Chapter 17

CHAPTER17

My sister.

Gone for so long. A painful memory. A blade of the sharpest loss in my heart.

And now she’s here, standing before me like not a moment has passed.

Ashen holds me steady as Aglaope clasps my face between her hands. I weep. I touch her skin. I feel her pulse tick like a metronome beneath my fingertips. Tears streak her cheeks. Her inimitable, ancient beauty is alive.

She’s alive.

“Do not cry, my love. It is your wedding day,” she says, and some kind of garbled sound bursts from me as I crush her into my trembling embrace. My entire body shakes as she wraps her arms across my back. I’m breaking apart. I can’t contain everything I feel. I don’t know what happens if it bursts into the world and covers it in stardust. I just know I’ll never be the same.

My sister holds me as I fight away the images l have of Aglaope’s last moments alive, trying to replace them with the feeling of her in my arms. I still remember the pressure of her hands on my chest as she pushed me into the sea. I’ve relived it so many times that the pathway to that moment of the past was burnt into my mind, over and over until it became more than just a memory. It became fuel. It became a beacon. And now I press my eyes closed and inhale her pomegranate scent and try to put it out.

I can’t really move, not for a long while. We just sway together as though we’re stalks of seagrass drifting in the breeze. It’s not until Aglaope reaches behind me for something and manages to extricate herself enough from my desperate embrace to wipe my face with a black handkerchief that I finally start pulling my shit together.

Almost.

Okay…not really. Not as a thousand thoughts seem to come crashing down on me.

Aglaope and I have been apart for so many years. She’s coming back to a world that left her behind centuries ago. And I’ve been changing the entire time.

I’ve killed in her name and mine. I faked my death. I’ve been taken, and tortured, and turned into something new.

And now I’m the Queen of the demons, of the realm that stole her soul.

And I’m marrying her killer’s brother.

…

….

…..Oh sweet baby Jesus.

Full on freak-out commencing.

I’m almost positive my ribs are shredding my lungs like a cheese grater. Can vampires have heart attacks? I think I’m having a heart attack. What happens if I go into cardiac arrest? Do I go to the Resurrection Chamber? That would ruin this date for sure. Oh my God that would be the worst first date in history. Not just the worst first date, the worst proposal. No, the worst wedding. I’d leave Ashen at the altar by freak-out death and then I’d kill him too and holy mother of God someone help me.

I grimace and press my hand to my chest as worry flickers across Aglaope’s face. A pair of strong hands pulls me back and Ashen turns me into his embrace.

“All right, vampire,” he whispers, pulling us a few steps away as I try to catch the air with my lungs. Why is it so hard? It’s fucking everywhere but it won’t go in. “Listen to the music, vampire. Listen.”

A familiar song is playing. I hear Tessa’s voice and try to focus on her words. It takes a moment to realize she’s singing the lyrics to Let It All Go.

“You remember this?” Ashen asks, and I give a jerky nod. Smoke rises around us in inky black curls. “When we danced in Bit Akalum, that was the moment I knew I could not stop myself from falling in love with you. It was the last battle lost. Even so, I still thought I could keep it to myself. I thought I could push you away if I needed to, but for me, there was no more denying what I had already started to feel.”

My chest finally starts to pull in air. The darkness that I now realize was creeping into my vision fades as I focus on the feeling of Ashen’s fingers drifting through my hair. The longer I listen to the music, or take in his comforting scent, or watch the scrolls of smoke swirl around us, the more the fist around my heart releases its grip. By the time the band has finished the next song, my pulse has slowed enough that it’s nearly back to normal.

“This is a lot to take in,” Ashen whispers, changing nothing about his embrace or the rhythm of his fingers as they pass through my hair.

“Does Aglaope know? About Ember? Everything else?”

“Not everything. But she knows the most important parts. I spoke with her this afternoon. She just wants you to be happy.” I close my eyes and press my ear to Ashen’s chest, relishing the steady sound of his breath. Blood fills and leaves the chambers of his heart, as it has for centuries past. I focus on the sounds and the smells, and slowly my own heart matches pace with his. “We do not need to be married tonight if it’s too much.”

“I want to.”

“No one will think badly of you if you don’t. And if they ever did, I would rip out their spines.”

I blow a laugh into Ashen’s chest.

“I’m being serious.”

“I know.”

“Through their throats.”

“I can imagine. Vividly.”

Ashen’s arms tighten around me before they release. His palms warm my shoulders as he scrutinizes my face. I must look like trash from all this crying, but it’s like he can’t see it. “Are you sure, vampire?”

