulged his schemes far more than anyone should. The white slippers on his feet, soft and simple.
And his only jewelry was my silver collar, gleaming at his throat, the chain looped around his waist the way he liked to wear it, and the silver and wood bracelet that let him understand everyone around him.
The metal was singing.
The Queen had rushed the wedding, waving every requirement aside with a flick of her jeweled hand. She’d insisted that there was no reason to delay since we were already experiencing resonance, telling us it was fated that our union should be consecrated on the morning of the summer solstice, when she’d already planned a ball for later in the day. After all, Pip had helped to make her ballgown.
On Pip’s side of the dais stood his wedding party. Lyriel, resplendent in pale lavender that set off her dark skin, her hair braided with tiny flowers, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief she had already soaked through. Nessa beside her in deep forest green, standing straight and proud, her expression one of fierce approval. And between them, wearing a garland of braided ribbons around his neck and looking extraordinarilypleased with himself, stood Periwinkle, who had walked Pip down the aisle.
On my side stood my own party. Vaelith and Ilyndra, in their dress greys, shoulder to shoulder. Thyren, who had spent the entire ceremony failing to suppress a grin. And Caelyndris, also in dress grey, who was holding Bram’s lead. Bram looked perhaps slightly confused, but Pip had been convinced that he might feel left out.
I hadn’t been able to ignore him, because Bram had been standing right there, trying bravely not to look left out. As if a horse could feel such a thing.
“Let the resonance be witnessed.” The Queen’s voice softened.
She looked at us, and for a moment the sovereign disappeared and there was just Delsynarea, the woman who had known me since I was a boy, looking at me with gold-amber eyes full of something I had no name for but that I felt in the marrow of my bones.
“You may kiss,” she said, “to seal your bond.”
Pip beamed up at me.
