"Mama, why is Uncle Dom looking at Lady Kel funny?"
The sun was up at the break of dawn. One house at a time, the sun's rays woke the estate, promising a pleasantly balmy day of clear skies, perfect for riding. Today, the extended Masbolle clan would leave for Queenscove. Neal, in particular, could not miss the wedding.
Now Lucetta looked down with raised brows at her daughter, who was riding double with her. Then she cut her gaze toward—seemingly—the new couple, with renewed curiosity. Indeed, at breakfast Lucetta had noticed the two exchanging very significant glances when they thought themselves unobserved, but they had, in fact, been so conspicuous that even little Rosy noticed. Lucetta gave a little laugh and stroked back a lock of Rosy's dark hair from her upturned, curious face. "Oh, sweetheart, I believe your Uncle Dom is in love."
Sitting in her usual spot in front of Dom's saddle horn, Queen licked a paw, looking quite content, if not a little smug. Dom himself was indeed glowing as Kel rode up next to him. Her face was Yamani calm but her eyes, sparkling gold green in the sun, smiled as she looked at him. Jump, riding with Hoshi in his compartment behind Kel, wuffed and wagged his tail happily.
As the sun rose higher, the riders halted to rest at a pond before rejoining the Great Road North to Queenscove. Neal, riding more than a little ahead, led the group, whose mood had markedly brightened. Today, Darinia seemed to have returned to her cheerful self, when she had been uncharacteristically stern for the past few days. However, Luce's husband Madrigol, who wore a look of amusement, knew, as Lucetta knew, that Darinia was only gloating.
By about the sixth bell past noon, the riders glimpsed Queenscove in the distance. The sight of their ultimate destination, Queenscove castle, greeted them with elegant green spires atop massive stone towers that reached to the sky. To the untrained eye, the castle and outlying lands of Queenscove were as spectacular as Masbolle, and merely built on a larger scale. However, Queenscove had less farmland and more large buildings, to accommodate the more diverse sectors of Tortallan economy in which Queenscove partook. Dom, Darinia, and Lucetta looked on Queenscove and saw a familiar place they associated with good memories. But Neal saw home.
Or, what was his first home of many.
Neal drew up Magewhisper, and the others followed suit beside him. "Never thought this day would come," Neal murmured absently, his green eyes resting on their destination, miles ahead.
Kel, on his left, heard. "To get married?"
"To come home."
The party covered the remaining distance at a slower pace than they had been going. The effect of their arrival onto the estate was gradual. Townspeople appeared by the roadside, drawn by the procession of the groom and his companions.
Neal's family and the visitors that arrived for the wedding came to the foyer of Queenscove manor to greet them. Duke Baird, Duchess Wilina; Neal's sister Lady Jessamine and her husband Sir Balduin of Disart; Faleron, Merric, Seaver, Esmond; Owen and his new bride Lady Margarry, née of Cavall; Prince Roald and Princess Shinkokami; Neal's former knight-mistress, Alanna the Lioness; Lady Haname; Yuki. Neal's reunion with his bride was perfectly sweet and left her struggling not to whip out her fan to hide her face behind it. Lalasa and Tobe were also there, to Kel's surprise: Lalasa because Yuki had commissioned her for her wedding dress and Tobe because Daine had allowed that his hard work had earned him a break. Besides, as Tobe so eloquently pointed out, "How could I miss Peachblossom's squeaky toy's wedding?" Kel had to admit to seeing his point.
"What did you call my Yamani blossom?" Neal asked indignantly.
"Sorry, sir. Ye must've misheard. I said Peachblossom's squeaky toy. That's you, o'course," Tobe answered, grinning blithely.
Neal sputtered at that, something about the lack of civility of some horses and their people, conveniently forgetting his past infatuation with a certain Wildmage. Dom silenced him with a good-natured clap on the shoulder and a change of subject.
The next two days after their arrival—the only two days until the wedding—passed in a flurry of preparation. Kel saw a lot of fabric and very little of Dom, whom she understood had his own fittings to endure. Granted, hers and all the bridesmaids' were a much more fussy affair, but she had hoped at least to see Dom. After all, he was terribly easy on the eyes.
Alas, it was not to be. But that is not to say that she wasn't ecstatic that Lalasa was there to lend expert and comprehensive advice about color, style, material, and everything else dress-related. Plus, she took care not to jab Kel with any of her innumerable pins. And Kel knew she could trust Lalasa with such matters, but at the end of the day—literally—Kel still preferred her own simple sense of style.
