“Perhaps I could bring some of the other women here to see her?” Wylfrael suggested.

OK. Yup. This guy was definitely getting the Suvi stamp of approval now.

“Yes. Bring them any time. Suvi is healthy, but even with me here, I fear that she grows lonely. Being around her own kind, especially as the birth nears, would do her good.”

“Then it is done,” Wylfrael promised. “I will bring them as soon as they wish to visit.”

“We will look forward to it,” Skalla rumbled. “Will you stay and take a meal with us, or will you return to Sionnach now?”

“I will go now,” he said. “I want to get back to Torrance.”

Skalla had already turned from his cousin, striding towards the house, towards me.

“It is good to see you, Wylfrael,” he called as he stepped into the shade of the pavilion. “Until we meet again.”

Wylfrael took off with a leathery snap of his blue and black wings. A moment later, he’d opened a sky door and disappeared through it. I stepped shakily out from my hiding place.

Skalla froze when he saw me, then a look of love and comfort and relief unfurled across his face as he beheld me. Neither of us spoke. We just looked at each other, happiness stretching and glowing, its own source of light between us even when the sun went down.

CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

Skallagrim

Iassumed that neither Suvi nor Jolakaia would be interested in taking part in the kinds of Bohnebregg wedding ceremonies I’d grown up witnessing, because those tended to involve a lot of wrestling and weapons. So, instead, we were married in the way of cotton, with a few of Suvi’s human traditions thrown in.

It didn’t really matter to me how the ceremony went. What customs were involved, or even where we did it. All that mattered was that Suvi was there, that she was happy, and that she was officially my wife by the end of it.

The wedding took place at sunset, and we did it at the house. According to Jolakaia, most Callabarra weddings took place along the banks of the river Bohnebregg instead of at the temple, and that suited me just fine. Jolakaia and I stood on the dock, the river behind us and the house ahead, everything saturated, darkened and brightened, the cool-warm light of dusk blooming all around us. Once, Suvi had told me that humans called this time of day the golden hour, and I could certainly see why. The world took on a sacred sort of glow, and when Suvi took her first step out of the house, holiness poured down on me like rain.

My bride was a beacon. A light even when it was not dark. My gaze was fused to her, her beauty striking against my heart not with a hammer, but with a soft little fist that was somehow twice as strong. Her cheeks were pink with colour, her mist-grey eyes shining. Her arm was looped through Zev’s. This, apparently, was a human custom. Apparently there was supposed to be an aisle, and someone would walk the bride down it.

There was no aisle here but the straight line of the dock, upon which Jolakaia and I stood at the very end.

Zev kept a good grip on Suvi, and for that I was very grateful. Suvi’s newly rounded body made her clumsier, and I watched her tiny bare feet anxiously as if I had not already spent the entire afternoon clearing every single pebble and sharp stick from the very path she walked now.

Suvi was dressed in white, another of her customs, a long, simple, cotton tunic draped over her form. Her stomach pressed insistently outward against the fabric, and that made me hot with pride. In her delicate hand, she held a bouquet of Shara plants and other flowers, and I was suddenly thrown back with heart-rending nostalgia to that time when she’d looked up at me uncertainly in the temple gardens, healing flowers in her hands. She hadn’t been sure of me then, hadn’t loved me yet, and I remembered how badly I’d just wanted to let go and break. Break from the beauty of loving her alongside the pain of not knowing how I could possibly go on without her.

If only that poor Skallagrim could see me now. Because here she was, holding flowers once again, but this time as my bride.

Zev and Suvi walked down the dock. Zev took Suvi’s flowers from her, and my bride entwined her fingers with mine. We gazed at each other as Jolakaia began to speak.

“The Mother sees you both and wraps you in cotton.” Jolakaia unfolded a very long piece of cotton, dyed the same blue as the river. She and Zev each took an end and rotated in opposite directions around Suvi and me until the cotton was looped around us multiple times.

“Here she binds you,” Jolakaia said softly, tucking her end of the cotton into the loose knot draped around us. “And what she binds let nothing, neither man nor metal, break.”

“Now what?” I murmured. I said it to Jolakaia, but I was looking at Suvi. I couldn’t tear my eye from her upturned face.

“Now, you are married.” Jolakaia and Zev both worked to lift the twisted cotton loop upwards over our heads, not unwinding or breaking the flexible ring of it. “Traditionally,” Jolakaia went on, folding the cotton loop with the utmost care, “this will be used as a swaddle for the couple’s first child, should they choose to have one. It is not to be unwound before then.”

My claws went possessively to Suvi’s stomach. Tears glittered on her lashes as she covered my hand with both of hers.

“There’s one other thing left,” Suvi whispered thickly. “A human custom.”

“Oh?”

“You kiss me.”

Ah, bless the humans for being such a mostly reasonable race, with traditions I could appreciate. I was not sure what I would have done if Suvi wanted me to do something like, oh, I do not know, hoist her up into my arms and toss her into the river.

A kiss, though... A kiss sounded very, very good.

I lowered my snout in a tender arc, pressing the tip of it to Suvi’s mouth. Her lips parted instantly, warm, her tongue wet against mine.

When we drew apart, I saw that Zev and Jolakaia had left the dock and were now standing on the shore, holding each other quietly, and I wondered if they were reminiscing about their own wedding.

“So, my wife,” I growled. “Now that we are officially married, what would you have us do?”

I thrilled at the heat that turned liquid in her gaze.

“I want to be with my husband,” she said. Then, she laughed. “But I think I need to eat something first.”

“Come,” I said. I wrapped my arm around her thickened waist, supporting her as we walked back up to the house. “I will take care of it. Of you.”

I made something simple but hearty and carried it out to where I found her on her seat in the courtyard. The sun had fully set now, and I paused to admire my wife where she sat with her back to me. The silver light was as fine as lace upon her form.

She turned back towards me, her smile fading into something that almost looked like pain when she saw the food in my hands. A tear slipped from her eye – just one – and I wondered if I’d done something wrong. Maybe it was bad luck to eat a meal such as this on your wedding day.

But though that tear remained, she smiled and stood and thanked me.

She reached for the bowl, took the spoon in her hand.

And then Suvi ate her soup.

Thank you so much for reading Suvi and Skalla’s story. I truly loved writing this book. But I hope you haven’t forgotten about our shifty, sarcastic shadowlands god Sceadulyr, because his story will be next! And if you were curious about Aeshyr, rest assured he will get a book later in the series too. If you want to keep up to date with me and find out when new books are out, sign up to my newsletter at www.ursadaxwriting.com/contact.