She has stopped in the middle of her vows and is looking at her groom like he's the only person in the world.
"That's what you are," she tells Evander. "Notes in the margins of a book only we have read, and I intend to keep writing with you until the binding gives out."
Evander doesn't answer right away. He's a thin human scholar with ink on his fingers even today. He is nothing like Torgan, which may be exactly the point.
They're perfect for each other.
He swallows, never taking his eyes off his bride.
"I promise you now," he manages. "The binding between us will never give out."
There are only twenty guests. Twenty chairs in a hall of the royal archives that Evander somehow got permission to use. Ancient shelves rise above us, and every reading lamp and candle stand has been arranged in a circle, placing the two of them in a pool of gold light with ten thousand books looking down.
After Ysolde's wedding, with two hundred orcs, warrior songs, and seating conquest, I braced for more of the same.
This is the exact opposite.
Evander reads his vows from a book. Not folded paper. A whole bound book.
It takes me until his third sentence to understand. He wrote it for her. An entire book because his vows wouldn't fit on one page.
He reads one page and closes it.
"The rest is yours to read later," he says. Then he looks almost embarrassed. "There's a table of contents."
Brynna gives one sharp, startled laugh, completely unlike her, and covers her mouth with both hands.
There is no stamping this time. When the vows are done, every orc in the room touches two fingers to their collarbone.
Where a necklace would sit.
They know. Brynna must have told them where to look and what it means. From three steps away, a vine. From one step away, theirs.
I make it through the ceremony. I make it through the toasts and the tiny supper at one long table. I make it through Saskia's speech, which opens with, "I have known Brynna since before she could read, which was the day after this bookworm was born."
I even make it through Evander's father, a small gray-haired bookbinder who stands and says, "I bound the book. Hewouldn't tell me what it was for. Now I know," before sitting down again.
What I don't make it through is the dancing.
It is nothing like the last wedding. Tonight there is only a hired trio playing violins and a cleared space between the shelves. Couples sway in the lamplight. Brynna and Evander barely dance at all. They stand in the middle, talking.
Something in my chest twists.
They say there is someone for everyone. I don't know what that means when there's a curse on me.
And I slip out the side door before anyone can see what my face is doing.
Certainly not crying.
Right?
The gardenof the archives is barely a garden. It is a courtyard off the archive hall with one lantern, a stone bench, and ivy climbing the walls.
It is cold enough that my breath clouds in front of me.
Perfect. No one follows people into cold, dark courtyards. They stay inside where there is a wedding and warmth.
I get four full breaths to myself.
