“
Erida looked away from them to the grand altar of the Konrada, magnificent in marble and gilding. She remembered what it felt like to stand there, before the faces of the gods, a veil on her head, a sword in her hand, with Taristan beside her. She did not love him then, when she pledged her life to his own. She had no idea what path lay before her, what fate was already made.
Her right hand lay curled in her lap now, half-covered in bandages. A little blood had already begun to seep through, staining everything around it.
“The last time you and I were here, we held the marriage sword between us,” she said.
Taristan’s face went stone-blank in his usual way. It was his shield and crutch, Erida knew. After a childhood like his own, abandoned to the world, his emotions were always a burden. Always a weakness.
“Good that I am not a man,” she continued. “I will never hold a sword again.”
One of his fingers twitched at his side, the only indication of Taristan’s discomfort.
“Your heart is sword enough,” he ground out, his eyes on her face.
”
”