Gray’s shoulder-top crows heralded Beatrice’s arrival with caws and crooning as Darcy escorted her up the ramp to the raised dais. The Suit clanked off to stand beside Archemedes while the pair took their places before one another. Then, as Darcy brought up her free hand to take Beatrice’s other, their eyes locked.
“Spirits,” breathed Darcy. “They should have warned me.”
Beatrice’s lips fell open, but before she could ask whatever it was she meant, Gray cleared his throat and began to speak. As the rhythmic purr of his voice wove its way through the opening invocations, she found it quite impossible to pull her gaze away from the honeyed eyes of the woman before her. They were, of course, exactly the same, those eyes…and yet entirely transformed.
“Ahem,” Gray coughed artificially. “Ms. Beatrice Eribetha Baraclough, I ask you again—do you consent to enter into these rites of wedding with the woman before you, to give yourself unto her, to join yourself into her pack and to swear fealty to its Silvers?”
“I—I do so consent and swear,” said Beatrice, swallowing. Darcy smiled, an expression of such genuine warmth and encouragement that it quite startled her.
“And do you, Dame Darcy Quinnitas Stagston, consent to enter into these rites of wedding with the woman before you, to take her as your own, to join her to your pack, to protect her and to cherish her?”
“I do so consent,” said Darcy, unwavering.
“Very well,” intoned Gray. “May the spirits look upon these proceedings with favor.”
Her attention torn from Darcy at last, Beatrice looked to the altar and was quite taken aback. Usually, if a chapel were old enough to include a likeness of Fox, they covered it over with black wax or a shroud. But not so, here. The visages of all seven great spirits were carved there, Fox’s face uncovered and visible for all to see. It brought to mind ancient pagan ritual and esoteric workings. But Gray’s recitations remained the conventional ones she’d always known.
From a basin filled by the water pouring from Tiger’s mouth, he anointed both their heads. He smeared his finger tips green with rich moss growing from the jaws of Jaguar and blessed them both with that too, and then shrouded them with the smoke of burning sun-resin for Lion. Lastly, from the mouth of Wolf, he produced a wedding blade of glittering garnet.
“By Wolf’s blessing, may your blood intermingle,” he said, cutting first into the top of Darcy’s forearm until fresh red ichor blossomed forth. Then he turned to Beatrice, and she suppressed a wince as the blade bit into her own flesh. Her eyes and Darcy’s met once more as Gray placed their wounds together and began to wrap their arms with a length of white silk.
“By Coyote’s blessing, may you share even breath,” Gray intoned.
But she and Darcy were still staring at one another, Beatrice so deep in the trance of the Call that she could hardly bring herself to move.
“This is the part where you kiss,” whispered Gray, leaning forward.
“Ah, of course,” said Darcy, laughing a bit as she bent forward over her much smaller bride. Bringing her free hand up, she gently cupped Beatrice’s cheek as their lips brushed together in the most chaste of kisses…though energy sparked and crackled between them. For where before Darcy’s intensity had been all ice—cold and withholding—it was a hearthfire now. Warm and consuming, but entirely contained.
The place where their wounds pressed into one another was tingling now, pulsing with pleasure rather than pain.
“By these blessings are you forged together, wed into one till the days of your death,” declared Gray. “Then shall Hyena’s blessing come, at which point you may choose: to cross the gate separately, or still as one. So may it be.” At this, they each pressed their free hand over the other’s spirit stone, and Beatrice could have sworn that Darcy flinched. But then whatever it was that had passed over her was gone, and her smile was warmer than ever.
“So may it be,” echoed back all in the room in possession of a voice. Beatrice wavered a bit on the spot, wishing fervently that she’d pocketed Arron’s smelling salts. She felt at once light headed and overwhelmingly…something. She’d no idea quite what.
“Are you ready, my lady?”
Beatrice gave a tiny nod.
“I am,” she breathed.
Shadows twisted from the corners and beneath the pews to gather round Darcy even as multicolored light burst and danced in the air to whirl about Beatrice. Within heartbeats, the two of them stood transformed, the length of silk vanished along with their clothing. They turned together to look upon the others.
A Suit hurried forward to gather Victoria, for Jemison had taken on his tiger form—russet orange and black striped and enormous. Arron had become a wolf, his fur a frosted gold, his missing eye restored. Charles, of course, was unchanged. And oddly, so was Gray. Archimedes trotted over, and Charles helped the wolf shifter up onto the horse’s back before hefting himself up to sit behind him.
Before Beatrice could give it much thought, Darcy emitted an approving rumble and, turning, charged through the door. Instinct took over, and like a bolt Beatrice was after her. The others could be heard and scented pounding along behind them as they flew through the manor, Suits opening doors to clear the way well ahead of them. There was a flapping of wings that told her Gray’s crows had joined their first run as a pack as well.
They burst out into the fresh night air and it was as though the whole mountain sang around them, the rain falling sparsely now. Darcy put forth a renewed burst of effort—galloping off and up into the trees. Before she’d even willed it, Beatrice and the others were after her. Out in the open, she was quickly outpaced by Tiger, Wolf and horse. They bolted forth from behind her to match Darcy stride-for-stride before streaking ahead of her too, the crows gliding along above them.
