Wedding (29 page)

My gift, our communion, changed everything.
When we were together, mind to mind, there was no imbalance between
us, only a feeling of rightness and completion, which I had known
from my first moments in Eclipsia City. If the subsequent months
had shown me an unsettling reality behind my first idyllic
imaginings, the communion we shared had taught me, in the end, that
I could trust my instincts.

Between me and Dominic there was not, could
not be, coercion. I liked our way of making love because it
heightened my pleasure, because I was doing it by choice, and
because it excited him. We had fallen into it simply by doing what
we both wanted. My work in the house, light as it was, had started
in the same way. I was doing what I was supposed to do as ’Gravina
Aranyi, but it was not for that reason I had chosen it. It was
because I enjoyed it, felt connected through it to the life of
Dominic’s realm. It even gave me a sense of,
the gods forgive me
for using such a word
, fulfillment.

And I would stay indoors if he asked me to,
make certain never to be alone with a man, even Stefan, accept the
escort of the tallest guards Dominic could find—because I didn’t
have to. I wanted to. As I had assured Edwige Ertegun,
I wanted
to
.

Dominic laughed at my thoughts. “I will
require nothing from you that you do not want to give. You are my
wife, my second self, not an indentured servant.”

I picked up the smaller bracelet again and
held it next to my left arm. With or without a scar from a painful
ordeal, I was tied to Dominic by our love, and by our communion of
crypta
. A brand would not make me love him more, or less.
But my scar would show the world I was his wife, as his would show
he had a wife. In this world, to proclaim such facts was to make
them real. For Dominic, the words carved into our flesh would be
the visible proof that we had created a family where before there
had been only a ’Graven lord and an unknown woman. A woman who was
not quite Terran, but not yet Eclipsian.

Six days later, on Crescent Day, the day of
two eclipses, Dominic and I stood at the top of the Aranyi
Fortress, in the turret of the highest watchtower. We wore the
’Graven wedding clothes, his shirt and my gown each with only one
sleeve, leaving one arm bare, his right, my left, each with its
bracelet encircling the arm halfway between elbow and shoulder.
Stefan was at Dominic’s other side, Eleonora at mine. As the first
shadow bit into the early morning sun, we drew our daggers, holding
the prism in the handle to the light, bending it first into our
eyes, then into the glass.

The pain tore the breath from my body. It was
as if a monstrous animal with rows of jagged teeth gnawed at my
arm, biting deep into the flesh, to the bone. I swayed on my feet,
and Eleonora gripped my right arm, her hand around my waist holding
me up.

Beloved
, Dominic’s mind was in mine.
I am here
.

I sensed Stefan bracing Dominic as Eleonora
braced me, until I went deep into communion, where there was
nothing but me and Dominic, and then not even two of us, only the
one being.
My love
, I said,
I am here
.

My voice was steady, my pronunciation true as
I spoke the ancient, obscure words, promising lifelong fidelity. So
had my feet performed the unfamiliar dance steps of festival night,
with rhythm and grace.
I tender to you my property, my body and
my
– It was a strange word, but appropriate for the gifted, like
“being” or “essence.”
My soul. I give you myself, in its
entirety. I will keep faith,
until death do us part
.
Husband and wife, we spoke the same words.

As the last sliver of darkness passed from
the face of the sun, Dominic and I addressed each other as “my lady
wife,” and “my lord husband.” Locked in communion, our skin seared
by molten glass, we looked into the other’s silver eyelids, seeing
only ourselves, while Eleonora and Stefan cut the fired metal from
our flesh.

And as the raw, cauterized wounds began their
first scabbing over, I said goodbye to a lonely Terran woman,
welcoming ’Gravina Aranyi who had taken her place.

Stefan and Eleonora helped us down the steep
stairs to the rooms below, where the household, led by Ranulf and
Magali, Berend and Katrina, showered us with seeds, symbols of
fertility. We were passed along from kitchen maid to stable boy,
from cook to laundress, from cobbler to guard, everyone wishing us
long life and good health, and many children, until we reached our
bedroom where Naomi awaited us.