"But I'm confident you'll look absolutely stunning in this perfect shade of rose pink, my lady," Lalasa argued exuberantly.
Undoubtedly the only thing that Kel had ever given up on was trying to get Lalasa to call her Kel, just Kel. It was a cause abandoned some time ago, Lalasa having grown just as steadfast and stubborn as the mistress that encouraged that growth. "Thank you, Lalasa," Kel replied instead, not for the first time, "but—"
"But no buts, my lady," Lalasa interrupted sternly. "You've already told me you like this style of dress. So please, at least try it on in rose, Lady Kel. I saved this shade just for you. I promise you won't be disappointed."
Kel sighed and gave in. It was just trying on, anyway. She could put it on, pretend to mull it over, and just say she didn't like it.
She let Lalasa help her into the dress, which was positively flowing. The wrapped style of the layered sheer fabric lent the wearer an ethereal look. There was no denying that it was, to say the least, elegant and beautiful. Kel wasn't so sure about how it would look on herself, but when Lalasa was done and Kel came to the mirror, she also couldn't deny that it suited her well. Better than well. She resigned to the fact that she could not lie to Lalasa and say she didn't like it.
"Brilliant, isn't it, Lady Kel," Lalasa said, beaming with pride.
"Yes," Kel breathed, unable to believe it herself. "Indeed it is."
The day of Neal and Yuki's wedding dawned as bright and clear over Queenscove as the day they had arrived from Masbolle. The ceremony, which would begin at seven in the evening, was to be in the ballroom, the largest room in the castle. Even last night the room was already being prepared: all the cleaning, decoration, furniture arrangement, beverage selection, and cooking that needed to be done made the house nearly burst with activity.
After the fifth bell past noon, Kel went to check on Neal. She had not yet donned her rose pink bridesmaid gown, having come from a meeting with Yuki and Kel's fellow bridesmaids Shinko and Lady Haname noh Ajikuro. Kel would ready herself later. But Neal would be in the middle of it right now.
If Kel thought it her duty as best friend to assist in matters of the heart, tonight someone beat her to it. She found Neal sitting forward, hunched over with this elbows on his knees, raking his hands through his hair, crinkling his crisp shirtsleeves in an attempt to roll them up. In the chair opposite him sat Dom, who looked up and smiled radiantly at Kel after she knocked and came in. Neal turned slightly in his chair and, seeing Kel, breathed a sigh of relief and sat back, though his face lost not a single line of anxiety.
"Neal," Kel began warily, with a glance at Dom, "How are you holding up?"
That was decidedly the wrong thing to say. At this Neal returned to his original position. "No," he groaned, after much scrubbing of his face.
Dom kicked him gently. "That doesn't even answer the question."
"What does, these days, anyway?" Neal shot back, but to no one in particular. "Everything is uncertain. The world might as well be going in reverse. Who really has answers anymore? Who knows anything for that matter?" Kel figured he was only babbling, albeit very nervously and very dramatically. "Is marriage right for me, at this time in my life, or have we chosen an absolutely catastrophic date for it? Should it have been on a different day, or at a different location, or, or... I mean, ha!" He seemed suddenly to notice Dom and Kel before him. "My cousin and—and my best friend. Who knows? Maybe the world is going in reverse."
"Hey," Dom chided, mock-sternly, "how is this about us now?"
"Us," Neal repeated, clearly flabbergasted by the pronoun. "I can't—I just can't—"
"Neal, listen to me," Kel interrupted, having enough of Neal's nerves. She had pulled up another chair in front of Neal and now she reached across and grasped Neal's hands, which were on their way up to rake his hair yet again. "Take a deep breath, Neal, and I'll make you some green tea."
Neal's cupboards were stocked with the stuff, part of his marriage gift from Yuki. The entire package consisted of all kinds of things from Yamani culture, including a number of novels translated into Common for Neal's reading pleasure, paintings and small sculptures, green tea, and the paraphernalia needed to make it in the traditional Yamani manner.
Kel took out these things now and proceeded to make enough for three. She figured that the tea ceremony would make Neal feel more comfortable with his coming union with his Yamani bride and her culture. Neal had told her he liked green tea, though it would never beat the black tea typically served in the palace in Corus. Or a nice, soothing willow tea. Kel suspected that Neal would always associate the taste of green tea with the homeland of his darling Yuki, whom Kel knew he loved deeply, however "uncertain" he sounded at the moment.
