Claimed by my Sister's Fiancé
Her palms were calloused, warm, and entirely steady, banishing the phantom cold of the ancient limestone dais.
"I take you," I said, Bridie's hands warm in mine, "with nothing held back for anything ancient or ordinary to find purchase in. Whatever comes for us next, I choose you first."
The vow wasn't drawn from an ancient scripture or a state treaty negotiated by lawyers. It was the absolute, unyielding truth of every choice we had made when slaughter would have been simpler. I squeezed her fingers, letting the weight of my grip convey every word I didn't have the voice to speak before fifty spectators—that no shadow, no ancestral curse, and no spilled blood of the past would ever stand be