An exhilaration unlike any she’d experienced before overtook her, and Beatrice felt as though she could run like this forever. But all too soon they slowed, breaking out into a clearing where the mountain evened out into a broad, moss-drenched ledge. It was aglow with the warmth of the many lanterns that were strung up from the ceiling of a large stone gazebo at its center, and the ground was strewn with roses that must have been brought up from the green house. Beatrice couldn’t decide which was more lovely: the clearing, or the view it allowed. For beyond the ledge the forested mountain was laid out below them, blue and rain-misted—a scene out of a fairy tale.
The others all retook their human forms, and so she joined them—shivering without her fur to warm her. The bloodied silk from the wedding rites had gone, disappeared completely…one of the mysteries of the magic that bound spouses and packs together. The wound on her arm had begun to mend somewhat, the process sped up by the magic of transformation. She could still feel it though, a faint and somehow pleasant sting. A reminder.
Darcy proffered a hand and Beatrice took it, walking with her to the gazebo, where there were spread blankets and cushions and covered baskets. Flinging one of the latter open, Darcy dragged out a length of velvety fabric, striding over to Beatrice to drape the cloak about her shoulders.
“A young lady deserves a proper reception for her only first wedding night,” she said. “No matter the urgency of the occasion. It isn’t much, but it’s the best I could manage, given the limited time for preparation,”
“You mean the best we could manage,”Jemison interjected. “Arron and I helped, and Gray and Charles a bit, too.”
“Yes, yes,” said Darcy, nodding. “Credit where it’s due, of course.”
“Thank you madame, my lords, it’s…this is perfect.” said Beatrice, voice breathy. She’d expected little more than a quick run and then, perhaps, a modest family dinner.
“Think nothing of it, Lady Stagston,” said Darcy, quite nearly blushing as Charles helped Gray down from the horse and Arron set to work at kindling a fire in a large brazier at the gazebo’s center.
Then Jemison, having wandered off briefly to rummage through the baskets, returned with a bottle of t’acard and several glass heaped precariously in his arms.
“A toast before our feast!” He declared. “A wedding toast!”
They all took glasses and Jemison poured, though Charles eyed him—gaze flashing worriedly back to Beatrice and the drink cupped in her hands. She tried to convey through a look that he should not worry, that she knew better than to allow her faculties to slip. She felt drunk enough as it was, with the wind drowning her in scents more intoxicating than any sparkling wine could hope to be.
“To love, luck, and lifelong happiness!” said Jemison. “And if you don’t find it with one another, may your marriage not impede you from finding it with others!” Then, flashing a devilish grin, he tossed back his drink even as Arron frowned at him, Darcy shook her head, Gray smirked, and Beatrice choked a bit. But they all followed suit, for one didn’t just let a toast go unanswered.
Beatrice sipped stingily at her drink, though once the flavor took hold is was a challenge not to have the rest. Her appreciation must have shown in her eyes, for Darcy smiled down at her. “You like it?” she asked. “D’artanien observed you seemed fond of anything with blueberry in it.”
“D’artanien?” Wondered Beatrice, looking up at her.
“Your guardian Suit.” Darcy tossed back the rest of her drink. “Would you like to dance? Arron’s got his lute stashed around here somewhere.”
“We’re to dance?” Beatrice blinked. She certainly had not expected that.
“Of course. I told you, this is a proper reception.”
“Food first. In fact, food now,” interjected Jemison. “I am absolutely starved.”
“Very well, I suppose,” sighed Darcy, though the Tiger shifter was already whirling through the site, throwing open the rest of the baskets and distributing their contents with Charles coming to his assistance a moment later. Arron, meanwhile, sat at the gazebo’s edge, sharpening sticks.
“What is that look, my lady?” wondered Darcy as she guided her to the largest of the blankets and helped her down onto a cushion. “Is this not to your liking?”
“Oh, no—I mean, yes, it is, very much. It’s just that—you’re so much changed from last we spoke. Not badly, that is to say,” Beatrice rushed to add at the worried look in Darcy’s eyes. “But I…I am concerned for you. Is this not all so very strange and overwhelming?”
Darcy was silent for a moment, her gaze going to the fire.
“It was quite disorienting, and still is. And I was angry at first, I won’t lie to you. Certainly I’d been eager for my bachelor days to end, but I’d always intended I should choose my own bride, and be aware of the choosing. But then I scented you, and I saw you, and everything changed.”
Beatrice’s heart tripped forward.
“Changed, madame? But how? Why?”
“In that I knew, then, that all was exactly as it was meant to be. And as to why? It’s because I’m Called to you. And this feeling isn’t new. She—I—have been Called to you from the moment we first met in truth. I can sense it, I know it. And it’s the only link I have left of the time I’ve lost. The only trace of memory.”
Beatrice stared at her new wife, lost for words. Mistaking her reaction entirely, Darcy’s smile was tinged with sadness.
“Don’t fret, my lady. I’m not so fragile as to be hurt that you don’t yet feel the same.”
“Oh, but I…”She faltered. But what? What was she willing to admit to this absolute stranger of a stranger? She had no chance to settle on an answer, for Jemison came over to them with plates and silverware rolled in linen napkins, and Charles with a brimming basket of food, and the exchange was put to an end.
