Page 18 of Monster Married
Inkiri tilted his head. “He doesn’t own it as such, but yes, technically.”
My jaw dropped. “Wait. Wait. Did I just marry a charming blue prince?”
Behind my back, Vergis chuckled. “Fuck, you really are slow, aren’t you?”
This time, I had to give it to Vergis, my foulmouthed hangu of honor. He was completely right. I’d married a prince, and I hadn’t even noticed.
Chapter 6
Hove stayed behind with the paperwork while the six of us headed toward the exit. I hadn’t even been able to really look at the building earlier, my nerves had been too frayed for that, but I craned my neck this way and that now.
The stone walls were whitewashed in some areas, but in others the bare masonry showed through. It had clearly been done with intention, because the whitewashed areas were paired with dark furniture or the technique was used to make corners look rounded so that the metal lamps placed there easily brightened a whole room. We walked past one room where I just barely spotted lots of carpets and floor seating in the light that washed in from the hallway.
When we were outside again, the two bagua who’d come over to make sure Lissir wasn’t leading me to slaughter whistled and shouted what had to be congratulations. They waved, and I waved back.
“How do I tell them thank you?” I asked Inkiri, whose warm body felt so right against mine. The sky was only just clinging to the lighter shades of a darkening indigo, but ahead, where the festival was picking up steam, lanterns were being lit.
“‘Lesh’ is the right word here.”
He shouted it at them, and so did I. Now that I wasn’t a nervous mess anymore and could pay attention again, I took note of their black clothes. They were just like what my guys wore, except for Nokim. And Vergis, Mr. Fashion Sense himself.
I looked up at Inkiri. “Are they like you? Raiken?”
He nodded. “Raikenga. A member or part of the Raiken. We add the ga to show that.”
I nodded. “They look younger.”
Inkiri said something to them. It ended in “gu” and went up like a question. They said something back.
I leaned in closer—unnecessary, but I liked him close. “They just finished their training this year. We finished seven years ago. Seven years on Aër.”
“Yes, which means we’re not getting any younger,” Lissir said. “I would like to drink to the two of you now before we get any more old.”
Fellisse grunted. “Agreed. Unless it makes Rory so happy he has to cry again. Humans continue to surprise me.” Like Inkiri, Fellisse was wearing shiny new black clothes. Our group looked really fancy, although Vergis and I were definitely the ones who stuck out.
Vergis hummed. “Yeah, humans are quite something. Fellisse, you haven’t even heard that human theory that everyone was talking about before the apocalypse happened, the one about the vestigial uteruses.”
That absolute jackass.
Fellisse spun and dipped his head until we were nose to nose. “Is he joking, or saying the truth?” He narrowed his eyes. “It’s true, isn’t it? I can see how it would make sense.”
For some reason, my bottom lip trembled. “It’s not. He’s being the shittiest hangu of honor ever. Pardon the French.”
“He’s a… Oh, like your bridesmaid?” Inkiri asked. “Is that why he looks so pretty today?”
Which was when I discovered that all it took to shut Vergis up decisively was getting Inkiri to call him pretty.
“Yes, he is very pretty, isn’t he?” Nokim said when he caught up with us. “He turned so many heads on the way here. People were asking whether he’d allow them to treat him to food or drink.”
“Personally, I’m amazed that he’s still wearing knives and things under that robe,” I said, which earned me…a friendly-ish grin from Vergis. Either that, or I was high on the endorphins of having gotten monster married.
Lissir appeared on my other side suddenly and whispered in my ear, “You both will thank me in the end, just wait.” He was looking not at Vergis, but rather at Nokim. It dawned on me what Lissir was getting at. He was trying to set those two up. He probably knew Vergis was jealous of me.
“You know how shameless you are, don’t you?” I said, but Lissir shrugged that off and strutted into the mass of evening partiers, very pleased with himself.
We ended up not quite in the center of the festival, but standing by the side of a road while Nokim and Vergis were off buying a round of drinks or food, I wasn’t exactly sure which.
Along the road, a game of lantern lighting was happening, played by younger bagua. I had no idea what the rules were, but they were tossing a fist-sized ball to one another, and sometimes they would then dash to a brazier set at the head of the street, then light a long candle and try to bring the light to the next lantern as quickly as they could. Sometimes the lanterns would be blown out, and the lighting would start over.
