Page 100 of Kazimir

“Tonight, Kazimir Kozlov and Devon Wade come not to complete one another, for neither stands incomplete in worth. They come to join strength to strength, loneliness to refuge, future to future. Let this house be enlarged by her light. Let her days be steadied by his constancy. Let those who witness remember that true union does not diminish sovereignty. It grants it purpose.”

The words settled over the room with the hush proper to ritual. Devon’s hand tightened in mine. Through the bond I felt emotion gather in her, bright and vulnerable and fierce.

Nikolay turned more fully toward me. “Kazimir, if you would speak your vows.”

All eyes fixed on me.

I had addressed courts, armies, councils, and enemies. I had pronounced death sentences without tremor. I had negotiated ceasefires that would determine the fate of entire territories. None of it felt remotely akin to this.

I looked at Devon.

That made everything else irrelevant.

When I spoke, I did not raise my voice. I never needed to.

“Devon Wade,” I said, and the use of her chosen full name mattered to me enough that I let a beat of silence follow it. “For most of my existence, I believed endurance and mastery were sufficient virtues. I believed that if one kept order, protected what was one’s duty to protect, and accepted solitude without complaint, then one had asked nothing unreasonable of fate.”

Her eyes did not leave mine.

“I know now that I was wrong.”

A quiet stillness deepened throughout the hall.

“I had lived so long in the architecture of control that I mistook it for peace. I had worn discipline so faithfully that I began to think tenderness was an indulgence belonging to weaker men. Then you came into my life carrying questions, defiance, impossible grace, and a courage you did not yet understand was courage. You disrupted every silence I had mistaken for stability.”

A breath of low amusement moved through some of the guests. Devon’s mouth softened.

“You reminded me,” I said, “that there is a difference between existing and being fully alive.”

The bond thrummed hard at that.

“I vow this to you. I will stand between you and all that seeks to diminish, possess, or erase you. Not because you are incapable of standing for yourself. I have seen too clearly that you are not. But because you will never again stand alone while I endure.”

Her lashes fluttered once. The emotion that rose from her nearly unsteadied me.

“I vow you my protection, yes. But more than protection, I vow you partnership. I will not make a cage of care. I will not confuse love with dominion. Your will shall remain your own beside me, and I will honor it even when it opposes my preference, because what I cherish in you was never obedience. It was truth.”

The words cost me something. That was how I knew they were worthy.

“I vow you my house, my name if you desire it, my strength, my counsel, and my loyalty, which once given does not fracture. I vow that in darkness I will remain your shelter, and in light I will not ask you to dim so that I may feel more powerful. I vow to meet each century granted to us not as burden but as a gift because you are within it.”

My throat tightened. I ignored the sensation and continued.

“You found me after long loneliness and taught me there were still rooms in my soul not turned to dust. You brought light into places I had barred against it. For that, and for yourself entirely, I love you. In this life and in all the long nights beyond it, I choose you. Freely. Fully. Without end.”

Silence followed.

Not empty silence. The kind that came when truth had landed and required a moment to be borne.

Devon’s eyes shone. Through the bond came the unmistakable wet-bright pressure of tears she was refusing to let fall too soon. My own composure held because centuries had trained it to, but only just.

Nikolay, wise enough not to intrude on the beat too quickly, turned to her after a moment. “Devon.”

She drew a careful breath. When she spoke, her voice carried clear and steady despite the emotion within it.

“Kazimir Kozlov,” she said, and there was something in the way she shaped my name that made the whole room fall farther away for me. “When I woke in this world, I had nothing. No memory. No family. No history I could trust. I did not know what I was, only that parts of me felt missing and other parts frightened people. I named myself from scraps. I learned humanity from diner shifts, bad coffee, borrowed kindness, and mistakes that would have embarrassed a child.”

A thread of soft laughter moved through the room. She smiled without looking away from me.