The Key

Chapter 44

A cloudy morning gives way to sunlight as noon approaches. Yards and yards of rugs cover the field over which his people returned to this world, and that is only the first of numerous mind-warping extravagances. They are myriad: the presence of so many chairs, most hauled out from the capital by cart and of immense quality; the reception tables, furnished with gleaming silverware and soon to be laden with the labors of an outdoor kitchen, also hauled in by cart.

A large tent covers the last, perhaps to keep all signs of preparation out of sight. Nothing can be seen until it is ready. After all, that is the reason Casper stands in a tent of his own, holding his feathers fluffed and splayed while his siblings weave blue ribbons into his wings. Balthazar fusses with dry insults while Hannah verbally reviews the ceremony for him, reciting everything King John will say and Casper must answer in return. She skips the part where she vouches for his loyalty, but her eyes do flick toward the folding table where Casper’s marriage wreath sits.

If the new ribbons, soft and fine, feel extravagant, that is nothing compared to their new clothing. Casper has been fitted with a light jacket in the current human style, modified with the appropriate slits and buttons to accommodate his wings. It and his trousers are a darker blue than the ribbons, blue for bonding. The shirt beneath is white, and both shirt and jacket are heavily embroidered with a mountain and cloud motif, tan and white. His sleeves feel tight, his wrists cuffed in fabric, but then, he won’t be giving or accepting a blade today. In many ways, he is already married, and yet, he is not.

“Stop tensing up,” Balthazar complains. “It’s hard enough to get this even without you throwing us off.”

“Sorry,” Casper apologizes. He forces his mind to Dan, in the tent on the opposite side of the ceremonial area. Sam must be with him, going through much the same routine as Casper is. Rather, as Hannah and Balthazar are.

“There, stay like that,” Balthazar bids him.

Casper stays like that the best he can.

“At the very end, King John is going to ask if you have anything else to say, to bind you,” Hannah reminds him. “Do you want to practice?”

“No,” Casper says. “I know what I’m going to say.”

He is still deciding. He is torn between you once told me all you wanted in a spouse was someone who wanted you back and in a thousand years, historians will misspell your name, and I will correct them.

“She means you should tell us first, so you don’t embarrass yourself,” Balthazar translates.

“No I don’t,” Hannah says. Then: “But it would be a good idea.”

Casper shakes his head, holding firm.

Balthazar finishes up with the ribbons, tying them off and tucking the knots beneath the flap of Casper’s jacket. Then there is nothing left to do but wait until someone comes to the tent to fetch Casper and Hannah. Surprisingly, it’s Queen Mary who arrives after a short yet interminable wait, fresh flowers woven into her hair and crown.

“Your Majesty,” Hannah greets, lowering her head only slightly. “Is it time?”

“Almost,” Queen Mary replies. When she looks at Casper, it’s not with Sam’s open admiration or Dan’s subtly conflicted affection, but neither is it with King John’s more blatant dislike. At the very least, she smiles at him with enough poise that Casper can’t accurately judge her sincerity.

“Does Your Majesty have a message for me?” Casper asks.

Her smiles shifts into something smaller, yet possibly warmer, and she shakes her head. In that moment, she looks very much like Dan before he tells a joke. “For Hannah,” Queen Mary replies. To his sister, she says, “Jessica and I have an open seat beside us. You’ll sit with us during the ceremony, won’t you?”

Casper nearly frowns, but Balthazar swats at him to prevent him from messing up the ribbons.

Hannah smiles, answering, “I would be honored,” and when she looks at Casper, there is joy in her eyes.

“But,” Casper starts to say, only to cut himself off as Balthazar snatches up the marriage wreath from its table.

“I know my lines, don’t worry,” Balthazar says, as if he’d known Hannah wouldn’t be vouching for Casper’s loyalty after all.

Casper turns his stare on Queen Mary. Rudely, he knows, but he does.

“Will that be a problem?” Queen Mary asks, and there is steel in her. There is salt and iron and enough fire to match her husband if Casper says yes .