Either way, it was true that, if nothing else, green tea held a sentimental place in Neal's heart. Kel herself enjoyed making the tea almost as much as drinking it. Listening idly to Neal and Dom's chatter (but mostly Dom's, not because she was biased but because Neal mostly only made noncommittal noises in response), she beat the liquid to a slight froth. After distributing the tea into three handleless mugs, Kel brought them over to Neal and Dom, who was saying to his cousin, "—need to mull it over. It's a permanent decision."
"Here we are," Kel announced. She was relieved to find that Neal no longer looked like a complete emotional wreck. She was also very conscious of Dom's fingers brushing against hers as she handed him his tea. "Thank you, Kel," he said softly, looking up at her and taking the mug in both hands.
The trio sat in silence for a few minutes, as befitted the ceremony, sipping the tea and letting their thoughts drift. Kel watched Neal closely over the rim of her mug, looking for signs that he was calming down. The anxiety lines on his face smoothed out, but he was still tapping his foot to some rapid, unheard rhythm.
"So." Kel broke the silence. "Neal. Tell me something, will you? Could you bear to live another day of your life without being married to Yuki?"
"What?" Neal exclaimed. "No!"
"Well, there you go." Kel finished off her tea. "All your anxieties about this not being the absolute perfectest loveliest luckiest day to have a wedding are for naught. You would marry Yuki today anyway."
"But what if today is cursed in some arcane calendar? Have you heard of the Dark Apocalypse?"
"Both your family and Yuki's have scoured all the variations of the calendar throughout the Eastern Lands. You know that. There's nothing to worry about. Today is perfectly opportune." Kel regarded him affectionately. "Neal, she loves you too, in case you hadn't noticed."
"She braves your poetry," Dom spoke up. "Anyone capable of that must really love you, Neal."
"Not to mention she gave you her shukusen," Kel added. "You know what that means in Yamani culture. How are you forgetting all of this now? Really, Neal?"
"Okay, okay," Neal sighed finally, defeated. "It's not that, it's—" He brought his fists down on his knees in a new nervous gesture. "I can't do this," he said finally, getting up with such force that his poor chair almost tipped over completely.
Dom frowned and leaned toward Kel to whisper, "I think we should get a married man in here."
Kel took a deep breath and looked over worriedly at Neal, who was now pacing in earnest. Dom stood up and went to him, gathering up Neal's suit jacket from the back of said chair. Kel watched as Dom threw it over his shoulder and walked over to Neal, helping him smooth out his shirtsleeves. Dom carefully shook out Neal's jacket, which was a hybrid of the formal Tortallan dinner jacket and the formal Yamani kimono for men. Neal's cousin helped him shrug into it. Kel was a little surprised to find how well it suited (no pun intended) him. Neal looked like a true fusion of both cultures.
"I suppose it's a good thing you sent away the footmen," Dom was saying. "This way, I can bug you without being looked at funny." He grinned momentarily, to which Neal responded with a shaky, half-hearted grin of his own. Dom adjusted Neal's collar, then added the rich forest green cravat that went tied around it. "You look almost as dashing as I do when I wake up in the mornings," Dom went on, industriously tucking the cravat in place. "Just kidding, Meathead, relax. Alright, you look way better than I ever will, how's that? It's the truth!
"And—" Dom continued, unbothered by Neal's silence, "you've got a woman out there who loves you. Loves you dearly, I daresay no matter what you wear. Admittedly, there is her closest friend, Her Royal Highness, but she approves of you. They all do." Dom paused and looked Neal square in the face, all traces of joking pretense gone. "You can't still be nervous if Her Royal Highness—and His Royal Highness, for that matter, give you their blessings." He chucked Neal lightly under his chin, as he used to do so many years ago, when both of them were children. "Come on, Neal. Tell me what's really going on."
Neal looked a little better, but only a little. He sighed resignedly. "Her family..."
At this, Dom's eyebrows drew together. "What about them?"
"They... they'll never see her again, will they? Unless she were to visit them in the Islands herself."
"They gave you their blessing," Kel pointed out, coming over.
"But only after Her Highness informed them that she had given hers," Neal replied. "I've never met them, and I'm afraid their grandkids will never meet them. Will never know them."
So that was Neal's real worry. Kel found it remarkably, though unsurprisingly, mature and foresighted of Neal. She knew he had grown up, more than any other time, during the war, and his sarcastic, dramatic pretense was nothing more than a show. But she also realized that if these were Neal's true pre-wedding anxieties, he had nothing to worry about.
