Neph blinked convulsively. He’d thought he knew everything the Godking was doing. He’d thought that his own mastery of the vir was within a hairsbreadth of the Godking’s, and now, blithely, the man had given him this. It set Neph’s ambitions back months. Months! How he hated the man. Garoth could track exact locations magically? Neph had never heard of such a thing. What did it mean? Did Garoth know about the camp at Black Barrow? Neph’s meisters had been abducting villagers for his experiments, but it was so far away, Neph had been so careful. No, it couldn’t be that.
But the Godking was giving him notice. He was telling Neph that he had his eye on him, that he had his eye on everything, that he would always know more than he told even Neph, that his powers would always be beyond what Neph expected. As the Godking’s warnings went, it was gentle.
“Is there something else?” the Godking asked.
“No, Your Holiness,” Neph said. He managed to keep his voice perfectly calm.
“Then begone.”
Despite all the reasons he had to be grumpy, when Elene was in a good mood, it was hard not to be happy. After a quick breakfast and a cup of ootai to stave off weariness, Kylar found himself wandering the streets with her, hand in hand. She was wearing a cream-colored dress with a brown taffeta bodice the color of her eyes. It looked fabulous in its simplicity. Of course, Kylar had never seen Elene wear anything that he thought looked less than great, but when she was happy she was twice as beautiful as usual.
“This is cute, isn’t it?” he asked, picking up a doll from a merchant’s table. Why was Elene happy? He couldn’t remember having done anything good.
Ever since he’d started going out at night, he’d expected to have The Talk. Instead, one night she’d grabbed his hand—he’d almost jumped out of his skin, so much for being the imperturbable wetboy—and she said, “Kylar, I love you, and I trust you.”
She hadn’t said anything since then. He sure hadn’t. What was he supposed to say? “Um, actually, I have killed some people, but it was an accident every time, and they were all bad”?
“I don’t think we can really afford much,” Elene said. “I just wanted to spend the day with you.” She smiled. Maybe it was just a mood swing. Mood swings had to have an up side, right?
“Oh,” he said. He only felt a little awkward holding hands with her. At first, he’d felt like everyone was staring at them. Now, though, he saw that only a few people looked at them twice, and of those, most seemed to be approving.
“Aha!” a round little man bellowed at them. “Perfect. Perfect. Absolutely lovely. Marvelous, you are. Yes, yes, come right in.”
Kylar was so startled he barely stopped himself from a quickly rearranging the man’s face. Elene laughed and poked the tense muscles of Kylar’s arm. “Come on, brawny,” she said. “This is shopping. It’s fun.”
“Fun?” he asked as she pulled him into the little well-lit shop.
The fat little man quickly handed them off to a pretty girl of maybe seventeen who smiled brightly at them. She was petite, with a slender figure, dazzling blue eyes, and a large mouth that made her smile huge. It was Golden Hair. Kylar goggled as his daylight and shadow worlds crossed.
“Hello,” Golden Hair said. She glanced down at the wedding bands on their hands. “I’m Capricia. Have you ever been to a ringery before?”
After Kylar didn’t say anything for a long moment, Elene gently dug an elbow into his ribs. “No,” she said.
Kylar blinked. Elene was shaking her head at him, obviously thinking he was ogling Capricia, but she didn’t look mad, just bemused. He shook his head, No, it’s not like that.
She cocked an eyebrow at him. Right.
“Well, let’s start at the beginning then,” Capricia said, pulling out a wide drawer lined with black velvet and putting it on a counter. It was filled with tiny, paired rings of gold and silver and bronze, some decorated with rubies or garnets or amethyst or diamonds or opals, some plain, some textured. “You’ve seen people wearing these all over the city, right?”
Elene nodded. Kylar looked at her blankly. He looked at Capricia. She wasn’t wearing one, not that he could see. Were they toe-rings? He stood on his tiptoes to see over the counter to see Capricia’s feet.
Capricia caught him looking and laughed. She had the kind of laugh that made you want to join in, even when she was laughing at you. “No, no,” she said. “I don’t wear one! I’m not married. Why are you looking at my feet?”
Elene slapped her forehead. “Men!”
“Oh,” Kylar said. “They’re earrings!”
Capricia laughed again.
“What?” he asked. “Women wear matching earrings where we come from. These are all different sizes.”
The girls laughed louder and it dawned on him. The earrings weren’t for women; they were for couples. One for the man; one for the woman. “Oh,” he said.
That would explain all the men he’d seen wearing earrings. He scowled. He could have said which men were concealing weapons in their clothing and known their likely degrees of proficiency with them; what did he care about what they wore in their ears?
“Wow. Look at those,” Elene said, pointing a pair of silvery-gold sparkling rings that looked suspiciously expensive. “Aren’t they beautiful?” She turned to Capricia. “Will you tell us all about the rings? We’re, ahem, a little unfamiliar with the tradition.” Conspicuously, they didn’t look at Kylar.
“Here in Waeddryn, when a man wishes to marry a woman, he buys a set of rings and gives them to her. Of course, there is a public ceremony, but the wedding itself is performed in private. You two are married already, right?”
“Right,” Kylar said. “We’re just new to the city.”
“Well, if you’re looking to get married in the Waeddryner way, but maybe don’t have the money or the inclination for a big ceremony, it’s very simple. You don’t have to worry about the ceremony at all. The marriage is recognized as long as you’ve been nailed.”
“Nailed?” Kylar asked, his eyes widening.
Capricia flushed. “I mean, as long as you’ve affixed the seal of your love, or been ringed. But, well, most people just call it getting nailed.”
“I’m guessing that’s not part of the usual pitch,” Kylar said.
“Kylar,” Elene said, elbowing him as Capricia flushed again. “Can we see the wedding knives?” she asked sweetly.
Capricia pulled out another drawer lined with black velvet. It was full of ornate daggers with tiny tips.
Kylar recoiled.
Capricia and Elene giggled. “It gets scarier,” Capricia said. She smiled her huge smile. “Generally right before …ah, right before the marriage is consummated,” she was trying to sound professional, but her ears were bright pink. “Sorry, I’ve never actually had to explain this. I—Master Bourary usually—never mind. When a man and woman marry, the woman has to give up a lot of her freedom.”
“The woman does?” Kylar asked. The look Elene gave him this time was less amused. He swallowed his laughter.
“So the nailing—the ringing or affixing of the seal—”