The formal announcement came two days after the garden.
Alaric made it at the weekly council meeting, in the direct and unembellished way of someone who had decided that significant personal matters deserved to be named plainly rather than managed into institutional significance. He said that he and Elowen had decided to formally commit as mates in the full sense of pack recognition and that the formal ceremony would be planned in due course.
The council received it with the specific quality of people who had been watching something develop over many months and were now receiving its confirmation.
Maerik offered congratulations that were politically navigated but not insincere. Aldris said simply that she was glad. Kael looked across the room at Elowen in the observer's seat and gave he
