Copper Ravens (28 page)

Her gray head nodded toward Micah's chest; I looked and saw that his armor had melted away, leaving behind a bare expanse of skin. Then I looked to Old Stoney's corpse, and the mass of silver that had killed him. I was awed by Micah's sacrifice.

“How do I help him?” I demanded, my tears mixing with the ash and stinging my eyes.

“Oh, but if I told you, you'd surely owe me,” the crone sneered.

“I'll owe you!” I shrieked. “I'll owe you anything! Just tell me how to save him!” Perhaps it was only the ash in my eyes, but I thought I caught a satisfied smile on the crone's lips.

“If he cannot manage to replenish his silver, and quickly,” she continued, “our Lord Silverstrand will not be able to heal himself, and he will surely die.”

“Then how do we replenish him?” Before the crone could reply, the silverkin began molding themselves into a flat surface, the base for a silver cairn. I remembered when Oriana had been rescued from the Iron Court, and how she had been bound in golden chains, and gold had been piled upon her to replace the element she'd lost.

If it worked with Oriana, it would work with Micah.

It had to.

He was not allowed to die.

Methodically, I removed what was left of the iron armor from Micah's body, then I helped the silverkin move him onto the silver platform. Without a moment's hesitation, I lay down beside him as the silverkin fitted themselves together above us, like a tiny metal igloo. Dimly, I heard Sadie bawling, Max and Mom yelling for me to stay away, that I'd suffocate beneath all the silver. Honestly, I didn't care. Micah needed me, so I was staying.

I don't know how long we were under the silver cairn, hours or days or maybe even years, before Micah twitched. I'd fallen asleep against his chest, my cheek against his throat, one hand laced into his while my other arm pillowed his head. Images floated behind my eyes, like a greatest hits episode of our short time together. The first time Micah had kissed me, both in a dream and in the flesh. The time I had been sick, and he'd brought me tea and toast in bed. The first time I'd felt his tongue against my mark.

But then, the twitch.

I held myself still, not quite believing that he'd moved, not breathing for fear I'd miss the next sign of life. Then, he twitched again.

Carefully, I pulled myself up to look at his face, cast in a muted silver glow. His eyes flickered behind his lids; I hoped he was having a good dream, like I'd been, and not reliving his last few waking moments.

“Micah,” I murmured, the silver cairn creating an odd echo. “Micah, please be all right. Please.” A tear splashed onto his cheek; as I wiped it away, he turned toward my hand.

“Micah!” I kissed him, then held him close, then kissed him again.

“Sara?” he croaked, his silver eyes slowly opening. “What…” He got a look at our silver ceiling, and began again. “Where are we?”

“You used all of your silver to kill Stoney. The silverkin had to heal you.” He looked again to the cairn, recognition lighting in his eyes.

“And you stayed with me?”

“I did.” Micah brought my face directly before his, so close our noses touched.

“Sara, you might not have survived this,” he whispered, his hand trembling as he stroked my hair. “Love, never put yourself in danger for me.”

“Why not? You do it for me all the time.”

Micah couldn't really argue with that fact. “My copper girl,” he murmured, caressing my cheek. “My copper girl, who means more to me than my life.”

After a few more moments of cuddling, Micah placed his hand flat against the roof of the cairn, which was evidently the signal for the silverkin to disperse. We blinked as we sat up, joints creaking, bathed in the bright sunlight. As we stretched the kinks from our bones, something on Micah's arm caught my eye.

“What's this?” I asked, grabbing his wrist. There was a band of copper around his left wrist, spiraling up his arm like a ribbon.

“And here,” Micah murmured, indicating my right wrist, which now bore a similar ribbon of silver. Somehow, during the healing process, we'd gotten marks of each other's metal. “We are truly joined, my Sara.”

I couldn't help it, I laughed. Maybe I was a bit hysterical, being that Micah had nearly died, and his healing had involved both of us being buried alive under a mountain of metal, and we'd received permanent jewelry as a parting gift. Yeah, only a bit hysterical.

“Better than rings, huh?” I teased.