"Neal." It was Dom who broke the uneasy silence following the gravity of Neal's words. "That's quite some time in the future..."
"It's not as if you don't have to plan ahead, too. I know your mother's designs on your future. We all do."
Dom, silenced, looked down and away.
"Admittedly," Kel conceded, "I hadn't thought of that particular occurrence. But haven't you two been planning to return to the Isles after the wedding?"
Neal sighed again. He looked grim. "Yuki and her family had a—a falling out, of sorts, before she left. It ended in quite a mess. Her parents, her father specifically, ordered her never to come back to Yaman until she found herself a proper noble Tortallan husband."
"Queenscove is one of only four ducal houses in Tortall," Kel reasoned. "You're a decorated knight, and the heir to Queenscove. What could be more proper than that?"
Color was returning to Neal's face. At this, he gave a brief little smile, but it was a real one. "I just worry about my—our children. I don't want them to grow up with a part of their family, a part of themselves, their heritage, missing from the picture. That's all. I'm sorry if it seems silly to worry about now."
"Not all problems have solutions. At least not right away, that is," Kel told him gently. He finally seemed to be regaining a state of some composure. "And I'm sure Yuki will tell them all about their grandparents and the land she grew up in."
"And there's you," Neal added, to Kel's surprise.
"Well, yes," replied Kel, "and it's not silly at all to think about these things. Though I wish you'd've chosen a better time for it!"
"I know. I know, you two often pull me out before—before anything bad happens." Then Neal slowly grinned his old grin, and pointed at Dom. "It's your turn next!"
"How," Dom exclaimed, breaking his silence, "is this about me now?"
The other two only laughed, though Kel a bit nervously, and the air finally lightened around them. Neal felt well enough now to shoo them both from his room, claiming something akin to "a groom's job is never done." As Dom and Kel left his room, they could hear him muttering to himself, "Right. Just one more step into the unknown. How much worse can it be?"
"Is it just me, or has his anxiety been replaced by the morbs?" Dom asked, once they were in the corridor outside.
"I have a feeling he's only been letting it sit in his brain for a little too long," said Kel.
"'Sit' is a little inaccurate, isn't it? 'Run wild' is more fitting."
Kel cracked a smile and gave him a gentle push. "Don't tease, Dom. He's actually right."
"I know." Slowly they walked on in comfortable silence. "I still don't know how you do it, Kel," Dom remarked after a while, shaking his head.
"Do what?"
"Make everyone feel at ease." He smiled at her again, making her pulse speed up. "It must be a natural talent."
"You have it, too," Kel said. At his surprised look, she hesitated only a moment before continuing. "When I first met you, when I was a squire, I believe I thought that that was your main charm. Making people around you feel comfortable no matter the situation. You made me feel better on that first day."
"I never knew this before," Dom remarked, with genuine surprise. Then he raised an eyebrow. "So, 'main charm'? Has it changed, in your sagacious perspective, milady?"
Kel looked him over thoughtfully, her eyes sweeping him from crown to sole. Then she replied casually, "No. It's more or less the same for me."
Instead of joking or flirting, either of which she expected he would do, Dom simply shrugged. "Well, I couldn't make Neal comfortable just now. Not like you could."
His modesty honestly shocked her speechless. But pleasantly. Very pleasantly.
As they walked on, Dom pulled her into a darker, less frequented hallway. They stood in silence, face to face, before Dom began to speak again. "He, ah," Dom grasped for the right words, then chuckled softly. "Neal. He reminds me of Nolann."
It was the first time Dom had ever mentioned any of his brothers to her. She hadn't wanted to ask him, aware that the pain from their absence was still a fresh wound. The vulnerability written all over his face silenced her even now. Kel waited sympathetically, pulling him closer in the darkness.
"He—Neal, that is—took me by surprise today." Dom spoke haltingly, with a faraway look in his eyes as he fixed them on her. "Talking about the future... the whole 'what now?' of life. My brother Nolann was much the same, though he was more consistent about it." Kel wondered if Dom had ever voiced this to anyone else. Ever remembered him to someone else as a way to let him go. "He was always looking after us, even Gavin, our eldest brother. Telling us to think about our futures before we did anything stupid, asking us what we wanted to do in the world when we were older. I was never good at that. I was always quite single-minded." He breathed a deep sigh. "I suppose I wonder what kind of advice he would've given Neal just now. He and Neal were pretty close."
"I think we did alright, considering," Kel replied quietly, a small smile gracing her lips.
