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I feel much better, too. My anxiety has lessened, and I feel more cheerful when I interact with the rest of the Risen Ash clan members.
I also only realize now how much time I spent worrying about living through winter and having enough food and adequate shelter.
“I don’t have to worry about that anymore,” I say out loud. Kian looks up at me from where he is fiddling with something small in his big hands.
“You don’t have to worry about anything, love,” he says absentmindedly.
I laugh at his vague expression.
“You don’t even know what I was talking about!” I tell him.
I am about to go over to Julie’s to get dressed, but Kian said he wanted to see me first.
“Now why did you want to see me? We don’t have much time.” I place a soft hand on his cheek.
He hands me the thing he has been fiddling with. It is a wooden box a little larger than my hand.
“Open it,” he says. I don’t miss the anxiety in his voice.
I gasp when I open it. It is a ring and circlet, made of gold and copper.
“It’s beautiful.”
“I thought you should have something nice before the ceremony.” His voice is gruff as he stands up.
“Now. We’re going to be late.” I close the box and hurry over to Uli’s home, where Julie is waiting for me.
I dress quickly and only turn when I hear a loud bark from outside her house.
“You can come in Alfa.” Julie laughs and the wolf, my friend, trots in confidently.
“I think she’s here to fetch you for the wedding.” Julie smiles mischievously, and I smile back.
“Kian will put the ring on during the ceremony but put the circlet on now. It’ll look lovely with your dress.”
Julie, Alfa, and I are slightly late when we arrive at the ceremony. Every orc is standing in front of an altar that has been placed beneath a bough of leaves and flowers.
I rush to stand in front of Kian, who steadies me when I almost topple over.
I might get used to living here, but I’ll never get used to wearing clothes like this and being so civilized all the time.
I smile excitedly at Kian as I realize how much freedom I had with the wolves in my little clearing.
You have a different kind of freedom here though. The freedom of love.
The shaman, who looks fairly young, prays to the War God first. Kian hands an offering, a bear’s heart, to the shaman who places it on the altar.
Then it is our turn.
“Do you, Kian, the Undefeated Gladiator, promise to honor yourself and your mate, and to never break that promise? Do you promise to share the pain of your mate and ease it? Do you promise to share your burdens with your mate and allow her to ease them?”
I don’t realize I am crying until the droplets splash onto the front of my dress when Alfa barks up at me.
Kian speaks in a gravelly voice then, and I think he is as emotional as I am.
“I promise to my mate and to the War God.”
The shaman repeats the vows to me.