“But you will still give her one.” I turned and saw Mom, smiling, along with a worried Sadie and a pissed Max; the crone was nowhere in sight, thank the gods. Of course my family had waited here for us, though I wished they hadn't. If this venture hadn't worked out, I'd have hated for them to be burdened with two bodies.

“I will, Maeve,” Micah murmured, gathering me against him. “On that, you have my word.”

26

O
ur return to the Whispering Dell was, thankfully, uneventful. I was concerned about leaving Old Stoney's body out in the open, but Micah and Max both assured me that scavengers would be by to collect the metals and stone; Micah hadn't even wanted the silver that had come from his own mark, claiming it was tainted. At least, if he was rebuilt into a shop, or maybe into an outhouse, Old Stoney would finally be doing something useful.

Micah's recovery was slower that I would have liked, but some things, like healing, can't be rushed. Why they can't be rushed no one could adequately explain to me, but as long as he got stronger every day, I held off my complaints. Since Micah still needed close contact with his metal in order to complete his healing, our bed had been transformed from the heavenly feather and down confection I so loved into a solid silver couch. It was the most uncomfortable thing I'd ever experienced, more like a torture device disguised as modern art that any sort of bed, far worse than even a corset could be.

And every night I gladly laid myself down on that metal monstrosity, because it meant I was lying next to Micah.

As much as I complained about the slow healing process, it only took six days of sleeping on metal before Micah proclaimed that his silver was fully restored. We then started taking daily walks, ranging a bit further each day until Micah could walk to the orchards and back without tiring. Then he started getting frisky again, chasing me around the orchards, leaping out from behind trees to capture me, weaving flower crowns as apologies for knocking me to the ground. It was as sure a sign as any that my Micah was going to be okay.

One morning, after a late-night swim in the Clear Pool, I awoke alone. We'd gone back to sleeping in the real bed, which was so deep and luxurious that I slept late more often than not. On this morning, not only had Micah risen first, the silverkin were waiting for me.

“What's up?” I asked Shep. He chirruped and waved his hands, then quickly ushered me downstairs. I found my family lounging around the atrium, wearing their Sunday best along with a few smug grins. When I asked what was going on, they refused to answer and practically ordered me to have breakfast with Micah. Being that I was sore, sleepy, and starving, I took their advice.

My pajama-clad self shuffled into the dining hall, where a lavish meal was set out on the long table. At the head of the table stood Micah, resplendently attired in the silver coat and black breeches he'd worn for our audience with the Gold Queen. He'd taken to wearing his sword again, and the sight of him made my mouth water almost as much as the food did.

“What's all this for?” I asked.

Instead of answering, Micah pushed three copper pennies, each now brightly polished, toward me. “Make me a ring.” I stared at the pennies for a few moments, wondering why he had such a dire need for jewelry before we'd even had breakfast, when I all but lost my breath. “Today?”

“Unless you've changed your mind,” he replied. I took that last step toward him and wrapped my arms around his neck.

“No. Today is perfect.”

And it was. We went to the chapel where Mom and Dad had been married, which, like so many other religious institutions, had been converted to a Hall of Records. Micah had thought to glamour the lot of us (unfortunately, he did not make Max into Maxine again), so the drones just passed obliviously overhead.

After we'd spoken to the Peacekeeper on duty, a stiff little man called Corporal Rawson, and filled out the required forms, the ceremony got underway. My official paperwork said that I, Sara Evans, was marrying Mike Silver, but I didn't care what a few scraps of paper said. All I cared about was the man waiting for me at the end of the aisle.

“You ready?” Max asked. In Dad's absence, he'd agreed to walk me down the aisle, though Sadie had balked when I'd asked her to be my flower girl.

“Yeah,” I replied, tucking my fingers into his elbow.

“Nervous?”

“Nah. I can handle this.” With that, Max squeezed my fingers and led me to Micah.

The Peacekeeper droned on for a bit, mostly about our duty to our government, but I hardly heard him. I don't think Micah was paying much attention either, since when it came time for the vows, he had to be prompted.

“Have you written your own vows?” the Peacekeeper repeated. Micah blinked, then he nodded.