He seemed to come back to himself then, and really looked at her. A true tenderness filled his eyes before he lowered them to lean toward her for a kiss. She closed the distance eagerly, reaching up to twine her hands in his hair. This kiss, their first since arriving in Queenscove, was just as magical as their very first. One of his hands went to cradle her head, the other to her back, pulling her closer against him.
"I must say," Dom whispered when they broke apart, "that I can't wait to see you in that rose pink gown tonight. Should make up quite nicely for the time we've been apart, I think."
"How do you know about that?" Kel demanded sharply.
"Well, you didn't exactly forbid Lalasa from telling anybody," Dom replied smugly, obviously pleased with himself. "A man has his way of... finding out things."
"But why would you want to know that? Couldn't you have just waited a few more hours to see it for yourself? You know, to be surprised?"
"Oh, I will be, lady knight," Dom said, "and pleasantly so." At the look on her face, he said soberly, "Don't look so peeved, Kel, Lalasa announced it to her friends, an announcement that I just happened to overhear. She seemed to think it a great achievement that she got you to wear pink, though I've no idea why."
"The sly fox," muttered Kel. "The dress was gorgeous. And I didn't even know it was a trick. It really didn't take that much for me to like it."
"Which shows how much of a mastermind she is," Dom said, grinning. "You really have to give it to her."
The sixth bell of the evening came and went, and the massive Queenscove ballroom looked nothing less than splendid. Guests had begun pouring into the room, which was liberally garlanded with fresh sakuras and orchids alike. At the front of the room, crimson ribbons embroidered in gold threaded through every gap in the glimmering white altar, which stood prominently. Before the altar was a gleaming hardwood floor for dancing. An aisle down the middle visibly separated two sections of chairs, which were arranged not in straight but curved rows, enabling easier viewing. On one side of the altar, the band was set up, and on the other, three Mithran priests stood before a table, which was laden with their ceremonial articles.
The room itself, located on the second floor, was grand, made even more so by the preparations done by the Queenscove staff. The curtains, placed at intervals around the circular room wherever there was a window or a balcony, were gradient green and gold and billowed naturally. The rich mahogany of the floor and walls gave the room a warm feel, and the flowering designs carved into the ceiling were highly ornate. As Kel entered the room, with Dom on her arm, she thought she couldn't remember the ballroom in the palace looking this marvelous.
"It's those damn curtains," Dom murmured, shaking his head. Tonight he was wearing the customary black, white, and silver as Neal's best man, but he had a miniature Yamani flag stitched in red onto his tunic. The ensemble drew her eyes even more than they'd been during Raoul and Buri's wedding. The difference was only because now she was secure in the knowledge that she could look all she pleased. "They make any room look good," he was saying. "But of course—" he bowed deeply to her—"so do you, my lady."
Kel wasn't sure which action turned heads in the ballroom: Dom's bow or her entrance. Whichever it was, it prompted many of her friends to materialize out of the crowds and call as they walked to her. Faleron, Owen (with Lady Margarry in tow), Esmond, Seaver, Tobe, Roald, and Shinko joined her and Dom as they moved into the room.
"Kel!" Owen, of course, got to her first. "So glad you're here. This is Lady Margarry, my wife. Marg, dear, this is Lady Knight Keladry of Mindelan, the one I was telling you about!"
Lady Margarry of Jesslaw was petite woman, but she was nearly Owen's height in her heels. She was very pretty, and her face bore a becoming sprinkling of freckles across her cheeks. She shared her father's steady brown gaze, but none of its coldness. In that gaze, Kel could see how Owen had fallen in love: a lively enthusiasm lit the lady's eyes in a way that reminded Kel nothing of her stoic former training master and commanding officer.
"Hello, Lady Margarry, it's wonderful to finally meet you," Kel said with a smile.
"Lady Knight Keladry, of course! I've heard many good things about you, chiefly from my husband and my father," the lady replied amicably.
"And Owen has told us much about you," Kel returned, charmed. "And as I'm sure you've discovered, he can be quite fervent in the telling."
"Yes, I have," Lady Margarry said with a significant look at her husband.
Owen only smiled fondly at his wife before being caught up with introducing her to his other friends. Tobe, wearing a crisp white shirt and a deep green tunic, went to Kel and she bent to embrace him, remembering her conversation with Dom that night on the balcony. You know, all his training and success wouldn't have happened had he not met you, he'd said. And how he'd added in a quiet, serious tone, I think a lot of us feel the same way about you, Kel. In retrospect, Kel understood now what he was trying to convey to her that night. That she'd saved his life and made him a better person. Changed him, and many, many others, for the better. But only if that was true, she told herself; she remained reluctant to believe that the impact she had on others was quite so significant. Nonetheless, the thought that others might believe it surged through her suddenly, until she felt quite overwhelmed by it. Still, her faithful Yamani mask held and she was able to get through greeting all her old friends without a hitch.
