Fairest

“Knotting the two ribbons together,” said the officiant, taking them into his fingers and tying them once, then twice, “symbolizes the unity of bride and groom into one being and one soul, on this, the twenty-seventh day of April in the 109th year of the third era.”

Releasing the ribbons, he let the knot dangle between their arms.

Levana stared at the knot and tried to feel connected. Unified. Like her soul had just merged with Evret’s.

But she felt only a yawning distance between them. A black hole of silence. He had barely spoken since arriving at the chapel.

In the second pew, the baby began to mewl. Evret turned and, annoyed at the distraction, Levana followed the look. The nanny was shushing the child, bouncing the girl gently in her lap, and Levana recognized the embroidered blanket that the child had been swaddled in, the pale snowscape, the red mittens. Sol’s handiwork. Her teeth ground against each other.

“You will be exchanging rings?” asked the officiant.

Levana turned back and realized that neither Evret nor the officiant were still paying the fussy child any attention.

Evret nodded, though the action was curt. Levana glanced at him from the corner of her eye, surprised. She had not brought a ring.

Turning, Evret held his palm out toward the only guests other than the nanny and little Winter. That guard friend of his, Garrison Clay, who was there with his wife—a plain girl with strawberry-blonde hair—and their own child. A towheaded toddler boy who had spent the ceremony bobbling down the aisle while his mother hissed for him to come back, gave up, chased after him.

Although their presence seemed to indicate that Evret was taking this ceremony with some levity, Levana couldn’t help but be annoyed at everything about this family.

When they had first arrived, Garrison had pulled Evret aside. They’d seemed to be arguing about something, and she was certain he’d been trying to persuade Evret not to go through with it.

The intrusion had not endeared the guard to Levana.

But now, he stepped forward without hesitation and pulled a hand from his pocket. In his palm rested two wedding bands, each carved of black regolith polished to a fine gleam. They were as simple as Levana had ever seen, and had never dreamed she would wear. A wedding band made for a guard’s wife, not royalty.

Her heart snagged, her eyes misting.

It was perfect.

Garrison did not look at her as he put the rings into Evret’s hand and returned to the pew beside his family.

“Please take hands and face each other for the exchange.”

They turned, almost robotically. Levana inspected Evret’s face, and his handsomeness warmed some of the chill from her bones. She tried to express, silently, how much she loved her ring. That it was everything she wanted. That he was everything she wanted.

His dark gaze settled on her.

She smiled, a little shy.

His inhale was sharp and he opened his mouth to speak. Hesitated. Shut it again.

Then he slid the ring onto her finger and repeated after the officiant. “With this ring, I take you, Princess Levana Blackburn of Luna, to be my wife. From this day forward, you will be my sun at dawn and my stars at night, and I vow to love and cherish you for all our days.”

Her insides trembled, giddiness burbling through her. The smile came easier now as she stared down at the band on her finger and the slip of gold ribbon binding them together.

It had not seemed real that morning, that whole day, waiting to see if he would even come. And now it was happening. This was her wedding day. She was marrying Evret Hayle.

She didn’t know if her body could contain the joy throbbing inside it as she took the second wedding band from Evret and went to slide it onto his finger.

She paused.

Another band was already there, nearly identical, and so dark it almost vanished into his skin.

She looked up. Evret’s jaw was set.

“I will not take it off,” he whispered, before she could gather her thoughts, “but I will wear both.”

She looked at the ring again. Considered, for half a moment, forcing him to take off his old wedding band anyway. But no—this was what he wanted. She would not take it from him.

“Of course,” she whispered back, pushing the band onto his finger until she heard the quiet click of the two pieces of carved rock colliding.

“With this ring, I take you, Sir Evret Hayle of Luna, to be my husband. From this day forward, you will be my sun at dawn and my stars at night, and I vow to love and cherish you for all our days.”

As the officiant confirmed the ceremony, baby Winter began to cry in earnest. Looking back, Levana saw that the toddler boy was hanging off the nanny’s arms, trying to peer into the baby’s swaddle.

Evret wrapped his hands around Levana’s, regaining her attention. The kiss was a surprise. She hadn’t heard the officiant order it. But it was a gentle kiss, perhaps the most gentle he’d ever given her, and it warmed her to her toes.

With that, the officiant untied the knotted ribbons, and Evret was hers.

*   *   *

“Tell me it isn’t true!” Channary yelled, stomping into Levana’s dressing quarters the next day. Wearing little more than shredded ribbons that barely covered what a woman should have covered, Channary looked like an effervescent spirit beneath the glow of the chandeliers. A risqué effervescent spirit.

Levana dared not move as her seamstress whipped her needle and thread over the seam at Levana’s waist, taking it in. She had made a comment about how Levana must not be eating well, how she needed to plump up a little to keep a good figure, like her older sister, and Levana forced her to hold her tongue after that. The seamstress flushed with embarrassment and returned silently to her work. It had since been a very long two hours.