Named By Him

Old New

She opened her eyes to stone.

The ceiling of the church — vaulted, ancient, the kind of architecture that had been built to make people feel small beneath something larger than themselves. She lay still for a moment and let the ceiling tell her where she was before she allowed anything else in.

Then it came. All of it. At once.

She turned her head.

Aldric was sitting beside her — not in the posture of someone keeping a concerned vigil, but in the posture of a man who has positioned himself exactly where he intends to be and finds no particular urgency in the situation because the situation is already resolved. One ankle crossed over the other knee. Forearms resting with the loose ease of someone entirely comfortable in a church antechamber on what was, apparently, his wedding day.

He