The witch’s hands were gentle as she bathed
our branded flesh in cold water and wrapped our arms in bandages
steeped in analgesic. By the time of the second eclipse we would be
slept out, our burns beginning the accelerated healing of
communion.

Tonight, we would celebrate our marriage in
the traditional way, with a feast and a consummation, in our bed,
in our home.

Can’t wait to find out what happens next? Here’s a
preview of Birth, Book Four in the Eclipsis series of Lady Amalie’s
memoirs:

I
f only we could have stayed
home.
It’s the city that did it
, I tell myself, a ridiculous
lie from a city girl. But things went wrong from the start in
Eclipsia City—and earlier, before we got there, as soon as we
decided to go. The communion that had seemed stronger than the two
of us combined weakened with each new conflict, until it unraveled
like a cut rope, shaking us off into miserable freedom, even
Stefan. Now, five months into our marriage, and back at Aranyi,
Dominic and I must work to reestablish the connection. What had
once flourished on its own, without any attention from us, now
requires care. And so I have given Dominic a gift, arranged an
opportunity for him, to show him that I have kept faith as his
wife, that I know his mind.

***

Dominic and Lord Roger Zichmni ride through
the deep snow. The horses walk carefully, putting each hoof down
only after testing the frozen crust. The men ride single-file,
Dominic’s hunter leading the way over familiar turf. They reach the
hay barn in the time it would take to ride leisurely to the edge of
the forest and back in summer.

“Perhaps we should rest the horses,” Dominic
says.

“Perhaps,” Roger says, guessing Dominic’s
thoughts. “I could use a rest myself.” He dismounts and pushes
through the drifts into the deserted barn, Dominic following.

I sit in the easy chair in my room, the book
Dominic has given me, his own peace offering, lying untouched on
the table. My hand rests on my pregnant belly, sliding over the
wool of my dress that prickles like the hay.
Hoping for
Dominic’s success, a sign of our reconciliation
.

“She’s very gifted, your lady,” Roger
says.

Does he know it
, I wonder,
that I’m
there in mind, with my husband?

Yes, Amalie
, Dominic answers.
He
knows
. As I start to withdraw,
No, stay
, he murmurs,
holding me in the communion.
It’s always better when my lady
wife shares it with me
. His arm is around Roger’s shoulders;
his mouth swoops for the kiss, and I gasp with the unexpected
pleasure as Roger, also taken off guard, responds to the man who
has fascinated and frightened him for so long.

***

Even though he suspected it earlier, Roger is
shocked when the communion reveals my presence in Dominic’s
consciousness. “Your lady wife! You would force her to participate
in your filthy—”

“Filthy?” Dominic says. “That’s a peculiar
choice of word from a man in your position.” He finds his sword
belt, unbuckled but never far from reach, draws the blade. “And you
will leave my lady wife out of your thoughts and your words,” he
says. “My lord.”

Roger has found his own sword, is unfazed by
Dominic’s belligerence. “Why don’t
you
leave her out?” he
says.

The men rise to their knees, tugging at their
lowered breeches, and I’m convulsed with pain, the beginning of
labor. We all feel it, the men doubling over, clutching their
stomachs—Dominic, who has not broken the connection between us, and
Roger, who has still, despite everything, stayed in the communion,
savoring the aftereffects of love.

Dominic!
I call him, unable to
suppress the cry for help. He is my lord husband, and when I am in
distress it is to him I turn, no matter how we have hurt each other
recently, or who is with him.
Oh, Dominic, help me!

Birth
will be published in
mid-October.

Recognition
, Book One in the ECLIPSIS
series of Lady Amalie’s memoirs, and
Choices
, Book Two, are
available for Kindle and Nook, and all e-book formats.

By T. T. Thomas

F
rankie Bristol drank a bit
of Port each evening, and she usually poured the first glass before
she even took off her hat.

Frankie, along with her elderly mother, was
the neighbor two doors down. The first thing I noticed about her
was that she wore hats. Every day she wore a different hat. In
fact, she’d leave with one hat on in the morning, and get off the
bus each evening with a different hat.