“That will be wonderful,” Casper says.

Queen Mary nods at him, and Hannah follows the queen out of the tent with one last encouraging look back at Casper.

“I don’t see why you’re so surprised,” Balthazar has time to say before a page comes to get them. They exit the tent to the sounding of drums, a steady, proud beat they’re meant to walk to. Outside the tent is the expanse of seats, now filled. He sees colors he’s known for centuries, human faces he’s beginning to memorize. He sees green fields bowing to gentle winds, white clouds gliding against blue skies, more of his fellow angels wheeling above in observant circles. He sees, exiting the other tent opposite where King John waits in between, Casper sees Dan.

“Walk,” Balthazar hisses, and Casper remembers just in time to use his feet, not his wings. Walking is too small a motion, and the beats he must move at are too slow. Approaching, Dan’s strides are patient, the set of his head determined, but Casper’s eyes are drawn instead to his arms.

Dan’s jacket is black, his family’s dominant color, but his sleeves are crisscrossed in blue. Azure ribbon has been woven about his arms, mimicking Casper’s wings. He is black bound in blue, and as they approach the king from opposite sides, Casper realizes Dan’s shirt beneath is not the expected silver or gold, but a deep gray he knows intimately well.

Dan is not in his family’s colors. He is in Casper’s.

Facing each other, ever facing each other, they kneel in unison. Casper crosses his wings over his legs, and Dan’s lips quirk. It takes Casper too long to realize King John has begun to speak. It takes him even longer to notice Sam standing behind Dan, looming over his kneeling brother like a mountain over a tree. Sam smiles down at him, but Casper can barely spare his new brother a glance.

Dan seems to be having the same difficulty. His eyes shine bright with more than sunlight, and Casper stares back, bidding his mind to memorize this for all the rest of his years. Each faint freckle, each fleck of color amid the green; the curve of his lips and the line of his jaw; the silver gleam of Casper’s blade at his waist. Casper studies him, his hair and ears and neck, the rise and fall of his chest and shoulders with each and every breath. Embroidery shines on jacket and shirt both, black on black and gold on gray. The repeating motif is a simple one, artfully done. Feathers of thread and cloth stretch down Dan’s arms beneath the ribbons. They cross Dan’s chest under his jacket, the gold thread bringing ash gray cloth to life, transforming them into cinders full of embers.

Distantly, he hears King John speaking. Of nations bonding, of peoples and cultures, sacrifices and victories. He’s sure someone is writing this down or already has, and his ears care more for the sound of Dan’s individual breaths than any speech. Casper cares for one phrase and one phrase alone, and only because Dan does. Each time King John refers to Dan solely as “my son,” Dan’s chest swells.

He would be beautiful even while ashamed, but in his pride, he is glorious.

“I call upon the honor guards of Prince Dan, Knight of the Realm, and Seraph Casper, Emissary of Heaven,” King John states with a clear and steady voice. On the king’s right, Sam holds Dan’s marriage wreath forward.

“On this day, do you pledge yourself to truth?” King John asks him.

“On this day, I do pledge,” Sam answers, meeting his father’s gaze.

“Knowing this man, do you swear to the truth of his love?”

Sam looks down at Casper, beaming as if the sun itself had found a home in his eyes, but again, Casper can barely spare him a single moment. Because it’s Dan, Dan in front of him, Dan who hasn’t said the words and who refused to ask them of Casper, it’s Dan who gives a minute nod.

“To know this man is to know the truth of his love,” Sam recites from the heart. He holds the woven crown over Dan’s head.

“Do you vouch for their union?”

With a nod, Sam crowns his brother and answers, “I vouch with all my honor.” The wreath settles down around Dan’s temples, a fae tradition turned human and somehow all the more binding. Casper strives to hold Dan’s gaze even as Dan’s eyes try to pull away, abruptly shy, or perhaps not abruptly at all.

“On this day, do you pledge yourself to truth?” King John asks Balthazar in turn.

