“Ahem.” Micah and I parted, and looked toward a slightly peeved Corporal Rawson. “The kiss comes after her vows.”
“My apologies,” Micah said, stepping back from me. “Please. Continue.”
Rawson huffed a bit, then he turned to me. “Your vows, please.”
I looked at Micah, searching his guise of Mike Silver, wondering what I could possibly say that would explain how I felt. Then I saw the glint in his silver eyes, and I realized that I didn’t need to explain anything. Micah had always known that I loved him, and that I always would.
“I love you,” I murmured, lacing my fingers with his. “I’m yours.”
Rawson cleared his throat again; these were not Peacekeeper-approved vows. Rather than berate us for not being properly prepared, he decided to hurry us along. “The rings?”
With that, I squeezed my hand around the pennies. A moment later, I slipped a copper band that mimicked an oak leaf onto his finger. Micah smiled, then took my breath away as he produced a silver ring shaped like two twisted silver vines, crowned with a deep green emerald. If we ever get this elemental royalty business sorted out, Micah and I have a definite future in jewelry design.
“May I kiss her now?” Micah asked, once the ring was on my finger.
“I now pronounce you husband and wife,” intoned Corporal Rawson, while Sadie cried and Mom beamed. Even Max looked happy. “You may kiss the bride.”
Micah swept me into his arms. “Bride,” he murmured as he kissed me. “My bride.”
That journey back to the manor was as joyous as the last had been somber. I’d never been so happy, knowing that I was going to spend the rest of my life with such a wonderful, amazing man. Never, not once as a kid, and definitely not during my less than perfect adulthood, had I ever thought I’d find someone to love me, never mind marry me. I was, without a doubt, the luckiest person in the world, Mundane or otherwise.
“I will challenge you for that position,” Micah murmured when I shared my feelings.
Even though I was, without a doubt, happier than I’d ever been, a few less than awesome thoughts kept nagging at me. First and foremost, we needed to resume our search for Dad and figure out what was really going on with all those copper gifts in the atrium. And, there was the fact that I owed the crone…something. Man, Micah was going to freak when he found out.
“What are you thinking, love?” Micah murmured. I decided to shelve all of those niggling concerns for now and just enjoy my wedding day.
“Nothing,” I demurred. “Just about how much I like being married to you.”
Micah brought my hand to his mouth and kissed it. “I was thinking exactly the same thing.”
When we reached the manor, we learned that while we were off in the Mundane realm, the silverkin had put together quite an impressive feast, and a whole new heap of gifts from the Whispering Dell was piled before the entrance. Word sure travelled fast in the Otherworld.
Just as I suggested that we invite those from the village to the feast, because we had plenty of food, and weren’t weddings supposed to be big and loud and boisterous, the silverkin suddenly swarmed Micah, chirruping and chittering away. Mom and Sadie looked thoroughly confused, but I’d learned quite a bit of their birdlike language. Someone was coming up the main walkway, someone unknown and…powerful.
“But, who could it be?” Micah asked, while Mom demanded to know what was wrong with the silverkin now and didn’t we regret putting them back together again? I looked down the walkway and saw a form approach, a man’s form. He walked with a purposeful swagger, almost cocky, his bright hair flashing in the sunlight. Recognition flared, and I threw open the door.
“Dad!” I cried, and I leapt into my father’s arms.