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Luz landed with a crunch into the grass and whipped their braid behind their shoulder as they stood. “I will.”
Orman frowned at them. “You’re ordained to marry?”
“Sure am.” Luz shot him a smile. “For three different fairy courts, in fact.”
“Big fan of matrimony, are ya?”
Luz scoffed. “Not a chance. Marriage is an institution driven by patriarchal beliefs with the aim of control. The romantic notions attached to it only make it more subliminally abusive.”
Sai released a breath like the exhaustion of the entire night—fleeing from dozens of guards, using a massive amount of magic, and performing a heist in a highly warded palace—finally caught up with him. “Thank you for that rousing speech, Luz.”
Luz grimaced. “Apologies, Sai.”
“Perhaps you could get on with it.”
Luz walked over to us and peeled their gloves off then shoved them into their pocket. “I need both of your hands, bare.” Sai pulled a glove off and offered his palm to them. I hesitated. My fingers were already unsheathed and shimmered in the glittering light from the crimson form of the blood moon which kept peeking from behind clouds.
My heart raced as I lifted my fingers, and still I wavered.
This was it.
There was no going back.
If I did this, Sai would mark me for life, and I’d brand him in turn. He didn’t falter. This was an act of kindness on his part. He didn’t owe me marriage, even if I’d helped with the heist and rescued Prince Shaan’s zevar. Sai was a prince. He probably had limitless options for who he could choose as a spouse. Yet, he was willing to be marked with my magic forever to keep his word to me and help me evade whatever Mother and King Carrington had in mind to use my magic for. Of course, their schemes were against his court. So this achieved his goals as well.
I dropped my fingers into Luz’s rough grip.
“Do you want a Prasanna ceremony?” they asked.
“Maybe just keep it simple,” Sai whispered.
I lifted my face. The shadows hid his expression and darkened his tawny skin. He met my gaze, and a moment passed where it was just Sai and me, standing beneath a star-speckled, intensely dark night sky with a moon that slowly changed colors as storm clouds sailed across it.
“All right, I’ll make it Alegre then,” Luz said.
Their home court. The court which the Seelie had all but eradicated.
Luz began speaking in a language I didn’t know, and Sai continued to stare at me. It was hard to remember others watched us, that I stood half-dressed near a swollen river filled with mythical monsters while fairies pursued us.
“¿Aceptas?”
“What?” I said.
“This is where you say, ‘I do,’” Luz answered.
I took a deep breath and returned my attention to Sai. His stolen guard uniform rippled in the breeze. I bet if he’d ever imagined marrying it wouldn’t be in Seelie clothing to a siren he barely knew. He took this vow to help me and to fulfill our bargain. That thought gave me the strength to find words, and they sounded over the quiet splashing of the river with more certainty than I felt. “I do.”
“I do,” he said as soon as I finished speaking. His voice was steady, a deep hum that purred down my spine and settled in my stomach. Everything in my body drew towards this man even though I couldn’t trust him anymore.
“Now you both must present magic,” Luz said, then they smirked at me. “Perhaps try not to freeze me over.”
I released a nervous laugh at them referencing my elemental magic so casually. No one ever had, not even Sai. He’d seemed afraid of my powers, despite telling me there was nothing wrong with them. I no longer knew what to believe about my magic or my place in the world. The Naga had told me I had some role to play in the fairy courts, and if I hadn’t been so afraid of him I might have laughed.
Now I stood in the middle of a marriage ceremony with a fairy prince after stealing the zevar from another. That brought Lennox to mind, the sorrow and heartache in the Seelie Prince’s eyes. The way he’d said at the gala that only half of the story Sai had told me about him was true. He was in love with Sai’s brother, Shaan, but he’d betrayed him anyway. Perhaps love wasn’t as simple as the romance books made it out to be. I’d betrayed Lennox as well in a way. He’d trusted me and looked out for me, and I repaid him by stealing his zevar. I’d only done so because he had knotted his cords together with Shaan’s, and we had to escape quickly. The justification didn’t quell the guilt pooling in my stomach.
Sai seemed to wait for me to be the one to present magic first. It reminded me of when we’d had sex.We don’t have to, he’d said.I’ll hold you tonight even if we do nothing else.He’d left it up to me like he did now. My heart whimpered with a desire to forgive him, to reach out and feel the rough scrape of his hand in mine. I curled my fingers into a fist. Regardless of his kindness I wasn’t the naïve siren stumbling around anymore. I was as caught up in this mess as he was, and I wasn’t ready to trust him again.
Luz cocked an eyebrow at me. Right. Magic.