“On this day, I do pledge,” Balthazar replies. He steps forward, and the length of ribbon hanging from the wreath brushes against that already woven through Casper’s wings.

“Knowing this man, do you swear to the truth of his love?”

Balthazar, of course, can’t leave anything well enough alone. “To know this seraph is to know the truth of his love.” He holds the woven crown over Casper’s head.

If the correction bothers King John—which it certainly does—King John doesn’t show it now. “Do you vouch for their union?”

“I vouch with all my light," Balthazar says, swearing upon something much dearer than honor. Upon himself, on Hannah. On Anna, even on Uriel. On Casper himself, their full family.

King John gathers the ribbons from the marriage wreaths, and Dan holds out his hand, palm forward. Casper matches it, his right hand to Dan’s left, and King John begins to question them directly. With each question, King John pulls another ribbon from their wedding crowns through their hands, weaving a knot. He asks them of their certainty in each other. Of their lasting commitment, of their earnest support and their refusal to do harm. They answer each in the appropriate words, in the appropriate unison. “This we promise,” they say.

At last, the formal questions finish. The ribbons twine through their fingers in a knot yet to be pulled tight. “If there is more to bind you,” King John says, “speak it now.”

Dan presses his palm hard against Casper’s. His eyes press even harder. “Never make me watch you die again,” he orders, love and anguish couched in command. “Thank you for my brother’s life, for my parents’ lives, for my life, but you are never going to make me outlive you again.”

Though two of their hands are already joined, Casper still needs to reach. He does. Not for Dan’s free hand or his shoulder or even his face, but for the hilt of the blade that now belongs at Dan’s hip. It’s a cross-grab, awkward, but some moments aren’t meant to be perfect.

“This blade is me,” Casper says, not for the benefit of those humans watching who do not know, but for Dan, who knows but does not understand. “It is my life—how I am still alive—and it is already yours.”

Dan begins to shake his head, returns adoration with tension, and so Casper continues.

“When you die, it will be my keepsake of you,” he says. “I will carry it within me always, and it will still be yours.”

Dan opens and closes his mouth. He licks his lips and nods. “I,” he says, and swallows. He reaches with his right hand to take Casper’s left, to twine their fingers in a firm knot of his own making. “I can live with that.”

Casper nods back.

Without looking away from Casper, Dan speaks to King John, saying, “Father, by your will, are we wed?”

King John pulls the ends of the ribbons taut. Casper follows Dan’s lead in pulling their hands free, and the knot holds.

“You are wed,” King John decrees.

Dan bursts into a smile, and Casper can’t help but follow him in this as well. His feathers strain against the ribbons woven through his wings, and Dan smiles all the wider with the curves of his lips and cheeks. They rise together, and the knot joining their marriage wreaths falls just above their clasped hands.

Their procession is a short one, the reception area immediately beyond the seated crowd. There are crowds beyond even that, Casper notices belatedly, masses of humans hanging off fences and peering around guards. So many things his eyes refused to see, too intent in seeking Dan.

As they walk down the split between the seats, Casper leans up to tell Dan this, only to hear Dan whisper down, “Don’t laugh, but I have no idea when all these people got here. s**t, man, that’s a lot of people.”

Casper looks up at the human man who is now his husband, and knows he is matched in his love. Above and around them, his people sing a truncated version of their traditional bonding song, making humans marvel and Casper fight to remain silent. One within the one within one, two bound in exchange. He mouths the words, and Dan looks at him with understanding of the meaning, if not the song itself.

Dan leads him to the table where they are meant to sit, Dan in a chair and Casper upon a stool, but Casper leads him beyond even that, the proper order of this ceremony no longer relevant. They look at each other in an agreement as complete as it is wordless, taking to the open space between the immense square of tables.

The air is warm with sunlight, his people are free and singing, and Dan is in his arms. Dan pulls him close, and Casper pulls him closer still as they begin their first dance. For the first time in centuries, Casper sings beneath an open sky. For the first time in all his life, Casper sings to a man who loves him, and all the world is theirs.