After conferring with Shinko about Yuki and their shared bridesmaid duties, Kel was also reunited with Duke Baird and introduced to Duchess Wilina and Lady Jessamine, Neal's mother and sister. It warmed her heart to see Dom greet his uncle and aunt with familiarity and tease his cousin as he might a precious younger sister. Looking around, Kel spotted Merric in the crowd, and felt a sudden twinge of sadness in her heart. She and Merric had agreed to remain friends after their split, but conversation was always slightly awkward at best. However, she was determined at least to say hello, if he would not; besides, regardless of their relationship now, he had always been more socially withdrawn than she.
Kel continued to scan the ballroom for more familiar faces. That was when she also spotted another—very different—redhead in the crowd. The Lioness.
Dom followed her line of sight. He raised an eyebrow, but only said mildly, "I hear she's famous." Kel gave him a look in reply.
As the seven o'clock bell drew closer, people began finding their seats. Eventually, a hush fell throughout the room. Kel, in her place beside Shinko and Haname near the altar, glanced at Neal's groomsmen across from her. There was Roald, who gave her a tiny smile of encouragement; Merric, who met her gaze only briefly; and Dom, who winked at her ever so subtly. At last, the doors in the back of the ballroom eased open.
In the doorway stood Neal, in the sleek wedding clothes she had seen him in earlier. There were differences to his appearance, though. His hair was combed and slicked back neatly, the anxiety lines were gone from his face, leaving it a careful, uncharacteristic blank, and he had donned boots polished so smoothly they caught the light as he stepped forward.
The musicians began to play the traditional Tortallan wedding tune. Kel couldn't help but let a smile cross her face at the sight of her best friend—getting married! She wanted to let him see her happiness for him; indeed, he cracked a nervous smile upon seeing her near the altar. There was a certain bliss in shared happiness that Kel counted herself both fortunate and blessed to feel.
Moments later, there were more figures at the door through which Neal had come. Complete silence fell. The guests looked now upon the future duchess of Queenscove.
Two ladies-in-waiting flanked Yuki, who was garbed most extravagantly in red and white. From her massive headdress hung a veil that billowed around her head and shoulders. Her dress was an ornate, layered ensemble made of crimson and snow-white Yamani silks woven in the wrapped style of Yamani dresses. She wore no kimono, and Tortallan influence could be seen in the puffed shoulders on her sleeves and the magnificent train of her dress, which gave Yuki the look of a great lady, a title she no doubt deserved. Lalasa might have outdone herself, but Yuki owned that dress.
Kel had not yet seen her friend's full outfit. So as Yuki began her procession toward the altar to the traditional Yamani wedding theme, Kel gaped with the rest, but none did as openly and with a look so full of love as Neal. In this room full of people, the onlookers seemed to fall away as if it were only Yuki and Neal. Neal and Yuki.
Kel thought she'd never seen a moment more beautiful. She scanned the faces of the crowd: there was Lucetta and Madrigol, precious little Rosalee bouncing on their knees; Lady Darinia, sitting with Baird and Wilina, beaming proudly; Jessamine applauding ecstatically beside Balduin; grinning Faleron, sitting next to a daughter of Naxen; Seaver and best friend Esmond, real smiles crossing their faces; and Owen and Margarry, beside themselves in their own brand of excitement.
The ceremony was as close to perfect as ever could be imagined. The groomsmen and bridesmaids performed their duties flawlessly. There was not a single hitch. Every time Kel looked upon Neal and Yuki as the Mithran priests took turns in leading the ceremony, she felt as if she were observing an intimate moment.
"... As you cross the threshold between singularity and unity," the priest leader was saying, "know that it is your responsibility to care for the other as if it were your own life you guarded. In health and sickness, in strength and weakness, in duty and desire, you will be as one until naught but death separates you."
The priest paused, letting his words reverberate in the great hall. By now, Wilina's eyes were shining with unshed tears, her husband's arm around her. Kel was moved, but she wasn't weeping. Yet she found herself struggling to hold back tears with how the next words were uttered:
"Sir Nealan of Queenscove, do you take Lady Yukimi noh Daiomoru to be your lawfully wedded wife?"
