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Anhuset encircled his wrist in her hand and raised his arm. Her claw traced the dirty ribbon still wrapped there. “I thought this went into a monastery midden. Why did you keep it?”
Serovek could list a hundred reasons for why he kept it, but he gave her only the most important one. “Because it was proof your feelings for me had changed. There is no finer gift in all the world than the love of sha-Anhuset.”
She gave a tiny, inadvertent flinch. “I'm no longer asha.”
He'd wondered what she sacrificed in order to offer her marriage proposal. She'd give up much to remain his wife. Regret filled him at the thought of her losing her position as Brishen's second. She was born to it, and he'd seen firsthand how she defined herself by it. As much as he wanted her, it wasn't under circumstances like these.
“You risked your life for me,” he said. “I'm losing count of the number of times now. I don't want you for my wife just to keep High Salure. It's just stones and mortar. Forfeiting it wouldn't be the end of the world. I want this marriage because I've loved you since I first set eyes on you in Saggara, so grim and beautiful.” He stroked a lock of her hair where it draped on her bare shoulder. “But I won't rob you of those things that mean most to you. We can live separately if you wish. The king's restrictions don't demand we occupy the same household together.”
His mind raced. They could visit each other every week or even twice a month. Brishen still wouldn't allow her to remain ashafor reasons that were strictly political and diplomatic. Serovek understood that, as did Anhuset he was sure. But she didn't have to leave behind her people and her home just to remain his wife. They could make it work; it would just take some planning.
Anhuset sighed, and the small smile she'd worn before their conversation turned more serious returned. She stroked his back, tickling the dip of his spine with a fingertip. “Oh, I don't know. Margravina has a more stately ring to it thansha, don't you think?” She continued mapping a path down his back to his buttock before giving it an appreciative squeeze. “And High Salure has comfortable beds with soft blankets and warm hearth fires. Your furnishings are quite princely too.”
The clamp around his heart eased a little, one he'd refused to recognize as he made the offer to send her home to Saggara while he returned to High Salure, married but still without a wife. “You didn't mention the food,” he teased.
She gave a disdainful sniff. “We can debate that unpleasantness later.”
He kissed her and she him, their mutual caresses becoming more urgent, more passionate. Serovek pulled back to stare into her eyes with their swirling citrine shades. “None of that matters. There is no bed I want to be in more than the one I'm in now with you, and we're far away from High Salure.”
Anhuset swatted him on the buttock she'd cupped a moment before. “You have to be the chattiest individual I know,” she said. “Do you want me as your wife in every way?”
An easy question to answer. “Yes.”
“Do you want me to live with you at High Salure?”
“Yes.”
Her voice became a loving touch that stroked his soul. “Do you love me even half as much as I love you?”
He pretended to consider. “Well...you did fight a giant scarpatine for me.” He yelped when her claws dug into his flank. He abandoned the teasing. “I love you with all that I am and for all the days of our existence, firefly woman.”
Her pointed teeth gleamed white in the growing darkness and her embrace tightened as if she would meld him to her. “Then for gods' sake, man, shut up and prove it.”
Serovek laughed and set about doing just that.
Epilogue
So may it remain.
Anhuset stoodatop the berm that encircled Saggara's training yard for its soldiers and watched the sun break the horizon toward dawn. Behind her the manor house and its bailey buzzed with activity and sound as those who'd attended the celebration of sha-Anhuset's marriage to the human margrave of High Salure continued with their revelry into the coming daylight hours, even after the guests of honor had taken their leave. The training yard itself was empty, offering her a quiet place to recall the hours she'd spent there in practice melées, training both newly minted Kai soldiers and veterans alike. Her favorite memories were of the mock combats with Brishen, even the grimmer ones where she'd helped him relearn how to wield ax and sword as a partially blind fighter.
She had no true regrets at leaving Saggara to live at High Salure. She'd miss its rhythm, its silent voice, but that had already begun to change with the influx of displaced Kai from Haradis and Saggara's renewed role as the kingdom's capital. The training yard, though, was still the same. She'd miss it even though she was growing comfortable in the yard at High Salure.
Her marriage to Serovek was a month old, a happy one though she still woke some mornings startled to see the Beladine Stallion sleeping next to her, his features sometimes peaceful in slumber, sometimes scowling as he battled through a dark dream of Megiddo while the ethereal blue light of ancient Kai magic seeped from under his closed eyelids. During those times she'd eased him awake, not with a touch, but with a low-hummed tune she'd learned as a child. He'd still gasp when he woke, but he didn't flail or strike out. She'd envelop him in a tight embrace while he breathed hard and gripped her with desperate hands and shook off the remnants of whatever horrific visions plagued him. He didn't speak about them, and she didn't ask, offering comfort instead with silent affection and the unspoken promise that she'd fight his demons alongside him.
A light footfall she recognized made her glance over her shoulder to see Brishen crest the berm, looking every bit the regal regent of Bast-Haradis. Unlike her, he wore his finery with ease and had smiled earlier that evening when she clawed at the high collar of her formal tunic and complained of having to wear such nonsense.
“This is your wedding celebration,” he said. “You can't show up in hunting leathers or armor, cousin.”
“I don't see why not,” she snapped. “Serovek doesn't care.”
“You have him so bewitched he wouldn't care if you showed up wearing nothing.”
Knowing her new husband, he'd wholeheartedly prefer it. Anhuset had kept the thought to herself.
Brishen came to stand beside her. “I thought I'd find you here.”
She eyed him askance. “And why is that?”
