"Are you asking or informing?"
"Informing. I'm too old to ask."
"Finally," Grammy says, releasing my arm, "an honest man."
She walks off with him, and that's the last I see of either of them for quite some time.
Torgan finds me just as I'm about to sit down. He's in his formal blacks with the oak worked into the collar. He drapes his coat over the rack beside the feast tables with everyone else's, because the fires are already going and the night air is humid.
"You're staring," he says.
"You're worth staring at. That's not my fault." I take his arm. Openly, in front of everyone, and something in my chest sits easier than it has in weeks. "Come on. Your sister's about to fight her husband-to-be."
The ceremony has no procession.The drums simply start, low and distant from somewhere in the trees. The crowd draws back from the circle, and Saskia and Mikka walk in from opposite sides.
I’ve spent five weeks building that dress, and I still catch my breath.
She's a vision in silver and white beneath the lanterns. The embroidery catches the light in lines down her shoulders and sides. Battle lines. The split skirt hangs like a court gown, giving away nothing. Her hair is braided severely back with white ribbon. She looks like a bride, and she looks like a weapon at the same time.
She looks exactly like what she asked me for, and my eyes sting.
Mikka has deep green, bark-brown skin and moss-dark hair. He carries a spear in both hands, and he watches Saskia cross the circle like she's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen.
I should be used to that look by now.
I'm not.
An old dryad steps to the circle's edge. She's small and gnarled as a root, and when she speaks, it's in a language that sounds like wind whispering through leaves, long and unhurried. The dryads in the branches answer her in kind.
Then she changes to the common language.
"Two warriors stand before you. They have chosen not to speak their promise, for words are easily given. They will show it instead. Watch closely. The vow is in what doesn't happen."
She raises her hand.
"I could hurt you," Saskia says across the circle, drawing her blade, "and I never will."
"I could hurt you," Mikka says, leveling his spear, "and I never will."
The drums stop.
They fly at each other.
I've watched Saskia kick a mock-up skirt into shape a hundred times in my shop, and none of it prepared me for this.She moves like the dress was always part of her. The skirt opens, flares, and follows half a beat behind like silver wings.
Mikka's spear comes in low and fast and misses, because while he could drive it home at any moment, he doesn't.
That makes it more terrifying, not less.
Their weapons clash and sing. The whole crowd seems to hold its breath as we watch them move.
Mikka tries to drive her back across the circle, but she refuses to give ground. She turns his reach against him, and the third pass ends with her blade parting the air where his braid was a heartbeat before.
Someone's child asks, very clearly, "Are they fighting or dancing?"
Their mother answers, "Yes."
Nobody laughs. Everyone is watching too closely.