I give him a wobbly smile as I nod and wipe my face with another black handkerchief that Ashen supplies. “Surer with every minute, Reaper.”

Ashen’s eyes sweep over my face, hunting for doubt. I already know there is none to find. When he seems satisfied, the smoke blows away in the breeze. His palm drops from my shoulder to wrap around my hand, warming the gold encircling my finger. When I glance over my shoulder at my sister, her smile is dimmer than it was before, her hand resting on her chest.

I turn ahead again and Ashen and I walk together toward the stage where Mr. Hassan, Cole, and Ediye have descended to stand in the orchestra. The cello and bass play a melody that’s both haunting and hopeful as Ediye’s eyes darken to space and stars, and she raises her palms like an offering as she creates an archway of light above us. Sparkling flowers in pastel shades of blues and pinks bloom and shed their glowing petals, raining down across our shoulders as we halt before them.

“When it comes to marriage, vampire customs adapt with the human rites that change around them,” Mr. Hassan says, his smile flickering like candlelight as he opens a heavy book to a marker saved with ribbon. “Reapers rarely wed, even within their realm. I don’t know of a vampire who has ever wedded a demon. So, we will use the ancient rites of the Guild of Gilgamesh, and your union will be written into the annals of the Apothecaries. Do you accept?”

“Yes,” I say, and Ashen gives a single nod in my periphery.

Mr. Hassan shuffles as he turns toward Ediye. “The diadems, sahira.”

Ediye smiles, her skin glowing in the light that brightens from her eyes, the tiny pinpricks of stars swirling in their galaxies. I feel something twining into my hair and reach up to touch a twisting crown of delicate stems and tiny crystals that feel like droplets of ice. Ediye shifts her attention to Ashen and I try to subdue my growing smile, biting down on my lip until I taste copper.

“She gave me horns, didn’t she,” the Reaper says with a flat glare.

A peal of laughter fills the amphitheater as two short, glittering horns sprout from his hair. But in just a moment they split and stretch and divide until they become a low crown of antlers and swirling black ivy.

“Rings,” the old man says, and Cole places the bands on the open book. I hand over my engagement ring too when the elderly apothecary gives me a pointed look. Mr. Hassan pulls a small ampule from his jacket and taps the dust within across the bands. “Beata sunt haec amoris signa, quae latorem in omnia regna sequuntur.”

The dust crackles and disappears as though absorbed by the rings. The old man then passes the first ring to me, a wide black band, the edges polished in the same shade of gold as my ring. I turn to Ashen, taking his hand as I hold the ring at his fingertip.

“Now repeat after me, azizati,” Mr. Hassan says, and I nod, watching as he casts his eyes down to the text of the old book. “Love that gives life to the dying, let your heart be reconciled.”

I look at Ashen and he back at me, surprise in both of our eyes. It’s so similar to my spell from the first night that Ashen and I met, the spell I cast to save his life. Mr. Hassan senses my hesitancy and looks between us.

“Something wrong?”

“No,” I say with a slow smile. I don’t know what it means that I somehow knew these words months ago, but it fills me with both wonder and peace. “Love that gives life to the dying, let your heart be reconciled.”

The old man looks back down to his book, his finger tracing the next line of text. “Light that gives life to the shadows, let your soul be reconciled.”

I repeat the words, slipping the ring onto Ashen’s finger when Mr. Hassan nods toward his hand.

“When and where you are, then and there I am,” the apothecary says. I recite the words, and then it’s Ashen’s turn to do the same. He slides a curved band of black diamonds onto my finger, then a second wedding band to follow once the engagement ring is back in place, the dark stones framing the point of the pear-shaped stone like a crown.

Mr. Hassan passes the book to Ediye and pulls another ampule from his jacket. He motions us to hold out our left hands and positions them so they’re both turned upward next to one another, forming a cup. He pulls the stopper from the vial and pours silver dust across our skin. First it scatters like crushed stone into the crevices of our palms, and then it rises, swirling as though caught in a tiny tornado. The tornado flares into a flame before collapsing, doused in a miniature, magical rainstorm. The droplets disappear like worms of light into our skin as soon as they touch our palms. “Terra, ventus, ignis, aqua, amare,” Mr. Hassan says. “Etiam si astra pereunt, sic amor tuus lucebit. Even when the stars are lost, so your love will shine.”

