He gave her a quizzical look, but acquiesced. “There is no sage here to ask for aid, nor would they give it in any case. And I cannot ask my parents to confer with yours for... obvious reasons.” He squeezed her hand, and she swallowed thickly. He was not wrong. If those were the means of a marriage being recognised, they were absent for any possibility between the two of them. She could not quite believe they were even broaching the subject, not when she was so absolutely certain Grimult’s instructors had explained time and again that Penryn was not available for...
The Lightkeep was not.
The Lightkeep could not marry, because they were a mythical figure sent for reasons concocted an age before, none of which were real.
He spoke of her parents, of his meeting with hers, as if she was any other girl that who could marry if she loved and wished it to be so.
“That was not a question for my books,” Penryn reminded him, feeling so strange that they were talking of this at all.
He did glance at her then, an unhappy tilt to his lips even as his eyes spoke of his love for her.
“What was done in the old ways? Before there were sages?”
Penryn blinked. There were ancient texts that spoke of life before, but there had always been sages. Ministers of the people, they were called then, toiling and assisting with the needs of their people, less complicated then. Homes were scratched into the rocks, food was simple and taken from the sea beside them. If schools had moved off and the fish were scarce, bands would hunt in the woods or forage on the ground.
There were no passages on the bonds between mates, of ceremony or any such thing. They simply... were.
“There were no rules, as such,” Penryn began slowly, considering carefully all she had read so she could be as truthful as possible. “From what I understand, a couple simply... chose one another.” She peeked at him, wishing there was more that she could tell him. A spell or a vow, something mystical that would bind her to him and him to her, unable to be broken by time or circumstance. But there was nothing, at least not from their histories.
He did not appear wholly disappointed, however, and he was tugging at her hand, bringing it to his lips and placed a kiss to the back of it. “I choose you,” Grimult swore, and Penryn’s eyes widened. She had not meant for him to say any such thing, had not dared hope...
“Grim, you cannot just...”
“There will be no other,” he continued, stilling her words by placing another of his kisses, his voice firm and full of promise. “I choose Penryn for my wife, to love and keep for the rest of our days.”
Her eyes were shiny with tears, she was sure, and old training was gnawing at the recesses of her mind, reminders that this was impossible, repugnant even, that she should be angry at the insinuation that she could be chosen for such a position when hers was all the greater.
But it was not so very difficult to shove that aside, not when he was looking at her that way, and the words were ready and her voice sure even if tears were nearly at the verge of escape. “I choose you,” she answered back with all of her being. “I choose Grimult for my husband, to love and to keep, for all of our days.”
And his answering smile felt like home.
Filled with all the warmth and promise that she had ever imagined it would possess.
She did not know the way of this particular ceremony, and although she supposed she should ask, she did not particularly care. Not when she could choose simply to be close to him, to put her arms about him and press fully, to kiss his cheek and murmur her happiness into his ear.
And his arms were tight about her as he accepted her, and she should not have been surprised that he had petitioned for her to be his wife, not when he was all that was so very careful with her, that she should feel valued and respected.
That she was safe with him.
“No denying they are our people now,” Grim murmured against her hair. “Even if you did not believe it before, a clan welcomes newcomers through the marriage rites.”
A clan. She had one of those now, and for a moment she chose to pretend they would not reject her if they knew, that there would be embraces and sweet words as Grimult announced the coming of his new mate.
His wife.
She shivered, wishing that might be true.
Another shiver, a clutch in her lower belly, when she realised there would be no reservation between them any longer at all. His careful preservation of their modesty was passed, and she even thought with some delight of evenings including a shared bedroll rather than a longing for contact with the one stationed across the fire. There was travel ahead of them still, but not yet, and she would make the most of this dwelling and the comforts it provided.
Ones to be shared with a husband to call her own.
“I see the turn of your thoughts,” Grimult commented, his hand under her chin, bringing her eyes up to his. “But nourishment first might be advisable, would you not agree?”
She did not, not initially, but then she remembered that he had not been subject to Respie’s overburdened trays and guilt came, sharp and insistent, resettling her priorities. “Of course,” she agreed, choosing not to indulge the brief moment of rejection.
He grasped her hand before she could fully move away from him. “Later,” he promised, and his words were a deep rumble, full of all the promise that his eyes vowed in equal measure. “But I will do right by you, so other needs must be met first.”
Her cheeks