"With all my heart, I do."
"And Lady Yukimi noh Daiomoru, do you take Sir Nealan of Queenscove to be your lawfully wedded husband?"
"Until my last breath... I do."
It came time to exchange rings. At the priests' beckoning, Dom and Shinko stepped forward. Slowly, and more delicately than Kel had ever seen Neal treat anything, he took Yuki's hand and slipped the sparkling ruby onto her finger, his hand lingering lovingly for a moment before she did the same with his silver wedding band.
"I pronounce you Husband and Wife," the minister declared gravely. "You may kiss the bride."
Neal, his hands trembling ever so slightly, lifted the veil over and away from Yuki's face, which now bore no Yamani mask to speak of whatsoever. He gathered her against him and kissed her soundly.
The crowd erupted in cheers. Neal and Yuki pulled apart for a moment, looking dazed but immensely pleased. Yuki recovered first, for she seized Neal's face between her hands and kissed him again. By now, the people were on their feet in joyous uproar.
Neal led Yuki by the hand onto the floor before them. It was a Yamani tradition that the bride and groom have the first dance. The music started to play, and Kel thought she'd never seen Neal and Yuki this happy.
The song was popular in the Isles for a new couple's first dance. Kel knew the words, and she sang them now, in her heart:
As the stream flows into a river
And the river into an ocean,
So our hearts will grow together,
And all the years to come
Will only drive us closer.
And no matter the pain
No matter the fear
Nothing shall divide us,
For our Love stands strong as Death.
The song concluded, and guests began pairing up. Kel knew it was the beginning of a long, celebratory night. But she had the inkling that this would be different, different even from Raoul and Buri's wedding, which, though a happy event, was in truth stifled by war and the reality that people were suffering nearby. Roald and Shinko's royal wedding, however, which was postponed to the end of the Scanran War, was indeed a spectacle on a beautiful day...
"Milady?" Kel turned and found not a courtier at her elbow but a smiling Dom. "If I might have this dance?"
Kel let him lead her to the floor, where many couples were already swinging with the music. Dom held her close, though his hand was placed gently on her waist. Kel smiled into his eyes, and he twirled her, making her dress fan out in a perfect circle.
"Well, what do you think?" Dom asked her after a while.
"You dance beautifully, Dom."
"Wh—oh, thank you, Kel. Unfortunately, you're not telling me anything I don't already—no!" Dom exclaimed, laughing at Kel's suddenly belligerent expression. "You know what I mean. Neal."
"He looked better, I noticed," Kel said honestly, resuming the steps to the dance. "I guess seeing Yuki in all her splendor tonight must have done the trick. I think they'll manage just fine, even with Neal's imagination."
"I have to say, I agree," Dom responded. "Though I pity my new cousin-in-law."
After a few more songs, dinner was set up on the side of the room. The entire night passed in a flurry of food, dancing, drinking, and laughing. And there was no hiding the love in the air. Reserved and regal Duchess Wilina wept openly as she embraced her son and daughter-in-law. Neal and Yuki themselves could not take their eyes off each other. Permanent smiles seemed to be plastered onto their faces. And then there were all of their family and friends who had found love: Roald and Shinko, Haname and a handsome heir to Macayhill, Jessamine and Balduin, Owen and Margarry. Kel relished in the joy they had all found despite the pain and loss of the war, and she was pleasantly jolted to include herself among those she knew to have found that joy.
Her eyes lingered on Dom's receding figure as he left her to grab more drinks. She did not realize she'd been staring until a familiar voice near her said quietly:
"That's a good one, all right."
Kel turned and saw none other than the Lioness lounging on a table nearby, looking up at her with something akin to approval. She was wearing a wine red gown that made her red hair more fiery than ever. Kel moved to sit beside her. No matter how often the two lady knights met, Kel couldn't help but look upon the Lioness with a degree of hero worship that would not go away. Now Kel turned to her and asked her what she meant.
"Sergeant Domitan, Lord of Masbolle," Alanna replied. "A good soldier, and an excellent leader. I was there last year with Third Company, at the Battle of Anak's Eyrie. He kept going, even though he had lost nearly half of his squad. It was brutal, that day." The lady knight sat back, a hard glint in her eyes. "I just remember that he stayed with the rest of them until the battle was completely over. I assume that privately he grieved those lost, but he showed the rest of his men a brave face. I could tell, it gave them hope in that bleak, gods-curst war."
