“This stone sky god was Lord Cynewylf. He found his fated bride here, a Sionnachan woman named Sashkah. They married and had Lord Wylfrael.”

“So that’s why Wylfrael has some Sionnachan features. His mother,” I said.

“Yes,” Aiko confirmed. “The three of them lived here together until the Lord and Lady died.”

“What happened?” I asked, feeling a twinge of unwanted empathy for Wylfrael that he’d lost both his parents, just as I had.

“Lady Sashkah simply grew old. She passed of natural causes.”

“And Wylfrael’s father? I thought the stone sky gods were immortal?”

Aiko gave me another odd look. She hesitated, then seemed to decide to continue with what she wanted to say.

“Not the mated ones.”

She must have seen the confusion on my face. Her fingers twined against each other fretfully. “This really is something you should hear from the lord, but... but since it is something that affects you and your life together, and it is common knowledge among any familiar with the stone sky gods, I will explain as best I can.” She took a small breath, as if organizing her thoughts.

“The stone sky gods are immortal creatures. They can travel between worlds and move materials with nothing but their minds. But their immortality ceases once they claim their fated bride. A stone sky god’s lifespan becomes inextricably entwined with his mate’s, and he dies the moment she does.”

No wonder Wylfrael doesn’t want to find his true mate and needs to use me instead, I brooded. The bastard wants to hold onto his immortal life!

“What happens if two stone sky gods marry each other? Do they just both stay immortal?” I asked.

“Oh, no. Stone sky gods are all male, and they only produce male offspring. They must find their brides on other worlds.”

I mulled over her words, taking a tentative sip of the sweetened milk drink. It was missing that edge of spice from Wylfrael’s late-night recipe, and I hated to admit I liked his version just a little better than this one. As I drank more, Aiko continued speaking.

“Anyway, Lord Cynewylf found Sashkah here and married her, but he’d already lived many generations before then. Untold mortal lifetimes to engage in trade and collect wealth from different worlds. This was all passed down to Lord Wylfrael, and has sustained the estate in the lord’s absence.”

“His absence?” Right. He obviously hadn’t been here when we’d arrived in our ship. So, when he’d appeared out of the sky, he’d been gone a while, then. “Was he off trading or something, like his father used to do?”

“Oh, no. No, he was in battle. Or, recovering from it, from what I understand. His cousin, Lord Skallagrim, went mate-mad and crashed through the sky into our world. Lord Wylfrael fought him to protect my ancestors and dragged him through a sky door and away from here. We have had no news of him since then. Most Sionnachans assumed that he was dead.”

So, he can be killed, then. It’s just extremely difficult.

“Wait a second,” I said, my mind going back to a detail I hadn’t fully absorbed when Aiko had first said it. “He protected your ancestors? How long was he gone for?”

How long has my future husband been alive?

“He has been gone for many Sionnachan generations. I had never seen him before his return a few days ago, and neither had my parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and so on. But we were always taught that the great Lord Wylfrael might return someday. We have not neglected our duties, even for a moment, in case he came back. Which he now has. With a bride of his own, no less!”

I had even more questions than before, but I held them back, trying to sort through all the information Aiko had already shared with me. I made mental notes of subjects to come back to when I had a clearer head, things to try to get out of Wylfrael if he’d tell me. Like what going “mate-mad” was, and what had happened with this Skallagrim character. And just how the hell he travelled across the cosmos without any kind of technology or protection or anything that made sense to my human scientist brain.

“Thank you for telling me all this, Aiko,” I finally said, smiling, feeling tired already even though my day had just begun. “I imagine I’ll have a lot of questions as I get used to things here.”

“Of course, my – Torrance. And I will have questions for you, too. Especially once we begin planning the wedding.”

Oh, God.

“Is there much to plan?” I asked with a sudden feeling of dread. “What’s involved with a stone sky ceremony?” I kind of figured it would be pretty simple. Like signing a business contract or something.

“I don’t believe there is such a thing as a stone sky wedding,” she replied. “Stone sky gods adhere to the cultural traditions of their bride’s people in marriage ceremonies. At least, that’s what Lord Cynewylf did. So that means...”

I choked on my next sip of milk, coughing violently when Aiko cheerily proclaimed, “We’ll be planning the first human wedding in Sionnachan history!”

Jesus fucking Christ.

A human wedding. Me, in a white dress, walking down the aisle to him. Wylfrael, my groom. Now that the image was in my mind, I couldn’t get it out. He stood there inside my head like he owned the place, vivid and severe in a luxurious, perfectly tailored black suit, his white shirt crisp, his tie a pale fire-blue to match his eyes.

In my mind, he held out a hand for me. His lips parted, and he said words that I didn’t have to imagine because I remembered them. Words he’d said to me just last night. Words that represented my salvation and my greatest trial.

Marry me.

His hand was still there. Open, waiting, like a trap.

God help me, I took it.

Oh, my little human bride. As if you ever had a choice.

OceanofPDF.com

OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE Torrance

After breakfast – which was very good, some kind of fruit preserve slathered on warm, red bread – Aiko asked if I was ready to move my things into the lord’s chamber in the Eve Tower. I scoffed at her mention of my “things,” as if I had a whole suitcase of human essentials to unpack in the new space. All that was in here with me now were my boots, socks, and the clothes on my back. Plus, the toothbrush they’d given me. Even my snowsuit was in Wylfrael’s room, probably still in a heap where he’d left it.

“This is about it,” I said gesturing vaguely to myself, my hand swinging up and down from head to toe. “Oh, I did have a cloak last night, though...”

“Oh, yes! I saw it in the kitchen this morning. It was hanging near the fire to dry. I suppose Lord Wylfrael did that if you know nothing about it.”

I was disconcerted, just the way I’d been when he’d started making the milk drink in the kitchen for me. I hadn’t seen him hang the cloak up to dry, but I wondered about the motivation behind it. I assumed he would have been the kind of proud, impetuous sort to leave it wet in a pile on the floor. Did he not want to leave a mess for Aiko and Shoshen to clean up?

Or did he not want it to be damp and cold the next time I wore it?

He’s probably just a control freak. So meticulous he can’t stand something out of place in his kitchen...

“I’d rather have a tour of the castle right now, actually, instead of going to the Eve Tower room,” I told Aiko. “If that’s alright,” I added. For some reason, I felt a little shy about asking, like I shouldn’t be doing it and that Wylfrael was going to come back and scold me for it. Going from a prisoner to the lady of this castle was giving me whiplash.