“I have.” Micah took my hands. “My Sara, my love. You are my reason for waking, for breathing, for being. From the first moment I saw you, you have intrigued me, infuriated me, enthralled me. You are mine, my Sara, for now and always.” He caressed my cheek, and then he pressed his lips to mine. “Always.”

“Ahem.” Micah and I parted, and looked toward a slightly peeved Corporal Rawson. “The kiss comes
after
her vows.”

“My apologies,” Micah said, stepping back from me. “Please. Continue.”

Rawson huffed a bit, then he turned to me. “Your vows, please.”

I looked at Micah, searching his guise of Mike Silver, wondering what I could possibly say that would explain how I felt. Then I saw the glint in his silver eyes, and I realized that I didn't need to explain anything. Micah had always known that I loved him, and that I always would.

“I love you,” I murmured, lacing my fingers with his. “I'm yours.”

Rawson cleared his throat again; these were not Peacekeeper-approved vows. Rather than berate us for not being properly prepared, he decided to hurry us along. “The rings?”

With that, I squeezed my hand around the pennies. A moment later, I slipped a copper band that mimicked an oak leaf onto his finger. Micah smiled, then took my breath away as he produced a silver ring shaped like two twisted silver vines, crowned with a deep green emerald. If we ever get this elemental royalty business sorted out, Micah and I have a definite future in jewelry design.

“May I kiss her now?” Micah asked, once the ring was on my finger.

“I now pronounce you husband and wife,” intoned Corporal Rawson, while Sadie cried and Mom beamed. Even Max looked happy. “You may kiss the bride.”

Micah swept me into his arms. “Bride,” he murmured as he kissed me. “My bride.”

That journey back to the manor was as joyous as the last had been somber. I'd never been so happy, knowing that I was going to spend the rest of my life with such a wonderful, amazing man. Never, not once as a kid, and definitely not during my less than perfect adulthood, had I ever thought I'd find someone to love me, never mind marry me. I was, without a doubt, the luckiest person in the world, Mundane or otherwise.

“I will challenge you for that position,” Micah murmured when I shared my feelings.

Even though I was, without a doubt, happier than I'd ever been, a few less than awesome thoughts kept nagging at me. First and foremost, we needed to resume our search for Dad and figure out what was really going on with all those copper gifts in the atrium. And, there was the fact that I owed the crone…something. Man, Micah was going to freak when he found out.

“What are you thinking, love?” Micah murmured. I decided to shelve all of those niggling concerns for now and just enjoy my wedding day.

“Nothing,” I demurred. “Just about how much I like being married to you.”

Micah brought my hand to his mouth and kissed it. “I was thinking exactly the same thing.”

When we reached the manor, we learned that while we were off in the Mundane realm, the silverkin had put together quite an impressive feast, and a whole new heap of gifts from the Whispering Dell was piled before the entrance. Word sure travelled fast in the Otherworld.

Just as I suggested that we invite those from the village to the feast, because we had plenty of food, and weren't weddings supposed to be big and loud and boisterous, the silverkin suddenly swarmed Micah, chirruping and chittering away. Mom and Sadie looked thoroughly confused, but I'd learned quite a bit of their birdlike language. Someone was coming up the main walkway, someone unknown and…powerful.

“But, who could it be?” Micah asked, while Mom demanded to know what was wrong with the silverkin now and didn't we regret putting them back together again? I looked down the walkway and saw a form approach, a man's form. He walked with a purposeful swagger, almost cocky, his bright hair flashing in the sunlight. Recognition flared, and I threw open the door.

“Dad!” I cried, and I leapt into my father's arms.

A
CKNOWLEDGEMENTS

For all of you who remember
Copper Girl's
acknowledgements (riveting reading, that), you know that the process of creating this little stack of pages is arduous at best, and at worst… Well, let's not go there.

Anyway, what I declined to mention is that all of those little straws that pile up on the author's back are multiplied a hundredfold when one is working on a series. Plot holes? Multiply them times four. Worldbuilding? Better remember all those awesome details. And, while you're plotting the next few installments, please try not to stray from the overarching theme of the whole thing.