Alanna paused, then looked Kel in the eye. "There's nothing that a soldier needs more than for his or her commander to appear put-together, but gods know—and I know you know, too—that that is one difficult feat."
Kel nodded in understanding. Of course she knew. It was what Lord Raoul and then Lord Wyldon had prepared her to do. Shoulder the burden and carry on.
"So I suppose, in a way," Alanna continued, "that leaving the Own behind will not be so difficult for him. But, of course, there will be other difficulties instead."
"He's caught between his duty to the Own and his duty to his family," Kel said. "He knows he cannot have both."
Alanna smiled sadly. "I had to make a similar decision many years ago, after I had earned my knighthood. Whether to be all warrior or to be all woman. The difference is that I can have both. It will be harder for him." Then her smile lost its sorrow. "Though I believe he may have found someone who can make it easier for him."
Dom was coming back now. Kel thought she could always spot him from across the room, with his easy smile and his gliding stride. Now she said wistfully, "He's said much the same to me."
Both ladies stood as Dom approached, and as he dropped a bow before Alanna, she mouthed "he'll do" to Kel and winked.
"My lady," Dom said formally to the Lioness. "It's a pleasure to see you again."
"The same goes for you, Sergeant. But, if I'm not mistaken, this—" she gestured Kel forward— "is your lady, not I. If you take my meaning."
Surprised, Dom blushed and looked at Kel. "Yes, she is. That is, if she will let me be her man."
Now it was Kel's turn to redden. Both pairs of eyes were on her. She had not expected their exchange of pleasantries to diverge quite in this direction. Nonetheless, the answer was already on her lips.
"From this day forward, you are my man, Domitan of Masbolle."
"Now go," Alanna said gruffly. "You are both so young, but you have been through so much. Our lives are short; we must take pleasure in every moment we can. And that includes tonight."
"Will we see you tomorrow?" Kel asked.
Alanna nodded. "I'll be around."
They watched in comfortable silence as the Lioness drifted to another part of the room. Handing her a glass of champagne, Dom said casually, "So, does that mean that there is more fun to be had tonight? With—" he raised an eyebrow—"just the two of us?"
"More than just tonight, I should hope," she replied, taking his hand as they wandered back toward the main crowd near the dance floor.
Once again they joined their friends, and for many more hours they talked, and laughed, and danced, and drank. Kel said hello to Merric, and at the very least, their loosened tongues made conversing easier. Kel took care not to get too drunk, but the same could not be said about some of her friends. But even Faleron's too-loud singing, or Seaver's wild dancing, or Esmond's amorous advances toward a coquettish young Nond girl—all of which they might or might not regret in the morning—Kel hoped to remember it all. Our lives are short; we must take pleasure in every moment we can, the Lioness had said. She ought to know, Kel thought. She wanted to remember: Dom's arms about her as they swayed to a romantic Tortallan waltz, how she rested her head against his shoulder and breathed his scent of sweet cologne and champagne, the looks on Neal's and Yuki's faces as they took pleasure in simply being in the same room, how beautiful they looked while dancing, all the jokes and stories shared across the dinner table, warning Tobe off of too much alcohol, how Dom twirled and spun around a gleefully shrieking Rose, laughter and love in his eyes. And then she remembered how, in the past, she had despaired, many times over, of ever finding happiness like this in her life.
She was pulled out of her reverie by the sound of arguing. She looked up, and found—of course, it was Dom and Neal. Those around them seemed only amused, however, but Kel decided to listen in anyway.
"—what the Dark Apocalypse is, Dom. Did you know that they say that the sky purples over and demons fill the sky on—"
"Who are 'they'? And no, I've never heard something so outrageous. Purple, really? What makes it that color, do you suppose? No more bruise balm in the Peaceful Realms?"
"The dying of the sun, you numskull. Mithros, sometimes I wonder what's between your ears other than—"
"Watch your tongue, Meathead. I would hate to have the most uncontrollable urge to cut it out of your head on your wedding day—"
Kel shook her head. Sometimes Dom didn't know how similar he was to his meatheaded cousin. Both were undoubtedly outspoken and had the exact same streak of infuriating stubbornness. And sarcasm. And physically, they didn't look too different either, Kel thought, pondering that nose and that specific pair of expressive eyebrows. They looked like brothers, and indeed they were like brothers to one another, though not even the other could replace the brothers they each had lost. But even if hearts could never heal completely, at least in theirs the other would live to ease the pain. Kel had to hope this was true. She had to believe that their hearts were on the mend.