Mr. Hassan takes the book back from Ediye. He flips through the pages and finds the last one where the ledger stops and the blank parchment continues on. At the end of a list, he writes our names. Leucosia of Anthemoessa and Ashen of House Urbigu, wed by Ammon Hassan according to the rites of the Guild of Gilgamesh.

When he’s finished, he closes the book, and looks at us with a smile shining through the glassy film of his eyes. “You are married, young ones. Now warm this old romantic’s heart and kiss.”

I give him a flash of a smile in gratitude before I turn to Ashen.

Time slows. Ediye’s fireworks burst around us, every flash illuminating something different in Ashen’s face. The tiny flecks of gold that glow in his eyes. The curve of his lips as his smile fades away, drifting into a sea of endless longing. The crease that appears between his brows as he steps closer, his hand sliding into my hair to rest at the nape of my neck. I feel every wave of love and hope that floats between us through the tether of my mark, desire so deep it burns like a shard of heated metal in my heart.

“I love you, Ashen,” I whisper before our lips touch. His eyes watch every movement of my mouth as I speak.

“I love you too, Lu. My wife.” And then his lips are on mine, his taste on my tongue, his breath mixing with mine. Glittering light falls across us like rain. There’s clapping and cheering. Music weaves around us. The people I love most in all the world are right here. And as Ashen raises me up in his arms and presses me to his chest, I know it, without any doubt. I know I will choose this man every day, for as many days as we have.

When we part, several guards of the Shub Lugal appear, bringing out a table and chairs, setting them up in the orchestra. Everyone works together to dress the table, pulling indigo plates and polished cutlery and simple dishes of food made for sharing from baskets. Candles are lit, flowers are laid out, wine is uncorked. Warm blood spiced with cinnamon and cardamom is poured from thermoses for Aglaope and me. And then we sit, Ashen to my left, my sister to my right, Ediye across from me, her brilliant smile like an anchor in the moments when I feel overwhelmed. As the conversation and the wine flow around the table, it gets easier. There’s so much I want to tell my sister, and so many fears I want to find comfort in with my friends. But not tonight. Instead, we spend more time talking about our distant past and shared memories than the ones we made apart, or the uncertainty that plagues our murky future. We just enjoy the moments we have now.

When the meal is over, the table and chairs are taken away and the band kicks off another set. We dance. We laugh. I smile until my cheeks burn. My happiness swells as I watch Eryx and Ediye and Cole together, their relief of being reunited nearly palpable. I grin as Mr. Hassan leads Aglaope around the orchestra, her dark hair fluttering in the breeze. My heart takes up more space in my chest than I ever thought possible.

“I wish this night would never end,” I say as I sit on Ashen’s lap and we watch the others dance. His hand rests on my thigh and I spin the ring around his finger, the edges of polished gold catching the lantern light.

“I think I’ve had that same wish every night we’ve spent together,” Ashen confesses, and I lean away to meet his eyes with a doubtful, teasing smile.

“Even the infamous night of fangria?”

Ashen pulls me closer and presses a kiss to my shoulder. “You trusted me enough to fall asleep in my bed.”

“What about the night I went wandering at Bianca’s to paint my blood on her bathroom walls?”

“You let me put my arm around you when I thought you might never let me touch you again. And then you made me take my shirt off in your sleep and promptly sprawled across me like a blanket.”

My cheeks flush as I give him a derisive snort. “What about the night I killed you in Cairo?”

“Up until the moment I found a blade sliding across my throat, I definitely didn’t want it to end. I couldn’t believe my luck every second before that.”

A little laugh escapes my lips and I lean into Ashen’s chest. His heart thumps its steady percussion beneath my hand. I close my eyes and inhale his scent. “How does this one stack up in the ranking then?”

“Second best.”

I pull back, looking into Ashen’s eyes, my gaze sweeping between them as though one might tell a different story than the other. “Second best?”

“You heard me,” he says, tightening his hold around my waist. “The night we mated. That’s the first. You chose me. You told me you loved me. You bound yourself to me. From that moment, to me, you were my wife.”

I raise my hands to Ashen’s face, framing it in my palms. His warmth is the sun to my cool touch, the perfect balance where we meet. When I look into his eyes, it feels like looking into all the moments of history, stacked up in the strata of time. But I see the future too. Our future. The one that never should have been, but shines all the brighter for its rarity, as precious as a gem cleaved from the depths of the earth. “The night is far from over yet, my husband,” I whisper, and every angle of Ashen’s face seems to change beneath my palms.

I lose myself in Ashen’s kiss as we flow through the music and into the night, light and shadow, darkness and stars.