The year was 1952; the place was Peoria,
Illinois. I was seven years old, and had just celebrated my seventh
birthday on April 7. Seven on the seventh: It felt special. We had
moved into a brand new house, a little clapboard cottage with green
shutters, a gravel driveway, and a big front and back yard, on Lake
Street, the prior September.

I had almost completed first grade, which I
didn’t like, and I didn’t like it for a very good reason. Each day
I had to leave my mom. I felt sick all day until I got back home
after school. When I told my mom, she said everyone my age had to
go to school. “When I was growing up in Ireland,” she’d begin,
“some kids even had to go to work at your age.” I reminded my mom
that I was only seven, and she always looked surprised. Did she
think I was older? “Well, you’re lucky to get an education at all,”
she concluded, with an Irish accent that was somewhere between a
typical gruff brogue and the lyrical cadence of a beautiful
ballad.

For the first six months, we had only four
neighbors: Frankie and her mom, Mr. and Mrs. Bill DeJarnette, the
Stuarts, who had two boys, one my age, and Mr. Bob Davis and his
wife, Belle, who had a three-legged dog named Dusty. The Davis’
didn’t actually live in one of the twelve new houses, but they
owned a large old house with apple, peach and pear trees at one end
of the neat little row of bungalows. The rest of the houses on Lake
were empty but sold. I wondered if any of the new neighbors would
have any girl kids.

When I’d visit Frankie, I always thought her
house smelled odd. It was somewhere between minty and moldy. I told
my friend Jerry Stuart, and he said maybe the smell was from all
the feathers in the hats. I laughed and advised him that most of
Frankie’s hats did not have feathers. Then Jerry said, well, his
mom said no one had
that many
hats, anyway.

“Frankie does so!” I protested. “I’ve seen
them. She must have hundreds.”

His mom’s name was Signe, and she was
Swedish, so I wasn’t sure if Swedish people knew about hats. They
knew about coffee cake, though, because she would phone my mom when
she had baked a new coffee cake, always after I left for school. I
never had any coffee cake, and I didn’t even know what it looked
like, but it sounded like something I would like. The only sweets I
ever tasted were Signe’s cookies. They were good, but we only got a
couple. Mom said asking for more would be “considered impolite.”
She had a long list of what things would be “considered,” if you
did them. Like my dad, Jerry’s dad was “in the War,” too, but he
was in the Merchant Marines. Signe said my mom and her were war
brides, but when I asked my mom about it, she said she didn’t
particularly like that term. She said she always thought of the
English girls when she thought of war brides.

During my visits with Frankie, as I followed
her from room to room, I feigned nonchalance as I surreptitiously
looked around for all the hats. I expected to see hats in the linen
closet when she opened it. I was sure I’d see them on the bed, on
the dresser, or in a chair, but I never saw more than one or two
hats, and not a single feather. But when Frankie slid her bedroom
closet door open, I did see something I’d never seen before on an
upper shelf of the closet.

“What are the round boxes for?” I asked
Frankie.

“Hat boxes, uh huh,” she said, as she slid
the door closed.

Well, what did I expect? Jerry Stuart’s the
same kid who told me we’d reach China if we dug down far
enough.

Over the next few years, things changed for
Frankie and for hats. Her old mother died, and Frankie seemed
afraid. “Don’t know what I’m working so hard for, anymore,
Margaret,” she’d say to my mom.

“Well, the place wouldn’t be the same without
you, Frankie. People trust you when it comes to hats.”

A few weeks later, my mom came home with a
new hat she had bought from Frankie. It was grey satin, and it
matched her new grey suit. We had our family portrait taken for my
dad’s birthday, and mom wore the grey suit and hat. She had one
photograph taken of her and then one of my two sisters and me. The
photographer put the pictures in a double frame, and it was for my
dad to keep on his desk at the office. Mom said all men have to
have pictures of their family on their desks. Before she wrapped it
up, though, she showed it to Frankie.